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Socialist Paradise Update

D

Deleted member 21794

Guest
Arkady said:
The figures are expressed in inflation-adjusted dollars.

Compare to this:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=VE

As you can see, if we used current dollars, instead of inflation-adjusted, since 1998 the GDP per capita would have risen from $3875 to $12,237.

Or, check out this:

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CN?locations=VE

That's GDP per capita in current local currency. It rose from 2,122 to 74,077. The difference between the fairly modest rise in real per capita GDP expressed in dollars, and the nominal per capita GDP addressed in Venezuelan bolivars is due to the massive erosion of the value of the currency. If I'd posted the last figure, suggesting that Venezuelans were about 35 times as rich now as before Chavez, you'd be right to call attention to the high inflation. But I posted the figures in inflation-adjusted dollar terms, so I already accounted for both the inflation and any additional slippage relative to the dollar.
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So yes, I was correct to call BS on your original numbers. Your revision is hereby accepted. Congrats on spotting your error.
 
Arkady

Arkady

President
Zam-Zam said:
So they're prosperous, and now their people suffer......Socialism in action.

Thanks for making my point.
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You seem to have lost the thread of the discussion, if you think I'm making your point. Again, as a reminder, relative to before socialism in the country, they're richer in GDP per capita terms, more literate, longer-lived, have lower infant mortality, and a much lower share of the population below the poverty line. If you want to call that "socialism in action," so be it. But please be clear about what you're saying. The image the right-winger propaganda outlets are trying to create, of a prosperous South American nation that fell apart because of socialism, simply doesn't line up with what happened in the real world. In the real world, Venezuela was a dirt-poor nation that had actually been losing ground for about 20 years, when they tried socialism. It was that dark and worsening situation that pushed the masses over the edge towards supporting radical change. Since then, things have mostly improved.

To be clear, things are still terrible, and you can make an argument things would have been better if they hadn't moved to socialism. That's not clear, since things had been getting worse for a generation, but I'm open to the idea, if only because the US wouldn't have been supporting coups and raising sanctions against Venezuela if not for the move to the radical left. But, alternate reality speculation aside, things did improve in Venezuela between 1998 and the present, overall. Maybe they could have improved more with other moves.
 
freyasman

freyasman

Senator
sear said:
What you posted was:

This implies socialism is intrinsically detrimental.
Yet Denmark was recently rated as having the highest happiness quotient of any nation on Earth.

I'm not denying socialism, where it exists.
Instead, I soberly observe that even in cases where it exists and is failing, it's a mistake to assume that it's failing BECAUSE it's socialism; even though such bias confirmation may complement the world-view of compulsive ideologues.
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"This implies socialism is intrinsically detrimental."
It is.
 
Zam-Zam

Zam-Zam

Senator
Arkady said:
You seem to have lost the thread of the discussion, if you think I'm making your point. Again, as a reminder, relative to before socialism in the country, they're richer in GDP per capita terms, more literate, longer-lived, have lower infant mortality, and a much lower share of the population below the poverty line. If you want to call that "socialism in action," so be it. But please be clear about what you're saying. The image the right-winger propaganda outlets are trying to create, of a prosperous South American nation that fell apart because of socialism, simply doesn't line up with what happened in the real world. In the real world, Venezuela was a dirt-poor nation that had actually been losing ground for about 20 years, when they tried socialism. It was that dark and worsening situation that pushed the masses over the edge towards supporting radical change. Since then, things have mostly improved.

To be clear, things are still terrible, and you can make an argument things would have been better if they hadn't moved to socialism. That's not clear, since things had been getting worse for a generation, but I'm open to the idea, if only because the US wouldn't have been supporting coups and raising sanctions against Venezuela if not for the move to the radical left. But, alternate reality speculation aside, things did improve in Venezuela between 1998 and the present, overall. Maybe they could have improved more with other moves.
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Personally, I think ditching socialism and embracing capitalism would be a good place to start. The totalitarian leftist government will do everything in their considerable power to prevent that from happening, however, and so the people will continue to suffer.
 
Dawg

Dawg

President
Supporting Member
Arkady said:
You seem to have lost the thread of the discussion, if you think I'm making your point. Again, as a reminder, relative to before socialism in the country, they're richer in GDP per capita terms, more literate, longer-lived, have lower infant mortality, and a much lower share of the population below the poverty line. If you want to call that "socialism in action," so be it. But please be clear about what you're saying. The image the right-winger propaganda outlets are trying to create, of a prosperous South American nation that fell apart because of socialism, simply doesn't line up with what happened in the real world. In the real world, Venezuela was a dirt-poor nation that had actually been losing ground for about 20 years, when they tried socialism. It was that dark and worsening situation that pushed the masses over the edge towards supporting radical change. Since then, things have mostly improved.

To be clear, things are still terrible, and you can make an argument things would have been better if they hadn't moved to socialism. That's not clear, since things had been getting worse for a generation, but I'm open to the idea, if only because the US wouldn't have been supporting coups and raising sanctions against Venezuela if not for the move to the radical left. But, alternate reality speculation aside, things did improve in Venezuela between 1998 and the present, overall. Maybe they could have improved more with other moves.
Click to expand...
It's his thread.........you've derailed
 
E

EatTheRich

President
sear said:
What you posted was:

This implies socialism is intrinsically detrimental.
Yet Denmark was recently rated as having the highest happiness quotient of any nation on Earth.

I'm not denying socialism, where it exists.
Instead, I soberly observe that even in cases where it exists and is failing, it's a mistake to assume that it's failing BECAUSE it's socialism; even though such bias confirmation may complement the world-view of compulsive ideologues.
Click to expand...
Denmark is another capitalist country. Socialist countries are Cuba and N. Korea.
 
Arkady

Arkady

President
Dawg said:
It's his thread.........you've derailed
Click to expand...
Certainly the facts derailed his thread pretty badly. But what I was referring to was that he must have misunderstood pretty badly if he thought I was making his point, rather than obliterating it.
 
Arkady

Arkady

President
EatTheRich said:
Denmark is another capitalist country. Socialist countries are Cuba and N. Korea.
Click to expand...
I'd argue that Denmark is about a 50/50 hybrid of capitalism and socialism -- leaning only slightly towards capitalism.

Consider this as a simple, rough way to measure the question: what percentage of a nation's GDP is captured as tax revenue? If you use that measure, then as of 2016 Denmark is sitting at 45.9%. So, the majority of the country's production isn't captured and managed by the government. The private sector still slightly outweighs the public sector. But only slightly. It's nearly a socialist nation.

At the other end of the spectrum, among developed nations, are Mexico and Chile, with tax revenues of 16.2% and 20.5%, respectively.... basically, the private sector dominating the public by four-to-one. The average for a developed nation is 34.3% -- so, roughly twice as much private sector as public sector. I wouldn't mind seeing the US steer a bit in that direction. Currently, we're at 26.0%.
 
Zam-Zam

Zam-Zam

Senator
sear said:
ZZ #51
Where aren't they?

As Barry Farber said:
Click to expand...

For five months, The New York Times tracked 21 public hospitals in Venezuela. Doctors are seeing record numbers of children with severe malnutrition. Hundreds have died......

.....But deaths from malnutrition have remained a closely guarded secret by the Venezuelan government. In a five-month investigation by The New York Times, doctors at 21 public hospitals in 17 states across the country said that their emergency rooms were being overwhelmed by children with severe malnutrition — a condition they had rarely encountered before the economic crisis began.

“Children are arriving with very precarious conditions of malnutrition,” said Dr. Huníades Urbina Medina, the president of the Venezuelan Society of Childcare and Pediatrics. He added that doctors were even seeing the kind of extreme malnutrition often found in refugee camps — cases that were highly unusual in oil-rich Venezuela before its economy fell to pieces.

NY Times


That's not normal, and that's not occurring everywhere.
 
E

EatTheRich

President
Arkady said:
I'd argue that Denmark is about a 50/50 hybrid of capitalism and socialism -- leaning only slightly towards capitalism.

Consider this as a simple, rough way to measure the question: what percentage of a nation's GDP is captured as tax revenue? If you use that measure, then as of 2016 Denmark is sitting at 45.9%. So, the majority of the country's production isn't captured and managed by the government. The private sector still slightly outweighs the public sector. But only slightly. It's nearly a socialist nation.

At the other end of the spectrum, among developed nations, are Mexico and Chile, with tax revenues of 16.2% and 20.5%, respectively.... basically, the private sector dominating the public by four-to-one. The average for a developed nation is 34.3% -- so, roughly twice as much private sector as public sector. I wouldn't mind seeing the US steer a bit in that direction. Currently, we're at 26.0%.
Click to expand...
You (and others here, as well as Maduro et al.) seem to be defining "socialism" as involving big government, high taxes, and / or redistribution ... a definition pioneered by Leon Blum on the left and F.A. Hayek on the right. I suppose it's your prerogative to use it that way as long as it's clear that's what you're doing. I prefer to reserve the word, as the socialist left historically did, for social revolution, i.e., the transformation of a capitalist society into one that is not capitalist. Both theory and history suggest that such a transformation cannot be achieved by the incremental advance of the capitalist welfare state.
 
Arkady

Arkady

President
EatTheRich said:
You (and others here, as well as Maduro et al.) seem to be defining "socialism" as involving big government, high taxes, and / or redistribution ... a definition pioneered by Leon Blum on the left and F.A. Hayek on the right. I suppose it's your prerogative to use it that way as long as it's clear that's what you're doing. I prefer to reserve the word, as the socialist left historically did, for social revolution, i.e., the transformation of a capitalist society into one that is not capitalist. Both theory and history suggest that such a transformation cannot be achieved by the incremental advance of the capitalist welfare state.
Click to expand...
I won't get hung up on semantics. I agree yours is the more traditional definition, so it's perfectly fine. I guess I'd think of that more as "revolutionary socialism."

I'm thinking of it more in terms of public versus private control of the economy. Every economy has some public and some private control, whether reached by evolutionary or revolutionary means Even a full-on socialist nation would have at least some black-market private sector activity, and even a libertarian utopia would have some very basic functions handled by government. I think all nations exist on that spectrum, and somewhere around a 1/3 public, 2/3 private balance is an optimal arrangement for best overall prosperity and prosperity growth. That, using my definitions, would put me squarely in the capitalist category (a 2-to-1 preference for private), but would make me a lot more socialist than your average American.
 
sear

sear

Mayor
This implies socialism is intrinsically detrimental.

"It is." fm #44
Click to expand...
piffle
It works extremely well in family and church-sized units.
"Denmark is another capitalist country." ER #48
Click to expand...
Far from laissez-faire.

In the U.S., military veterans can attend college on the G.I. Bill.
In Denmark, I gather any Danish person that wants can attend college, and even receive a stipend to do so.
"Socialist countries are Cuba and N. Korea."
Click to expand...
Socialism means the State owns the means of production.
What do Cuba and North Korea produce?
Cuba produces sugar, rum, and cigars.

North Korea?

I've never seen any item on a store shelf with a "Product of North Korea" stamp on the bottom of it.
North Korea produces misery, mainly for domestic consumption.
 
freyasman

freyasman

Senator
sear said:
piffle
It works extremely well in family and church-sized units.

Far from laissez-faire.

In the U.S., military veterans can attend college on the G.I. Bill.
In Denmark, I gather any Danish person that wants can attend college, and even receive a stipend to do so.

Socialism means the State owns the means of production.
What do Cuba and North Korea produce?
Cuba produces sugar, rum, and cigars.

North Korea?

I've never seen any item on a store shelf with a "Product of North Korea" stamp on the bottom of it.
North Korea produces misery, mainly for domestic consumption.
Click to expand...
"It works extremely well in family and church-sized units."
And it usually works extremely badly at a national level.
 
D

Deleted member 21794

Guest
Arkady said:
You misunderstood. My original numbers were also already inflation-adjusted. Reread.
Click to expand...
No need to reread. The inflation numbers show your first numbers, inflation-adjusted or not, were incorrect. Thanks again for spotting your error.
 
D

Deleted member 21794

Guest
freyasman said:
"It works extremely well in family and church-sized units."
And it usually works extremely badly at a national level.
Click to expand...
Of course, Craig/sear is leaving out the most important part of the equation. "Socialism" at the family and church-size units is voluntary. It is by force at the national level. Only an imbecile or a leftist (OK, so I'm being redundant) would not understand this key difference.
 
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