# Is Venezuela current proof of the failure of state socialism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 13, 2008, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-venezuela-current-proof-of-the-failure-of-state-socialism/433410 "2008-01-13T22:07:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-venezuela-current-proof-of-the-failure-of-state-socialism/433410/61 "2008-01-15T03:09:42Z")
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF] …It’s like I’m talking to Wesley Mouch. [/QUOTE] Ayn Rand books are a lot like Ann Rice books, except the vampires don’t know that they’re dead. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-venezuela-current-proof-of-the-failure-of-state-socialism/433410/62 "2008-01-15T04:17:27Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Ayn Rand books are a lot like Ann Rice books, except the vampires don’t know that they’re dead. [/QUOTE] Ironically the same can be said for socialism and socialists. Venezuela doesn’t prove socialism is a failed concept except to the faithful…because the past 50 years has already given more than adequate examples for the rest of us. [QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF] It’s like I’m talking to Wesley Mouch. [/QUOTE] FWIW I thought this was pretty damned funny. -XT ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-venezuela-current-proof-of-the-failure-of-state-socialism/433410/63 "2008-01-15T16:33:47Z")
The warm generosity of your humor is a beacon to us all. That said, what is it that you imagine has been proven? You assure us that all of those who disagree with your assessment are guided by blind faith, but offer no more proof than your bald assertion that This Is So. Proven for the last 50 years, you assert, and only a dunderhead wouldn’t take your word for it. Was there an election for World’s Foremost Authority, and you won? Perhaps socialism is best approached in small increments: progressives advance, conservatives retard, each according to thier gifts. My point about our definitions is that whatever form the future takes, it is unlikely to fit within the narrow confines of our current definitions. Like “class struggle” or “nanny state”, the terms are useful only within their context, time passes them by. Its a bit like looking at a 1930’s popular science about The Future, wherein everybody flits about in personal gyrocopters, and little boys wander about looking skyward up women’s dresses. All labor will be performed by robots, but nobody wonder’s what the rest of us will do for a living. That sort of thing. The future is a different country, they do things differently there, and think differently as well. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2008, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-venezuela-current-proof-of-the-failure-of-state-socialism/433410/64 "2008-01-15T16:44:59Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] The warm generosity of your humor is a beacon to us all. [/QUOTE] I will graciously accept your kind praise. 😉 [QUOTE=elucidator] That said, what is it that you imagine has been proven? You assure us that all of those who disagree with your assessment are guided by blind faith, but offer no more proof than your bald assertion that This Is So. Proven for the last 50 years, you assert, and only a dunderhead wouldn’t take your word for it. Was there an election for World’s Foremost Authority, and you won? [/QUOTE] Damn…I need to buy ANOTHER irony meter. And clean up this mess…there is smoke and chunks of meter scattered through my basement now… [QUOTE=elucidator] Perhaps socialism is best approached in small increments: progressives advance, conservatives retard, each according to thier gifts. My point about our definitions is that whatever form the future takes, it is unlikely to fit within the narrow confines of our current definitions. Like “class struggle” or “nanny state”, the terms are useful only within their context, time passes them by. Its a bit like looking at a 1930’s popular science about The Future, wherein everybody flits about in personal gyrocopters, and little boys wander about looking skyward up women’s dresses. All labor will be performed by robots, but nobody wonder’s what the rest of us will do for a living. That sort of thing. [/QUOTE] Like Libertarianism and Communism, I think Socialism is an interesting intellectual exercise…but as a practical political and economic system it is setup to fail. At least at a nation state level. Perhaps you are right and at the small scale…say a small tribe or even a small town…it COULD work and work well. If that small group of people REALLY want it to. When you try and scale up however it pretty much invariably fails…just like most other theoretical/idealistic systems. [QUOTE=elucidator] The future is a different country, they do things differently there, and think differently as well. [/QUOTE] Perhaps they do. Perhaps in the future the Euro’s will finally be willing to let go of the last vestiges of the socialist parts of their own brand of capitalism and embrace the dark side. Or perhaps the US will finally go the other way and become a European socialist paradise. Or maybe it will be so different that neither one of us will recognize (assuming we live so long). Who knows? It will be interesting to see anyway. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Agnostic\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2008, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-venezuela-current-proof-of-the-failure-of-state-socialism/433410/65 "2008-01-16T04:34:23Z")
[QUOTE=DrDeth] I always love the argument that the various Socialist and Communist dictatorships 'weren’t \*really \*Socialist or Communist". :rolleyes: It’s the “no true Scotsman” fallacy. Every Socialist or Communist government has been a “State” goverment, complete with few personal freedoms and rife with dictators and secret police. [/quote] And I love the argument that various democratic Socialist and Communist governments ‘weren’t really Socialist or Communist’ because they did not completely nationalize their economies or meet some other spurious description. \*\*Not \*\*every Socialist or Communist government has been a dictatorship. Fallacies indeed. A [list](http://www.socialistinternational.org/2Members/who.html#full) of member parties of the Socialist International. (Membership in which is what I use to define who is socialist or not. Membership is hardly mandatory, and while not every member of the individual parties will identify as socialist, their parties obviously have chosen to do so.) Based on information from [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_International) and SI - Full member parties currently governing Angola - Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola Algeria - Socialist Forces Front Armenia - Armenian Revolutionary Federation - coalition partner, elected 2007 Aruba - People’s Electoral Movement - elected 2001 Australia - Australian Labor Party - elected 2007 Austria - Social Democratic Party of Austria, coalition partner, elected 2007 Barbados - Barbados Labour Party, elected 2003 Belgium - Socialist Party (French), coalition partner since 1999 Belgium - Socialist Party (Flemish), coalition partner since 1999 Bulgaria - Bulgarian Social Democrats, coalition partner since 2002 Bulgaria - Bulgarian Socialist Party, coalition partner since 2002 Cape Verde - African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde, elected 2001 Chile - Socialist Party of Chile, elected 2000 Chile - Social Democrat Radical Party, coalition partner since 2001 Côte d’Ivoire - Ivorian Popular Front Egypt - National Democratic Party Estonia - Social Democratic Party, coalition partner since 2007 Germany - Social Democratic Party of Germany, coalition member since 1969 Hungary - Hungarian Socialist Party, elected 2002 Iceland – Alliance, elected 2007 Morocco - Socialist Union of Popular Forces, coalition partner since 2002 Mongolia - Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, elected 2000, coalition partner since 2004 Mozambique – FRELIMO, elected 1994, (elections contested) Mauritius - Mauritius Labour Party, coalition leader since 2005 New Zealand - New Zealand Labour Party, coalition leader since 1999 Nicaragua - Sandinista National Liberation Front, elected 2006 Norway - Norwegian Labour Party, coalition partner since 2005 Panama - Democratic Revolutionary Party, coalition leader since 2004 Peru - Peruvian Aprista Party, elected 2006 Portugal - Socialist Party, elected 1995 South Africa - African National Congress (ANC), elected 1994 Spain - Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, elected 2004 Switzerland - Social Democratic Party of Switzerland, coalition partner since 1943 Tunisia - Democratic Constitutional Rally United Kingdom - Labour Party, elected 1997 Uruguay - Socialist Party of Uruguay and New Space, coalition partners since 2004 Not all of the above are shining examples of democracy, but I would hardly this a list of failed states or failed economies. > [@](#): > > Socialism or Communism just do not seem to work in the real world without dicators, loss of personal freedoms and the like. And even then, Socialism and Communism work poorly, with an inevitable collapse within a century or less. Cite please? Several capitalist regimes had no regard for personal freedoms and liberty. Capitalism does not guarantee democracy any more than socialism does. > [@](#): > > “Real” or “Pure” Socialism or Communism just plain has not\* and can not \*occur on a national scale. (Nor has Pure Democracy, of course, although in the case of Athens it got fairly close.) Please forgive me if I am skeptical of what you regard as “real” or “pure”. I would rather defer the definition of socialism to those who actually practice it and belong to socialist organizations. > [@xtisme](#): > > Ironically the same can be said for socialism and socialists. Venezuela doesn’t prove socialism is a failed concept except to the faithful…because the past 50 years has already given more than adequate examples for the rest of us. Communism certainly failed in its contest with capitalism. Revolutionary socialism certainly does not have a good track record, nor do I agree with that brand. But the former are not the entire spectrum of socialism. Socialism is alive and doing quite well, as I hope the above indicates. Also, the [PES](http://www.pes.org/) is currently the second largest party in the European Parliament. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-venezuela-current-proof-of-the-failure-of-state-socialism/433410.md?page=3)