International Socialism is worse for the economy than a world war

[Trotsky]

Bad things like putting a gun in the head of productive people and telling them to give their assets to the government.


-Brazil had the worst crisis of their history in 2014-2015 in the Dilma's Roussef (Lula's protegee) government. After 8 years of Lula's socialist government. The decrease of their GDP was worse than in the military dictatorship times. They had almost three years of GDP shrinking thanks to liberal policies.
-On the other hand, Chile became the most prosperous economy in Latinamerica after Pinochet.
-Castro stole all the assets the USA had in the island. What should the US do? Let him get away with that?
-Venezuela GDP started droping in 2014; the first US sanctions were in 2016 under Obama administration. And those sanctions affected only Venezuela's government corrupt officials assets in the USA, he did nothing against the Venezuelan economy at that time. The real sanctions only came in 2018 under Trump, four years after the Venezuelan economy started it free fall.


Exactly, if they were doing great in 2002 was because of socialism. If they are bad right now is not because of socialism.


Socialism is all about giving the government the means of production. That's nationalizing productive firms. The military is a part of the goverment, the military controls the means of production, so is a socialist policy.


That's Keynesianism at it's best. Yes, if you have the whole population of your country making mass production of tanks, war planes, weapons and bullets of course your GDP will boost. In the mean time, you will have shortage of food just like happened in the world wars. That's real prosperity? Wars DESTROY SHIT and kill people. Socialism in Venezuela, Maoist China, USSR.... Destroyed more shit and put more people to starve that wars.


Mao was in power from 1945 to 1976. In that period of time more than 50 million people were killed or were starved to death thanks to real socialism. In 1979 Deng Xiaoping opened chinese market, de-collectivize the farm productions so peasants could profit from their work, let foreign companies start factories in China and allowed private property again. Then the record shattering GDP growth you are mentioning started to happen... Only after what you would call "neo-liberal reforms" happened. When real socialism was alive, people were eating human babies and stuff like that.


Sure, it was socialism. Being the country with the biggest oil reserves in the world and having oil barrel prices at $149 in the peak of Chavez governemnt has nothing to do with this.


-Venezuela GDP started droping in 2014; the first US sanctions were in 2016 under Obama administration. And those sanctions affected only Venezuela's government corrupt officials assets in the USA, he did nothing against the Venezuelan economy at that time. The real sanctions only came in 2018 under Trump, four years after the Venezuelan economy started it free fall.


Socialism is all about giving the government the means of production. That's nationalizing productive firms. The military is a part of the goverment, the military controls the means of production, so is a socialist policy. Also, as you state, all Latinamerica countries are corrupt, and most of them have slowly growing economies. The notable ones with negative GDP growth were Ecuador the last two years of Rafael Correa (socialist), Brazil in 2014-2015 under Dilma Rousseauf (socialist, after 8 years of Lula and 2 years of Dilma), and Venezuela who is being ruled by the united SOCIALIST party of Venezuela since 1999. They got the best prices of oil in history and since 2014 (4 years before getting the US sanctions) started to have a free fall in their GDP.

Man, you really could have saved yourself a lot of words if you had just read the first page of posts on differentiating socialism from command economy.

 

[fishNjits]

But wealth distribution in Venezuela is more even than the United States, so nothing to complain about. /s

Who needs toilet paper if nobody has toilet paper?

 

[Rod1]

Sure but remember I am comparing it to other Latin American shitholes like Guatemala and Honduras so its not a very high bar.

Which is the point, they dont even pass that bar, what Cuba does is simply skew it with a supposed low infant mortality rate, once you control for those its not really that much better in terms of outcome

 

[Islam Imamate]

Which is the point, they dont even pass that bar, what Cuba does is simply skew it with a supposed low infant mortality rate, once you control for those its not really that much better in terms of outcome

That's very hard for me to believe on your word tbh.

 

[Ghillie Guerrilla]

Only good commie is a dead commie.

 

[The Diplomat]

Even the most successful "socialist" nations use some form of free market and privatization.

Are those disagreeing here @BarryDillon @Trotsky @tonni @Falsedawn arguing that a purely socialistic economy would be better for the US than our current one?

[edit] I don't know if it's worse than a World War, though. That's pretty extreme.

 

[MVelsor]

Socialism gave them their wealth? seriously?

Venezuela produced a shitload of things BEFORE Chavez rose to power, the only thing Venezuela produced by the time he kicked the bucket was oil, and that was thanks to foreign investment after Chavez purged PDVSA and fired all the competent workers to fill it with cronies.

 

[Rod1]

That's very hard for me to believe on your word tbh.

Have you ever heard of the term Occam's razor?

 

[Rod1]

So not only they never increased their oil production, they destroyed everything else making the economy entirely dependent on said production.

Thanks for proving my point.

 

[Islam Imamate]

Have you ever heard of the term Occam's razor?

What's your point?

 

[MVelsor]

So not only they never increased their oil production, they destroyed everything else making the economy entirely dependent on said production.

Thanks for proving my point.

It's worse.

What are the economic implications? Because of positive time preference and discounting, the value of a barrel of oil in the ground depends on the time taken to get it above ground. If, for example, the price of oil remains the same, a barrel of oil produced and sold today is worth more than a barrel produced and sold tomorrow. Given the incredibly low rate at which PDVSA is depleting its reserves, Venezuela’s reserves – the world’s largest – are essentially worthless.

To put PDVSA’s depletion rate into perspective, let’s compare it to Exxon’s. At the end of 2015, Exxon’s depletion rate was 8.15% — which is comparable to most of the world’s major oil companies. That rate implies Exxon’s median time to extraction (and sale) for a barrel of oil is 8.2 years. That’s 190 years earlier than PDVSA would realize revenue from selling a barrel of oil.

 

[Rod1]

What's your point?

My point is that if the nation is dirt as fuck poor, cares little about the welfare of the population to which it has zero accountability and barely manage to get essentials in pretty much all aspects of life, then it sounds far more unbelievable that somehow they manage to have access to a decent healthcare system which requires a lot of equipment that its quite expensive.

Honduras and Guatemala may be poor, but not as poor as Cuba is right now.

Guatemala's minimum wage is roughly 10x that of Cuba.

 

[Rod1]

It's worse.

What are the economic implications? Because of positive time preference and discounting, the value of a barrel of oil in the ground depends on the time taken to get it above ground. If, for example, the price of oil remains the same, a barrel of oil produced and sold today is worth more than a barrel produced and sold tomorrow. Given the incredibly low rate at which PDVSA is depleting its reserves, Venezuela’s reserves – the world’s largest – are essentially worthless.

To put PDVSA’s depletion rate into perspective, let’s compare it to Exxon’s. At the end of 2015, Exxon’s depletion rate was 8.15% — which is comparable to most of the world’s major oil companies. That rate implies Exxon’s median time to extraction (and sale) for a barrel of oil is 8.2 years. That’s 190 years earlier than PDVSA would realize revenue from selling a barrel of oil.

So the value of oil isnt tied to oil itself, is tied to the ability to deliver that oil to the market, something that marxists cant understand.

 

[luckyshot]

OP is a blanket statement.

China is a socialistic country. That hasn't seemed to have stopped them from having just a tiny bit of economic growth over the last 25 years.

All of the European countries with the most thriving economies provide far more socialized services to their citizens than the United States does.

The US provides very "socialistic" aid to many industries, such as big agriculture, coal, and oil.

I any economy something is always socialized-- the question is what and for whom.

 

[Islam Imamate]

So not only they never increased their oil production, they destroyed everything else making the economy entirely dependent on said production.

Thanks for proving my point.

Uh, I think that's why he posted that graph Rod. Man you're really terrible at discerning whose posting on your side and who isn't.

To put PDVSA’s depletion rate into perspective, let’s compare it to Exxon’s. At the end of 2015, Exxon’s depletion rate was 8.15% — which is comparable to most of the world’s major oil companies. That rate implies Exxon’s median time to extraction (and sale) for a barrel of oil is 8.2 years. That’s 190 years earlier than PDVSA would realize revenue from selling a barrel of oil.

My point is that if the nation is dirt as fuck poor, cares little about the welfare of the population to which it has zero accountability and barely manage to get essentials in pretty much all aspects of life, then it sounds far more unbelievable that somehow they manage to have access to a decent healthcare system which requires a lot of equipment that its quite expensive.

Honduras and Guatemala may be poor, but not as poor as Cuba is right now.

Guatemala's minimum wage is roughly 10x that of Cuba.

Cuba has many more doctors though. Cuba has 8 physicians per 1,000 citizens while Guatemala and Honduras have less than one. That same source also shows that the probability of death for the age group 5-14 is lower in Cuba than both Guatemala and Honduras so its not just their infant mortality rate making them look better than some of their Latin American peers.

So let's use Occam's Razor in light of this data. Does it make more or less sense to assume that the country with about 20x as many doctors per 1,000 people has worse healthcare?

 

[Islam Imamate]

OP is a blanket statement.

China is a socialistic country. That hasn't seemed to have stopped them from having just a tiny bit of economic growth over the last 25 years.

All of the European countries with the most thriving economies provide far more socialized services to their citizens than the United States does.

The US provides very "socialistic" aid to many industries, such as big agriculture, coal, and oil.

I any economy something is always socialized-- the question is what and for whom.

Pretty sure OP is mainly concerned with socialism in the context of Latin American given the crisis in Venezuela, the role of Cuba in the region, and the election of a socialist as president in his own country.

Also its somewhat disingenuous to point to China as a model of socialism that works. Their economy grew only after their market reforms. To the extent that they still employ socialist institutions and ideas its to exert authoritarian control over the citizenry and economy.

 

[Rod1]

Cuba has many more doctors though. Cuba has 8 physicians per 1,000 citizens while Guatemala and Honduras have less than one.

So? what is good a doctor without tools?

That same source also shows that the probability of death for the age group 5-14 is lower in Cuba than both Guatemala and Honduras so its not just their infant mortality rate making them look better than some of their Latin American peers.

The infant mortality rate is the biggest single factor that weights in the life expectancy.

So let's use Occam's Razor in light of this data. Does it make more or less sense to assume that the country with about 20x as many doctors per 1,000 people has worse healthcare?

Again, a doctor is useless without tools, and anyone can be called a doctor, we dont know the quality of said doctors specially when they face so much scarcity in their medical schools, i would rather have 1 good doctor that trained in a well equipped school and did his residency in a well equipped hospital than 8 who didnt.

All communist countries skewed their numbers and were shown to manipulate data, which explains why a lot of ex-soviet countries saw massive plunges in quality of life indicators after the fall of the iron curtain.

https://academic.oup.com/heapol/article/33/6/755/5035051

 

[ICHEERTHEBULL]

Prior to Chavez income per head had fallen to pre-1950 levels. According to the world bank the poverty rate decreased from 42.8% to 26.5% and the rate of extreme poverty fell from 16.6% in 1999 to 7% in 2011 with the third lowest poverty rate in all Latin America. 3000 new schools were built and 40 higher education institutions created. According to UNESCO his policy’s had eradicated illiteracy by 2005. With 8000 new medical centres and the number Doctors per 100,000 increased from 20 to 80 life expectancy was raised by two years and the infant mortality rate halved. According to the UNDP by 2012 Venezuela had the lowest inequality in the region. The number elderly receiving a pension rose from 300,000 to 2 million. Public debt fell from 45% of GDP in 1998 to 20% in 2011.


Socialism sure does suck.

 

[Rod1]

@Kafir-kun

Actually we do know that they suck and have been sucking for a while.

https://en.mercopress.com/2012/01/2...fail-basic-test-to-practice-medicine-in-chile

 

[cooks1]

Before we jump on the 'Boo Socialism' bandwagon regarding Venezuela, lets at least give a quiet nod to crippling sanctions and the value of their chief export going down by nearly half playing a role.

Returning to socialism now, it's time we started looking at it as a spectrum as opposed to a yes or no question. I can think of no country on earth that is 'purely' socialist, where the means of production, distribution, and exchange for 100% of the goods and services produced are owned and regulated by the community as a whole. But it is true that the ones that are closest to full socialism are authoritarian regimes, not democracies. I think this is the root of the fear of socialism in free societies and western democracies.

Having lived in nearly a dozen capitalist democracies at varying locations along the socialism spectrum, I have developed a belief that in industries where the ideal societal goal is maximum betterment at minimum expense, the government has a larger role to play.

A few years back in Florida, there was a big conversation about the role private prison companies were playing in the democratic process. Not surprisingly, they were lobbying for higher incarceration rates and longer prison sentences.

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/new...mpanies-use-influence-increase-incarceration/

If you own a prison company, you want lots more people to be in prison for a lot longer. You don't want your prisoners to ever leave. But if they do, you definitely want them to come back. If you are a society however, you would want fewer people going to prison, for shorter sentences, and you would want them to be rehabilitated. This an example of where capitalism and the society would have almost diametrically opposed objectives.

Same for the Health Care. Nearly 20% of the entire US economy is healthcare. We spend so much more per capita than any other nation. And get less. It is so far gone that even if we miraculously managed even a 20% reduction in costs, which would still make us the most expensive country in the world by a large margin, it would actually cause a recession.