For being a thread born as a response to people talking about Cuba and Castro without knowing their reality... this is a thread full of people talking about socialism without even really knowing what socialism is (and what it is NOT), other than yout typical American "socialism = bogeyman".
Point in case:
Funny how those two often go hand in hand.
One. Corruption is not inherent to socialism, corruption is inherent to human nature. And this is a fact, unless you're willing to argue that non-socialist governments do not suffer from corruption. Political corruption is rampant in governments of less developed countries, whether they are socialist or capitalist does not matter. Take a look at Mexico or the Central American countries, or many African countries.
The problem with socialism and communism is that all attempts so far have relied too heavily on charismatic leaders that once in power were not willing to advance socialism, because that meant for them to lose their positions of power. But that has nothing to do with socialism, but with human greed.
This is also why I believe that revolutionary socialism is the worst form of achieving socialism, because it relies on the revolutionary leaders (those who lead the revolutionary vanguard) who later on cannot be willingly removed from power, devolving the whole thing into a totalitarian dictatorship. Democratic socialism (different from social democracy!), where societies reach a level of social and economical advancement that they naturally, slowly and
willingly evolve into socialism is, in my opinion, the way to go.
Socialism creates another paradise on Earth!
Unbridled socialist economic policies. Venezuela went from the wealthiest South American countries to an absolute shit hole. It's sad.
Two. We only need to read the theory of political socialism (Marxism) to know that Venezuela
is not and has never been a socialist country. The single, more important aspect that is defining for a socialist society is for the means of production to go to the hands of the workers (
not the state). As long as they're not owned by the workers, it is
not socialism.
Who is to blame then for Venezuela's pitiful situation? Well, obviously Chávez and the political system that he left behind, what he himself called
Bolivarianism (others call it
Chavism). Chávez was a megalomaniac and he led a highly populist and corrupt government who was good at talking and appeasing the ignorant masses but terribly bad at managing the country. And their style of management
was not socialism. Chavez-style Bolivarianism is, at best, a poorly implemented version of social democracy, but it would be more accurate to say that it was an also poorly implemented version of state capitalism. He nationalised several key (and non-key) industries so they would become run by the state and then mismanaged them in the worst possible way. And if Chávez was bad at managing things, Maduro was infinitely worse. Also, the fall in the prices of oil has burst their very fragile bubble.
B..b..but his party is called the Socialist Party of Venezuela!1!one. It is just a name. There are plenty of parties in Europe called "Socialist Workers' Party of..." and none of them is truly a socialist, at least not in the Marxist sense. North Korea's name is People's Democratic Republic, but it isn't a democratic republic, nor do they care about the people, so whatever Chavez's party name was or whatever he said he was, it makes no matter, because the reality is different.
And of course, apart from horribily mismanaging Venezuela's economy the Chavez government also went backwards in what refers to freedom of speech and organisation, freedom of press, oppression of dissidents, etc, but that has nothing to do with socialism, at least not from a theoretical perspective.
