Lazy8 wrote:
 
As I predicted... It's always the gubmint! And the law of the instrument.

R_P wrote:

I really don't want to let you get away with this whataboutist distraction from the horrors your ideology is—once again—unleashing on innocent people. No flaw, be it at the periphery or the heart of a rival system, excuses the flaws in another. Socialism is antithetical to human flourishing. This isn't a recent phenomenon and the endless excuses for it are so shopworn they're transparent.

But this is the internet and distractions are fun, so I'll play one more round.

Everything you named as a flaw of large corporations is, in fact, due to government intervention. The military and its procurement practices? Government. Pork projects? Government. Revolving doors? I don'r necessarily see that as a problem—people should be free to move between government and private sectors—but to extent it is a problem it's because the government makes the practice attractive. Lobbying? It's bad when your enemies do it, a constitutionally-guaranteed right (to petition the government for redress of grievances) when your side does it. Bankruptcies are court-supervised events. Courts are part of...government! Subsidies? They come from...government! All that clever accounting is to cope with the rules put in place by...government.

People like me complain endlessly about how regulation inherently favors entrenched, established players. It enables rent-seeking and encourages those established players to seek ways to shape it to their advantage. And every time that plays out the cry goes up for...more regulation!

But this time is different.

As we keep hearing.

Proposition:   Some, perhaps many public corporations are more transparent and subject to a greater degree of scrutiny than many North American governments.    Some municipalities and smaller states or provinces simply do not have a lot of resources or the active and educated populations that would provide an effective degree of monitoring.   In a similar fashion, the best academic high schools tend to be located in areas with large numbers of well-educated folks.  

Proposition:  English Canadians are corrupt.  All my early life I listened to English Canadians going on and on and on about how everybody else was so corrupt (Quebecois, First Nations, Americans, Latin Americans, Black Africans, Arabs, etc.).  Then  I started running head long into corruption in the federal government......  which is supposed to have more resources — it does — and avoid that kind of thing.

Proposition:  There is lots of inexcusable BS in North America but then on the other hand, the corruption is far from debilitating and does not lead to the same degree of wealth destruction as it does in other countries.  The glass is indeed half full, and yes, things could be a lot worse.  Count our blessings.

Proposition:   North Americans tend to prefer leaving production and the distribution of private goods to the private sector and that is a sound principle.  I am fully aware of the some very successful state-owned companies around the world.  I am not convinced that a similar state-owned entity in North America (especially the USA) would perform so well.  

Proposition:   Venezuela will take years to recover from all the corruption.  Venezuelans will be slow to unlearn corruption.  

 Lazy8 wrote:
 
The point was about bureaucracy and hierarchy. That's simply a given. Governments and corporations don't run without them. The lack of accountability and corruption takes different forms, sure.

The problem sorts itself out. In theory, sure. In practice not so much. Spend some time in large corporations. How about cost overruns in military suppliers? Pork. Revolving doors. Lobbying. Clever bankruptcies, special-interest subsidies, clever accounting/auditing, etc., etc.

Oh, right, I forgot, that's all the fault of the government and its damn regulations. If only those companies would all be left alone, then everyone would get a unicorn or two. Eventually. One day.

 R_P wrote:

Um...no. No we don't.

When corporations get overly bureaucratic a hungrier rival takes market share and they lose income, and eventually have to make a choice between the rigidity of structure or survival. Either way the problem sorts itself out.

Governments get to put competitors in prison, and in socialist countries they eagerly do. That pressure vanishes, rigidity wins.

There have been cases when the state ceded power without complete societal collapse; China is the most prominent example but others have stepped back from that brink as well—and prospered as a result. Russia couldn't quite give up its nostalgia for its empire and all-powerful state and is wallowing in economic stagnation. Poland, Czech Republic, the Baltic nations and other former subject nations of that empire are prospering.

So no, there is no equivalency. I'm willing to criticize capitalist countries but let's stay in this space-time continuum, not in some parallel universe where South Korea is a shithole and North Korea is a worker's paradise.

Is the US Meddling in Venezuela? Max Blumenthal Asks US Congress Members.

 Lazy8 wrote:
 
I agree that the Nordic social democracies do freemarket capitalism extremely well.   That may explain why Latin American leftists have been so reluctant to embrace the model.

 As for selling off all the Crown corporations... I do not believe so.  Eneroil, formerly Statoil, is a Norwegian state-owned oil company.    Canada has many, many crown corporations though (thankfully) it has gotten rid of a bunch over the years.  

Oil production was dominated by state-owned PDVSA long before Hugo Chavez was elected to power.  Does that mean Venezuela was already a socialist country before Chavez started to sabotage an otherwise relatively stable and successful South American country?   

Colombia has a state-owned oil company Ecopetrol?  Is quote-unquote right-wing Colombia a socialist country?  From what I recall, Latin American nation states tend to have many state-owned enterprises.   Not just Salvador Allende's Chile or  Ortega's Nicaragua or Castro's Cuba.  In the two Latin American members of the OECD — Chile and Mexico — there are many, many state-owned enterprises.

These Neo-Marxist regimes typically avoid expropriating or otherwise taking control of private companies, they simply regulate and tax them in ways that discourage participation or additional capital expenditures.   Venezuela has indeed stolen private companies, in particular assets of multinational oil companies but that kind of thing also happens in many countries that one would not necessarily describe as 'socialist'.  

The old-style Marxist-Leninist advocates of an authoritarian socialist state at least pretended to be pro-science, technocratic and to propose evidence-based policies.  

These Neo-Marxist regimes ignore evidence, have little regard for science.  Just like their populist equivalents in North America and elsewhere.    This style of government will continue to be elected in Latin America, Africa and possibly Asia too.    

Not sure what your last remark intended to say.....    Are you getting ready to justify American boot heels getting in on the regime  change 'action'?   Would like you to polarize public thinking on these cases?   
Or do you simply underestimate the power of ideas for cases like the failed Venezuelan state?   Perhaps, it goes without saying but Venezuela has been falling apart for many years now.  

 Lazy8 wrote:
 
And we see that just as much in capitalist countries and corporations. And often equally unaccountable and/or corrupt.

westslope wrote:

The Nordic social democracies are capitalist countries with hideously expensive welfare states. They've all abandoned the socialism that stopped their economic progress dead in its tracks in the middle of the 20th century.

They've sold off state-owned companies and no longer exert heavy-handed top-down economic control. And yes, they're mostly doing quite well—because they're no longer socialist.

And no, idiotic as the policies you mentioned are they aren't socialism. Socialism has an actual definition: state ownership of industry. It doesn't mean kittens and rainbows and equality, it means bureaucrats and hierarchy. As we've seen over and over.

I'm sure it makes all the difference to the refugees fleeing Venezuela. This time is different.

 Lazy8 wrote:
 
And the Nordic social democracies?   The socio-economic outcomes are better than the USA which is also a socialist country.   

US$30 B in subsidies for agriculture.  Food stamps, medicare, $3 to $4 B in aid (mostly military) to Israel.   Is that not socialism?  Are not subsidies for Cabelas and Bass Pro big box store outlets socialism?   Are not national security arguments being used to justify trade barriers another manifestation of socialism?


This brand of Neo-Marxist guided authoritarian populism is distinctly different from the old Marxist-Leninst inspired Communist regimes of the past.    I believe that it helps to understand the differences. 

Intercepted: Donald Trump and the Yankee Plot to Overthrow the Venezuelan Government

The White House is openly plotting to bring down the government of Nicolas Maduro in Caracas. It is being openly promoted as a campaign to steal Venezuelan oil for the benefit of U.S. corporations, and some powerful Democrats are cheering Trump on and joining the conspiracy. Elliott Abrams, one of the premiere butchers of the U.S. dirty wars in Central America in the 1980s, has been named the point man in the effort to bring regime change to Venezuela. This week on Intercepted: Investigative journalist Allan Nairn talks about the history of U.S. crimes in Central America, the time he told Abrams, on national television, he should stand trial for war crimes, and the threat of U.S. military action in Venezuela. Corporate media coverage of Venezuela has been atrocious and largely uniform with the role of successive U.S. administrations in destabilizing the country almost never highlighted. Former Hugo Chávez adviser Eva Golinger and journalist and educator Roberto Lovato discuss how Venezuela was thrust into economic crisis, who is responsible, and what Washington really wants.

westslope wrote:

If the CIA were doing it's level best to topple the Maduro regime (and they probably are) that wouldn't be a justification for the Maduro regime to remain in power.

And yes, socialism is turning Venezuela into a poor country, just as it turned Cuba into a poor country, just as it's turning Nicaragua into a poor country. just as it turned eastern Europe into a bunch of poor countries and just as it kept China and Vietnam and Cambodia poor countries.

Lazy8:   Yes, there are lots of conspiracy theories but then there is always a foundation of truth upon which they are constructed.  We could erect quite a list for Latin America alone.

As for this being a failure in "socialism".....    is that true?  Is that helpful?   Seriously.  

 Lazy8 wrote:
 
Some obviously disagree, but hey they're probably lying.

Just because they don't topple, doesn't mean it's not happening. Embargoes, sanctions, sabotage, etc. have been and are happening as we speak. Some stuff is covert, other stuff is overt.

Every ideology has its romantic appeal, including free-market fundamentalism and trickle down fantasies which help to serve as justifications for all that follows...

R_P wrote:

When the piece leads off with fulsome praise of the Chavez/Maduro regimes as "a robust socialist experiment" and  having "helped lift millions out of poverty" it's hard to take the authors seriously. They simply aren't dealing with reality.

Conspiracy theories like this are all over the third world, assigning vast power and influence to US covert ops. Power and influence they simply do not have, or Iran and Cuba and dozens of other countries would have toppled long ago. Fun fact: people around the world occasionally do things without it being a CIA plot!

And Venezuela is now (having once been a prosperous country) approaching membership in the third world. Latin America seems determined to repeat the experiments the rest of the world performed in the 20th century and (surprise!) getting the same results. The romantic appeal of socialism is evergreen, the reality the drab gray of ashes.

"His unlikely rise signals the culmination of a two decades-long project to destroy a robust socialist experiment."

Seriously?  Of all Neo-Marxist guided populist misadventures, Venezuela has demonstrated the worst outcomes.

From what I observe, the outcomes are worse than the Marxist-Leninist communist regimes of old.  At least the old commies pretended to be technocratic and pro-science.

The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US Regime Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader

 miamizsun wrote:

They already have cheap Iranian oil, but I suppose more is better.