Just Give Socialism a Chance!

[Lewkowski]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-ve...-idUSKCN0Y427V

"Mobs in Venezuela have stolen flour, chicken and even underwear this week as looting increases across the crisis-hit OPEC nation where many basic products have run short.

Many people now get up in the dead of night to spend hours in long lines in front of supermarkets. But as more end up empty-handed and black market prices soar, plundering is rising in Venezuela, already one of the world's most violent countries.

There is no official data, but rights group Venezuelan Observatory for Social Conflict reported 107 episodes of looting or attempted looting in the first quarter."

[Timbuk2]

Venezuelan corruption ≠ socialism

[RandBlade]

Sure it is! Socialism leads to corruption as soon as night follows day.

[Timbuk2]

You ignored the word Venezuelan in that equation.

A corrupt paranoiac despot wannabe ≠ a socialist

[RandBlade]

I ignored it because it was moot. The same can be said of Cuba, China, Russia, East Germany and any other Socialist nation.

[earthJoker]

You ignored the word Venezuelan in that equation.

A corrupt paranoiac despot wannabe ≠ a socialist

Yes that wasn't the real socialism either, like the 74 tries before that one. We just need the real socialism! Just give it one other try.

[RandBlade]

It seems the definition of insanity doesn't exist to followers of Socialism.

[earthJoker]

In soviet Russia insanity defines you.

[Khendraja'aro]

Yes that wasn't the real socialism either, like the 74 tries before that one. We just need the real socialism! Just give it one other try.

We also don't have real capitalism anywhere. Your point?

[RandBlade]

The capitalism we do have works. Socialism has a hundred percent failure rate.

[Khendraja'aro]

The capitalism we do have works. Socialism has a hundred percent failure rate.

It works currently and is creaking at the seams. Hint: Income inequality.

That's a real powder keg. Or why do you think socialism held and still holds such attractiveness to quite a number of people?

[Flixy]

And it's not like capitalist places don't have corruption, I think it depends more on the type of government (or regime ). I mean Scandinavia is pretty socialist and they aren't that corrupt.

[LittleFuzzy]

The capitalism we do have works. Socialism has a hundred percent failure rate.

The capitalism we do have IS socialism

[Being]

The capitalism we do have IS socialism

+1

[Timbuk2]

[Loki]

And it's not like capitalist places don't have corruption, I think it depends more on the type of government (or regime ). I mean Scandinavia is pretty socialist and they aren't that corrupt.

They're not. Their governments do not own most means of production, nor do they aspire to do so.

[RandBlade]

The capitalism we do have IS socialism

No it is not.

[earthJoker]

IS socialism

IS socialism, a Swedish green's wet dream.

[Steely Glint]

In b4 four pages of tedious semantics nitpicking before everyone works out that, yes, words can have more than one meaning.

[RandBlade]

And in no variation does a Marxist or Venezuelan state owns the production methods ever work.

[Steely Glint]

No, but that's also not what people usually mean when they say socialism in a western context.

[Loki]

Are we resorting to GGT linguistic rules now?

[LittleFuzzy]

Are we resorting to GGT linguistic rules now?

No. Certainly no more than you and Rand are by your insistence that mixed economies (which is what we all are) are actually capitalism and not socialism.

[earthJoker]

Is this some kind of hypodescent of everything that isn't pure libertarian capitalism?

[Loki]

No. Certainly no more than you and Rand are by your insistence that mixed economies (which is what we all are) are actually capitalism and not socialism.

Being mixed doesn't preclude them from being closer to one extreme than to the other.

[RandBlade]

No. Certainly no more than you and Rand are by your insistence that mixed economies (which is what we all are) are actually capitalism and not socialism.

I was talking in the context of Venezuelan socialism. I'd be OK with calling mixed economies socialist in another context but then it would mean something entirely different to what we were talking about.

To deliberately conflate mixed economies and actual full on socialist ones would be to change the meaning of what we were discussing.

[Hazir]

No. Certainly no more than you and Rand are by your insistence that mixed economies (which is what we all are) are actually capitalism and not socialism.

Given that socialism actually incorporates elements of capitalism and thus by its very nature is a mixed form of Marxism already I'd be inclined to agree with you.

[LittleFuzzy]

I was talking in the context of Venezuelan socialism. I'd be OK with calling mixed economies socialist in another context but then it would mean something entirely different to what we were talking about.

To deliberately conflate mixed economies and actual full on socialist ones would be to change the meaning of what we were discussing.

Except this IS a Lewk thread, Rand.

[Khendraja'aro]

Being mixed doesn't preclude them from being closer to one extreme than to the other.

But then you can't say that "socialism has a 100% failure rate."

[Aimless]

IS socialism, a Swedish green's wet dream.

In trying to decide between "racist" and "Nazi" but honestly with you Swiss it's a toss-up