Venezuela election: Maduro's Socialists trounced - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14630089
layman wrote:http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35019111

Another miserable failure for socialism.

How is it a failure of socialism? The Venezuelan government structured policies around trade and capitalist theory. If you want to blame anything, it's a failure of the capitalist theory to properly translate into developing the economy. What do you expect when vendors will hoard goods and services in order to create a faux-shortage.
#14630120
Among the things that baffle me:

* They elected a socialist government ages ago, but the kind of socialism the Chavistas practiced was basically looting PDVSA.
* In spite of even conservatives telling them they should declare state bankruptcy and stop paying, instead Maduro's continuing to pay on his government's bonds held by capitalist financiers.
* The country has some of the world's most ridiculously complicated exchange rates and price controls in one of the most hamfisted economic disasters on the face of the planet. Perhaps only Zimbabwe has been more horrifyingly mismanaged in recent memory.
* Maduro's Venezuela is dead last on rule of law indexes.
* The country has some of the highest murder rates in the world after the economic catastrophe the Chavistas have inflicted on the country and their total incompetence at managing a country.
* Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, and in spite of the record high oil prices in the 2000s, PDVSA oil production actually declined under Chavez/Maduro due to horrifying incompetence and plundering the industry.

There will be no left in Venezuela for a generation after this catastrophe. Combine this with what's going on in Argentina and Brazil and there's an earthquake going on in South America against the leftist governments that came to power in those countries.

Venezuela can't get rid of Maduro fast enough - they have enough seats in the legislature now to recall the president, such is the scale of the landslide that happened there.

The good thing is that Maduro seems to be respecting the results of the election. He'd given indications that he might not.
#14630139
Interesting post Lexington, I liked the factoids.

Eauz wrote:What does that mean? Left wing capital?


Pretty much just as the term implies, except left wing OF capital. It's usually used by left coms against Stalinists and such, but it's a useful term to describe the likes of left anti-austerity populists, bolivarianism, social democrats and left liberals, the 'Bill Maher' or 'Bernie Sanders' socialist.

I wrote somewhere else:

The third conclusion is that history works. We don't think or wish democracy into existence, you don't just propagate it as a good idea, and it is similarly idealistic to believe democracy just suddenly ended and began again with administrations elected into the state. The reality is Venezuela was and still is a capitalist republic that engenders ruling interests (economic in nature) it has to take care of, it manages the affairs of national capital, and if it mismanages them with 'socialism' (compounded by falling oil prices and foreign support for opposition) the system will correct itself.

And it did. History works. The left wing of capital has been replaced with its more right wing, liberal cousin out of systemic need, lest Maduro be lynched by impoverished masses blaming the incumbent, anyway.


Here's an ICC article on it:

http://en.internationalism.org/icconlin ... ng-capital
#14630152
Lexington wrote:There will be no left in Venezuela for a generation after this catastrophe. Combine this with what's going on in Argentina and Brazil and there's an earthquake going on in South America against the leftist governments that came to power in those countries.

I was talking with a Young Dr. from Ecuador recently, she'd just returned from a visit home over thanksgiving. (She thinks Az. is "Chilly" this time of year). She was disturbed about "socialism" in her country and it's failure to improve the lives of the populace. She pinned the problem on the bureaucracy that has been created in recent years which absorbs money like a sponge but does nothing except propagate excuses for delays in the programs it has failed to implement. Inflation has skyrocketed and she complained that everything costs MORE there than it does here. Evidently the "workers paradise" is on hold and the president is plotting to remove term limits so he can continue in office ... When I asked her about police activity, she got scared and shut up ...

Zam
#14630198
How is it a failure of socialism? The Venezuelan government structured policies around trade and capitalist theory. If you want to blame anything, it's a failure of the capitalist theory to properly translate into developing the economy. What do you expect when vendors will hoard goods and services in order to create a faux-shortage.


This is a failure of the left wing of capital, not socialism.


Socialists say this every time a socialist country fails

The good thing is that Maduro seems to be respecting the results of the election. He'd given indications that he might not.


Amen

Interesting post Lexington, I liked the factoids.


I was thinking of nominating Lex for 'king of the moderates' title.
#14630233
layman wrote:Socialists say this every time a socialist country fails


By all means, provide some examples of how this was a failure of socialism. Venezuela may have had socialist ideals, however, they still worked within a capitalist economic framework to obtain socioeconomic policies.
#14630239
By all means, provide some examples of how this was a failure of socialism.


Kurt and you lot defended them on POFO ad nauseum - that is my proof they were socialists.

Look, Imagine for a moment it was a success story over there. Are you seriously saying your mob wouldnt be posting thread after thread showing how great socialism is??
#14630563
Heinie wrote:Maduro's Colombia was socialist in the sense that China is Communist.


Maduro is the President of Venezuela, not Colombia.

I like Venezuela Analysis's article mocking the people who constantly called Venezuela a dictatorship: Miracles Do Happen: Venezuela Relabeled a Democracy in Wake of Opposition Win

layman wrote:Kurt and you lot defended them on POFO ad nauseum - that is my proof they were socialists


That's pretty weak logic there

Maduro and the PSUV are absolutely socialists, but that doesn't mean that Venezuela has become a socialist country unfortunately. We just witnessed the PSUV lose a bourgeois election. Eauz is right here, while the leadership of Venezuela has had the desire to transition to socialism for some time now, they have been held back by a capitalist class that continues to exist and has yet to begin a real transition.

The Bolivarian revolution has been quite limited (the blame for this goes around from the PSUV itself to the opposition backed by the US of course)
#14630570
Chavez/Maduro had complete control of the country for years. Chavez successfully resisted an American-supported coup for God's sake. And he should know - he tried before to pull one off himself.

They did everything they wanted with the country and look what they did: they turned it into one of the most lawless, bankrupt, corrupt, murderous countries on earth.

It's a complete disaster. I can't understand why anyone would continue to defend this government.
#14630575
Among the things that baffle me:

* They elected a socialist government ages ago, but the kind of socialism the Chavistas practiced was basically looting PDVSA.
* In spite of even conservatives telling them they should declare state bankruptcy and stop paying, instead Maduro's continuing to pay on his government's bonds held by capitalist financiers.
* The country has some of the world's most ridiculously complicated exchange rates and price controls in one of the most hamfisted economic disasters on the face of the planet. Perhaps only Zimbabwe has been more horrifyingly mismanaged in recent memory.
* Maduro's Venezuela is dead last on rule of law indexes.
* The country has some of the highest murder rates in the world after the economic catastrophe the Chavistas have inflicted on the country and their total incompetence at managing a country.
* Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, and in spite of the record high oil prices in the 2000s, PDVSA oil production actually declined under Chavez/Maduro due to horrifying incompetence and plundering the industry.

These things baffle me too, Lexington. In particular, I think your second point is very telling. The Chavistas seem to have made the same mistake which Ceaucescu made in Romania - he too borrowed heavily from the capitalist international financial markets, and had great difficulty paying back the loans and interest payments, yet he went ahead and religiously paid back every last penny the 'socialist' government of Romania owed the international finance capitalists. This was one of the main causes of the Romanian Revolution of 1989, in fact - the austerity caused by the repayment of the foreign debt caused massive hardship to the Romanian working class and prevented the economy from developing. The Chavistas seem to have fallen into the same trap, and for the same reasons - just like Ceaucescu, they were and are entangled in the web of international finance capitalism and lack the ability or even the will to escape it. And just like Ceaucescu, they have doomed themselves.
#14630579
Lexington wrote:Chavez/Maduro had complete control of the country for years.


This is not really true, they had control of the bourgeois state but there was/is still a powerful capitalist class backed by a foreign power (the USA) that has tried to undermine the PSUV from its creation.

Don't get me wrong, the PSUV obviously made quite a few mistakes, but to pretend that they weren't also up against a powerful internal enemy is not correct.
#14630586
Why is that workers are so keen to leave these socialist states, whether their like Venezuela or East Germany and move to these so called Bourgeois states? Its very funny, a workers state is one run by middle class intellectuals who put up walls to stop their workers leaving. So called Capitalist states give their workers the vote let them enter parliament and have to put up walls to keep workers from socialist countries out.

Of course Venezuela wasn't a proper socialist country it didn't send its workers to slave labour camps by the million like real socialist countries do.
Last edited by Rich on 09 Dec 2015 14:55, edited 1 time in total.
#14630589
KurtFf8 wrote:Don't get me wrong, the PSUV obviously made quite a few mistakes,


The country has the highest murder rates in the Americas after like Honduras and Haiti. This is not the result of some American plot to destroy them- this is because the Chavistas are utterly incompetent. Nothing the United States could do could do that.
#14630591
Socialists say this every time a socialist country fails


What's a socialist country? So far they seem to be socialist parties combined with an existing state or inheriting one, something only national in scope, often poor and backwards, and pretty much state capitalist.

Venezuela didn't even amount to what the historical regimes accomplished. Bolivarianism was like petro-populism with a red veneer because oil, american imperialism, and latin america. That's okay but, not exactly a revolutionary alternative to capitalism. The fact 'socialism' left the way it entered should suggest something, the simple fact alone it depended on a party in power (through electoral means no less), should really suggest something.

I feel about chavez the same way I feel about syriza, or sanders, or corbyn. they're pretty much pseudo-radicals that are great for stirring up disaffected center-leftists and liberals into socialists (of the bill maher variety), but are only great up until actually being in office.
#14630596
Lexington wrote:The country has the highest murder rates in the Americas after like Honduras and Haiti. This is not the result of some American plot to destroy them- this is because the Chavistas are utterly incompetent. Nothing the United States could do could do that.

Exactly, when you don't implement necessary judicial institutions to control society, you're going to have crime, regardless of the socioeconomic system of the day.

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