Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy
wsj.com
wsj.com
Apparently, this is not the case. As the workers are still going for work. The equation is certainly bad (I have no doubt about that) but it has not reached a critical point where everything collapses (Examples could be Libya and Syria).
To see for yourself, go to Caracas on Google maps and turn traffic on. Try that on Damascus.
The situation is a thousand times worse than when I left 6 years ago, an I would certainly consider what they are living now as a total collapse of society, yet I'm also sure that it could get even worse.
Yes, it can get way worse. The possible bottom is way deeper. I hope the US or UN intervene before that.
What I can say is that society collapse is not a binary thing. Near 1/3 of Venezuela's population already escaped the country, with more gone each day. I'd also bet crime is at huge levels, but there isn't any data I would trust.
I imagine that if you are far from a border there isn't much you can do except continuing going to work. It's not like one can just throw their arm up and say "I'm done with society, I won't take part in it anymore". I also imagine that a large part of their real economy nowadays runs on US Dollars, the rest probably runs on Peruvian Peso, Brazilian Real, and toilet paper.
Besides, until this week gasoline was almost free. So the one thing I would expect to find there is transit.
The US smelled blood and decided to help speed up the inevitable by adding sanctions. This increased the cost of their debt. Maduro is attempting to avoid further economic harm with the petro coin.
The "exchange rates" never could have made the government's pilfering of PDVSA revenues sustainable. Any properly-run business would save money for the possibility of a change in commodity prices. PDVSA under Chavez did not.
Exchange rates did not cause the collapse of Venezuela. Hugo Chavez's decision to ignore economic reality and substitute his own is what caused the collapse of Venezuela. No other oil-based economy got hit as hard as Venezuela by the oil price collapse because they maintained sustainable business practices.
>The US smelled blood and decided to help speed up the inevitable by adding sanctions
This is a joke, right? The US did not even sanction Venezuelan businesses, only the officials involved in looting the oil industry revenues. From Wiki:
>On March 9, 2015, the United States President, Barack Obama, signed and issued a presidential order declaring Venezuela a "threat to its national security" and ordered sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro denounced the sanctions as an attempt to topple his socialist government. Washington said that the sanctions targeted individuals who were involved in the violation of Venezuelans' human rights, saying that "we are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government's efforts to escalate intimidation of its political opponents".
The notion that US sanctions played any role in the collapse of Venezuela is an utter fantasy promulgated by the Venezuelan government and perpetuated by credulous Western champagne socialists.
In short: price controls, nationalization, high taxation, corruption, Cuban economic influence (read socialism/marxism), economic malinvestment, overspending, debt, and then printing money...
Essentially they believed the oil price surge of the 70s would continue and failed the diversify the economy. This allowed Chavez to come along and take over in the late 90's on a socialist platform with promises to restore the economy. Chavez ignorant to production of oil and fighting to stay in power, gutted the state run PDVSA and severely inhibited production by diverting profits to fund his social programs. Eventually production and profits dipped, with the government deciding to print more money to keep social programs running.
A key question here is if the security forces will remain loyal to the government. I wonder how they are making out, like are they getting enough food, and do the leaders think the present regime can be sustained over the long term.
The Head of State generally has a substantial power base in the system in order to hold their seat. If they are ousted, it is a sign their power base has waned and the system changed.
See the cold war era for a quick rundown of US interference with socialist governments.
I'm saying... when the US instigates and funds a civil war in country X, you can't then say X's government lost power because of their economic policies.
A socialist country is one in which the means of production aren't privately owned. If most private businesses are illegal, that's socialism.
The Nordic countries aren't even attempting to ban private businesses, or claiming that as their goal.
The track record for countries that call themselves socialist is pretty grim, on the other hand.
By that account Venezuela was certainly not a socialist country.
You can't use "socialism" to mean "Venezuela, and only Venezuela (well, maybe Cuba)" and then "anything that gives more power to the US federal government". Choose one. (I'm not saying you do, but so many people do.)
From what I've seen, many people who believe the "danger" of socialism are also quite convinced that the US is in the danger of slipping into socialism. Why that doesn't happen in Sweden is left as exercise.
Under what definition are these socialist states?
How many time should an experiment be repeated to disprove an ideology ?
Also, you can take Cuba out of your list as it's doing very well in fact.
Capitalism is absolutely compatible with slavery. If you eat seafood, you almost certainly have eaten food harvested by a slave.
Not to mention the numerous historical examples.
For example, Resolution No. 9855 in Venezuela allows the government to force workers to move from their current jobs to work in farm fields or elsewhere in the agricultural sector for periods of 60 days. That is forced labor. But it is not to be blamed on capitalism; in fact, it would have been prevented by capitalism.
If you want to redefine those systems as not real capitalism, you should also redefine all of the "communist" systems as not real communism because they were nowhere close to the textbook definition of communism. Textbook communism is stateless, while all of those examples had a state.
EDIT: And I should add that capitalism, along with Enlightenment values, has been the biggest force for freedom and prosperity yet.
I'm not sure what system you're talking about, but what you're describing is certainly not Capitalism or freedom. Capitalism does not give people the full fruits of their labor, it allows the owner to steal the surplus value off of the workers, creating inequality. Surplus value being the capital left once the equipment, wages, and bills have been paid, and without surplus value the business would not continue to exist. That's not exactly freedom. There's nothing in any radical left wing ideology that says you can't trade your personal property or labor, private property doesn't exist. I'm also not sure a system that requires homelessness and poverty is "freedom", or one that requires people who can't afford health insurance to purchase it or die. I'm not sure a system that puts 1 in 100 in prison based on racial profiling and petty crimes, and does nothing to help them, creating a large recidivism rate for the sole benefit of prison slave labor is called 'freedom'.
It is imperative that far left wing influences keep capitalism in check, or it will run away into pure corruption like it is now.
I agree that the prisons are bad, but the system that puts people in prisons is the state, not capitalism. Be sure to blame the right ideology. Same for the homelessness and poverty—to some extent it is impossible to prevent them because of scarcity, but to a great extent they are due to rent controls, zoning laws, restrictions on trade, deadweight loss from taxes. Again, be sure to blame the right ideology.
A lot of people don't have a choice otherwise, except homelessness and poverty. Not exactly a 'free' system. Runaway free market Capitalism creates this problem as it sends money to the very top leaving the rest to fight for a small portion of the pie. Working is not voluntary in USA unless you already have plenty of money, or are supported by someone with money.
>to some extent it is impossible to prevent them because of scarcity
There's no such thing as scarcity of pretty much anything in USA. We have 18.9 million vacant homes, with 3.5 million homeless [1]. We throw away 150,000 tons of food every single day [2]. There's no scarcity there, it's just capitalism at work.
I'm putting the blame on the correct ideology. None of this would happen under a sane system with checks and balances. What you're seeing right now is _raw capitalism_ at work.
[1] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-skip-bronson/post_733...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/18/american...
Right. The system we are in is not a free system and those are indeed problems with this system.
> Runaway free market Capitalism creates this problem as it sends money to the very top leaving the rest to fight for a small portion of the pie.
Crony capitalism creates this problem, not free market capitalism. Crony capitalism is an opposite of a free market.
> Working is not voluntary in USA unless you already have plenty of money, or are supported by someone with money.
It is voluntary. It is unfortunately necessary too, in many cases, but again, the United States are only weakly capitalist.
> There's no such thing as scarcity of pretty much anything in USA.
The United States’ GDP per capita is $59,501. That’s scarcity.
> We have 18.9 million vacant homes, with 3.5 million homeless [1].
I just mentioned rent controls. I agree that this is bad, but it’s got nothing to do with capitalism.
> None of this would happen under a sane system with checks and balances.
Agreed. We might disagree about which system this is though.
> What you're seeing right now is _raw capitalism_ at work.
Either we’re not using the same definition of capitalism or it isn’t. I am anarcho-capitalist. Raw capitalism looks like not having a state, or at the very least having only a minimal state. What I’m seeing is Donald Trump imposing tariffs on solar panels, washing machines, and imports of steel and aluminum. Raw capitalism this is anything but.
Using "capital" here to mean "private capital" is confusing at best, considering we are discussing socialism in general -- where the _entire point_ is that capital tends to be owned publicly -- and the Nordics in particular, where a massive amount of capital is public.
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2018/08/19/nordic-gover...
Every system has failed throughout history, so there's no reason a Capitalistic system cannot fail as well, and we see the global collapse of Capitalism happening right now in front of us.