Venezuela is socialist. I find your excuse as laughable as those of Nazis who claim Hitler was not a real national socialist or of communists who claim Stalin was not a communist. Its economic policy is socialist, it is ruled by a socialist party and this is denied only by 'liberals' and socialists who do not want to see how their policies lead to dictatorship, tyranny and serfdom.
Oh goody, the "Hitler called himself a national socialist, that means he was socialist" argument. I guess you also think that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is actually Democratic and actually a Republic and actually for the People?
Classical liberals support free-market economics. Liberals in Europe still do so. Only in US people who hate liberty call themselves 'liberals'.
Why is free-market economics the only thing that matters for liberty in your opinion? Does freedom of speech, of religion, of expression, of thought not matter? What about the right to vote for someone other than the dictator in charge of your country when they run a sham election?
Oh right, you honestly believe that Chile under Augusto Pinochet was full of liberty and freedom just because of the economic policies, and all the political dissidents Pinochet arrested and tortured and executed are no big deal, right?
What about the tons of other authoritarian regimes the US government propped up during the Cold War just because they were anti-communist? You know, guys like Manuel Noriega, or the Somozas in Nicaragua, or the military dictatorship that ruled Guatemala?
Guatemala started moving towards the left in the 1950's, which the US didn't like, especially the United Fruit Company, which very much liked it when Guatemala didn't have those pesky minimum wages and other laws to protect the rights of workers, because the United Fruit Company preferred it when poor Guatemalan Laborers were picking them bananas in the worst conditions possible for the lowest pay possible, because that means the Company's profits can be even more obscene!
So the US backed a military coup that installed a series of right-wing dictators who who were totally fine with letting the United Fruit Company screw over its workers and make a ton of profits for rich American businessmen. What are you talking about, "that's not fair, the Guatemalan banana-pickers should have a livable wage and working conditions that won't kill them?" That's socialism, and they should get another job, except there aren't any other jobs.
Venezuela is rated 176 in Economic Freedom Index, being slightly more free than Cuba and North Korea only, and the International Finance Corporation ranked Venezuela one of the lowest countries for doing business, ranking it 180 of 185 countries for its Doing Business 2013 report with protecting investors and taxes being its worst rankings. Its government has instituted price controls of numerous farmlands and various industries and had excessive public spending (Bolivarian Missions).
Why do you keep talking about Venezuela, anyway? We're not saying it's a socialist paradise, you're the only one who's trying to argue we're saying that. We completely agree that Venezuela's a pretty crappy place to live right now. It's just, we're talking about all the other ways Venezuela's government sucks, like the "military dictators running it into the ground" and the "political repression," the sort of things that will make a country sucky regardless of whether those military dictators are left-wing or right-wing.
Oh right, you don't actually care about things like quality of life or poverty rate or incomes of people low on the chain, you only measure things by how easy it is for rich people to do business in the country and how many of those pesky taxes they can avoid. Screw the 99% they don't need to have food or shelter or medical care for the country to be free, all that matters it that the 1% doesn't have to make sure its workers have decent working conditions or pay so that the 1% can buy themselves more yachts and private jets.
If high taxation, price controls, excessive government spending and over-regulation of the economy is not indication that Venezuela is socialist, I do not know what it is. But I guess you have already made up your mind that socialism is paradise on earth and that all socialist countries, that have all failed, are not really socialist.
High taxation and excessive government spending don't equal socialism, it depends on the nature of the taxes and what they're being spent on. If the government raises the tax rate really high but spends all their new revenues on shiny new toys for their military to invade nearby countries with, is that socialism?
During WWII, all the Western Allies, the US included, had ridiculously high tax rates- like, the top bracket was over 95%- in order to pay for the enormous costs of fighting the Axis Powers. They also rationed a lot of goods that the military desperately needed, like rubber and gasoline and metal. Is that socialism?
Australia and Canada are more economically free than the United States. In the Economic Freedom Index they rank 5th and 6th respectively. So much for being 'liberal'
Oh, so Australia and Canada can have high minimum wages, universal healthcare, environmental protections, and other "socialist" policies and still be economically free, even more economically free than the US?
I guess maybe all those "high taxes" and "government spending" aren't so bad, after all. Glad to see you're on our side for once!
Venezuela and North Korea both have socialist economic policies. This is a fact.
True. Norway, Germany, Canada, Japan, Finland, Austria, and a bunch of other first-world countries also have socialist economic policies. This is a fact.
You know something all those countries don't have, though? Heavily repressive dictatorial governments that impose heavy restrictions on individual freedoms and persecute those who disagree with the ones in power. Venezuela and North Korea, on the other hand, have very un-free dictatorships ruling them. And are unfree in plenty of other ways that aren't economic. This is also a fact.
Oh no! He's posting images overlaid with quotes from Milton Friedman and Benjamin Franklin! How will we ever recover from this flawless argument?
The policies you support have been tried in the 20th century by almost half the world and have failed spectacularly leading the collapse of the Soviet Empire and making the people of Eastern Europe to hate socialism and some of them even banned Communist parties. Socialism leaves behind only misery, poverty and millions of dead (Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot killed more than Hitler ever did).
And they've also succeeded spectacularly all throughout Western Europe, and done just fine in Eastern Europe too once the Soviet-supported dictators, the ones that repressed opposing political parties and restricted individual freedoms and jailed and tortured and executed dissidents, once those guys were all gone.
Oh, but I guess left-wing policies, if they're wrong even once, they're immediately discredited forever in any and all instances, even though right-wing policies, it doesn't matter how many poor people they starve or governments they collapse or environments they destroy, they're still right?
I certainly prefer Hayek. You somehow believe that government over-regulation of the economy, high taxation and excessive public spending are compatible with the free markets and that socialism has worked when the richest countries and the countries with highest rate of economic growth are capitalist with high degree of economic liberty (except if you believe that all states except US are socialist and Chile is liberal, which is nonsense).
As has been constantly mentioned throughout this thread, Norway is one of the richest countries in the world and has a great economy by any measure, and it's also pretty socialist. Does it not count?
The difference between our ideas is that mine have worked wherever they had been tried while yours have led either to dictatorship, poverty or (in the social democratic countries) slow or minimal economic growth.
Right, because there have never been any right-wing dictatorships ever, or workers left in poverty because the lack of labor protection left them incapable of organizing against their rich employers to get remotely humane treatment.
And also, economic growth and freedom is the only thing that matters, right? Gotta keep that DOW high, gotta keep the megacorps making obscene profits, gotta make the rich even richer, but screw everyone else, right?
I enjoy arguing with them online and hanging out with them in real life, not least because I held many of these positions just a few years ago.
