Now, i prefer to actually shitpost elsewhere, but as a venezuelan myself i have to ask

Brazil here,
How about you choke on my dick OP
You are still capitalist tho

Damn son

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This, really.

What it is isonationalist capitalist. And in doing so it incurs the wrath of international capital which sanctions it, rendering it very weak, but still hundreds of times more livable than the average liberal democracy turned banana republic by a CIA coup in the region.

The most hilarious thing is that conservatives and anti-"globalist"s see Venezuela's capitalism in one country and call isolationism/protrectionism socialism while completely ignoring the hundreds of active trade embargos on it.

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mientrastanto

fucking kek

B E A U TIFUL

Next you want to tell me China is communist or that North Korea is democratic.

Do you think Communism only causes mass starvation

Buddy I have news for you

I'm sorry you feel so strongly about social democracy user, but there's only like two on the board.

Bullshit.
What's your BMI? 18? Any larger and you aren't starving, and shouldn't really be eating infected meat.

Nice

I saw some Venezuelan on 4chan the other day claiming all planks of the communist manifesto had been implemented. Let's take a look shall we?

Nope. Venezuela is the typical Latin American country, with dispossessed natives and big landowners.

venezuelanalysis.com/news/11032

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Nope. Its income tax is a flat (!) 34%.

tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/personal-income-tax-rate

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

Nope

globalpropertyguide.com/Latin-America/Venezuela/Inheritance

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

Cannot find a link but this says nothing about property confiscation

miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article97304827.html

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

Nope.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Banks_of_Venezuela

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

There are some issues with freedom of media but it's not some North Korea type state

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Venezuela

And Venezuela barely has railways and lets companies build them (Venezuela awards contracts worth $2.2 billion to build two new railway lines)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Venezuela

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

It is true that the state has taken a greater role in the economy and agriculture, but not to that degree. There are still massive issues with private ownership and inequality of land and income.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Venezuela

8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

Unemployment is around 7%, a typical capitalist number, so no. Venezuela is still quite unequal.

hdr.undp.org/en/content/income-gini-coefficient

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

Don't think this has happened, if anything it's more urban. However living standards have improved.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-03-07/venezuelans-quality-of-life-improved-in-un-index-under-chavez

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production

Which capitalist country doesn't have this?

The HDI for Venezuela hasn't been updated in a while.

Having running water for only one day a week and the lack of access to medicine (with the government seizing medicine from charities that try to give them for free then throwing it away because fuck you that's why) would probably affect it.

Lmao the amount of bullshit you guys sprout is insane. As if Maduro would ever do something like that.

Venezuelan here. Hola compatriota! my fellow venezuelan friend doesn't understand what's going on right now, he doesn't see the big picture, doesn't analyze beyond what's just in plain sight, what porkies shove to him everyday in newspapers, tv or internet websites.

I'm goint to recommed a website that discusses and publish articles directed to economic matters every now and then about our current situation, what to do etc etc in the framework of trying to implement socialism and how to maneuver in this economic crisis that we are engulfed by a different and varied set of causes. External and internal.

The website is this "www.15yultimo.com" for every spanish speaker that wants to read some of them and form their own opinions.

I'll be back in a while if anybody wants some discussion with a venezuelan (not OP necessarily)

I thought this would nothing but a shitty bait thread. I was wrong.

Took a look and seems good enough

As a Venezuelan, what's your opinion on why thing are so shit?

I thought it had a lot to do with oil prices dropping.

Would co-ops help?

Told you about the state

I've never read the Manifesto, but is this actually part of it?

It doesn't seem consistent with Marx's other writings and a quick Google search only pulls up various conservative websites using the planks to "prove" the US is actually a Marxist state (lol).

"Storing" some goods op?

The "10 Planks" are 10 transitory demands at the end of the Manifesto

Also keep in mind this was 1848

Why?

Interesting.

Unlike other old socialist writings (which are more abstract and timeless in their ideas), the Manifesto seemed to have explicitly been addressing a very specific group in a very specific time and place and thus has little practical relevance today.

I'll probably read it at some point out of historical curiosity, but I'd hardly argue that it's necessary socialist reading.

marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

The prefaces and introduction are longer than the actual work. Just read it already you lazy bastard.

archive.is/SHe2w

Thoughts?

HELL YEAH!

Interesting.

rofl, that's the same as the US. Is Maduro retarded?

OP BTFO BY GLORIOUS SEXTS

You're eating what few pigeons you can get to survive but you're spending time on Holla Forums?

I'm back again

There is some interesting work of one of the economists there. Pasqualina Curcio. She analyzes and provides some facts about the "economic warfare" Maduro and the chavistas refers all the time. (I'm chavista obviously, and in the neverending way of understanding theory, marxist that is, not a simple task)

Oil prices dropping is one of the causes of course. If we had a cake, a pie, called "The Venezuelan Crisis" oil prices dropping would take about 25% of the cake, maybe a little more.

Without the influx of money the high oil prices gave years ago, the government simply don't have maneuver power or a way to handle the attacks of the US backed opposition and the capitalists, businessman, entrepreneur, merchants etc.

Other factors are the following:

1. The capitalists in our country, the opposition, the bourgeoisie are not… mmm how to put it, the term in english would translate to something like "The are not developists" they literally are the worst capitalists ever, they are not interested in developing our country they just leech the state for those petrodollars, THEY DON'T INVEST THEIR OWN MONEY. see Polar. They are just parasites of the state. That was their whole business before Chavez, they could take away all the oil rent the country recived through PDVSA, without investing in social programs whatsoever, they were happy , the people wasn't and what is happening in Mexico right now, happened to us in 1989. Of course the government back then (opposition now) killed a lot of people.

2. The black market dollar exchange rate and the "exchange bike" created in our border with Colombia, that distorted our currency value affecting the prices of almost everything we consume, because everything is imported. Why? Because our "capitalists" didn't produced anything, what the majority of them did was buy things outside and then sell them in here, making a profit out of it. Buy the parts of equipment, automobiles, production lines, motors, machines etc. you name it and then assemble the product. Those were and are most of the factories here.

This is explained in a relatively close way here

15yultimo.com/2016/12/18/entonces-donde-estaban-los-billetes-de-100-bolivares/

… sorry it's in spanish

Factors 1. and 2. make like 30% piece of the "The Venezuelan Crisis" pie.

3. Corruption, weakness in exercising power, fifth columns, opportunists, bad bureucracy, inexperience in handling and operating the newly means of production created, confiscated, recovered, expropiated in all these years. Back and forth policies, you know "testing" "seeing if something works" trying to solve issues using liberal policies, like if we are in ideal conditions etc.
This represents like a 25% piece of the pie i mentioned before

4. Last but not least in my opinion is something akin to what this guy is saying right now most people feel like the whole world is kind of like against us, everybody is throwing shit at us for things their own countries are the worst offenders. The rest of the pie is represented by this.

And is something that reaches hilarious levels everytime i turn CNN en español or read any right-wing or liberal media (what you call your other right wing)

This is also truth

There's some truth to this i pointed out in my third (3) factor before
Yeah right

A dictatorship where everybody does what they want. There are price controls only in paper, capitalists ups their prices everyday speculating and the government does nothing about or simply its overwhelmed by their power meh…

This is the one of the very reasons we are in this mess.
War started the minute Chavez abolished latifundia and large areas of unused land back in 2001. It never stopped their attacks and only increased when Chavez died and Maduro's inexperience took the best of all.

Downright lies. Theres a couple of private companies that controls and owns every brand, almost every food product and they are gambling in this situation, they are in in and using all their power to create a social explosion.

The government failed to operate the means of production and control food production and distribution. That sector remained in the capitalists hands and they are squeezing our people because they control it and they are operating in their own and US interests.

We try that in the beginning with Chavez, didn't take off. They exist right now but are very small and only focused on service companies, transport, industrial equipment maintenance and small businesses.

Co-ops are discredited because the people didn't understand them, the kept thinking like they were in a conventional corporation, enterprise etc…

They needed hierarchy if people remain with that mind set and they do not get the push needed by the state, financing from banks etc… in a dedicated way, planned maybe? they can't get anywhere.

Few succesful cases, on top of that the bourgeois class ate them for breakfast, the ones that tried to show their heads in the market where decapitated hehehe the capitalists here are powerful i tell you.

Well that's it, i'm going to watch The Magnificent Seven (2016) shit i'm alienated, exposed to your culture all my life but what the hell i have to embrace it and try to change and fight what i can.

I'm sorry if i'm not explaining myself or if i sound rather clumsy but obviously english is not my native language.

y a Mexico todavía le falta lidiar con Trump hahaha.

The 10 planks are indeed a part of the manifesto but they're easily the part that's weakest in theory. It makes sense when read in the context of its era, they are definite, achievable goals to work towards in strikes.

Wrong person?

These are by me

Trying to answer everyone, hope i didn't look like an idiot there

Marx is using the so-called "10 planks" as a metric for advanced societies and a mere proof of dialectical materialism, which includes even capitalism and former systems. He says in the 1872 preface "here and there, some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II."

It's ironic and sad, since there far closer to socialism than state control, as it let's workers have a say without sacrificing the market, which is useful when you have limited resources. Unless everything becomes automated, but that's a different story.

Also, do you think Soros or the Kochs are involved?

Very likely but way way back in the shadows. These people have their political and economical lackeys doing their dirty work as usual. Most people here definitely don't know who Soros is.

Something that really surprise me was that the guy if i'm not mistaken is part of the owners of Smartmatic, the company that supplies us with the voting machines… very funny indeed

At the end of the day Venezuela is just a piece of the global, geopolitical game of chess that right now is being played.

Ironically I believe Trump could be less of a threat to us right now. If he really has ties with Putin, then maybe we won't have full blown bold-faced interventionism by the USA, maybe a light version of it.

Yeah. There were cases where workers made irrational demands like grabbing, dismantling equipment and resources from the cooperative, because they "owned the company as well as the others" and weren't organized inside the co-op.

This was the first attempt of Chavez of doing something different. Everyone should remember that Chavez thought in his political beginnings that a Third Way could be possible.

He then changed his mind, when he took office and experienced the fierce attack that his government was subjected to in 2001/2002/2003/2004 by the internal oligarchy and Bush's administration.

youtube.com/watch?v=HZ4W209fjWQ

WATCH

youtube.com/watch?v=hcV8wrY9hZc

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Great post! I always found demand 9 super-weird, but the others make sense.

eluniversal.com/noticias/daily-news/tax-authority-delivers-medicines-ivss-from-abandoned-cargo_628541

That medicine just disappeared. It wasn't given to the CDIs and it wasn't sold to anyone. It's probably expiring in the middle of nowhere right now.

Hmmmm………………

I remember reading that Mondragon was having this same problem with their Chinese workers. They know nothing except doing what they're told, so they need extensive training/indoctrination before they can be made full members of the co op

Because there aren't loads of people starving in the rest of latin america

choke on my dick OP, pinches gusanos

Fuck off

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I'm just pointing out that it's damn strange for someone to be wasting time shitposting on a Filipino tapestryweaving site when his food is so insecure he's eating rats.

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Two articles about inflation through price controls on the front page. Would anybody who is fluent in Spanish post there about this alternative to directly micro-managing prices: MAP (Market Anti-inflation Plan) by David Colander and Abba Lerner? The basic idea is to handle raising prices like pollution, and set up a market for trading with "pollution" permits. That is, there are initial endowments of rights to raise prices by a certain amount during some period, and you can exceed this limit if you buy price-raising permits from those who don't use their price-raising permits.

I read that MAP booklet about a decade ago. If I recall correctly, the proposal did not even entail identifying and classifying goods in any way (that would be open to all sort of confusion as to what items can be considered to be basically the same, and this would lead to trickery with biz trying to redefine what type of product they are selling), instead it was handled similar to the value-added tax.

When you think about it for a bit, you will see that this mechanism also forces oligopolies and monopolists to act as if they had more competition. Of course, for this to work well you need regular checks with test buyers.

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When it causes shit like free education, free medicine, a huge reduction in poverty? Are your parents ex-PDVSA executives?
Fuck you and die, majunche. You have lost and you will never come back again.

Si nunca has pisado suelo venezolano entonces no sabes un carajo, mexicano de mierda.

b8

Your post is bait, majunche. You are a joke.

No da risa marico.

Está fuera de ranking.

Is it hot in here?

Que pasó? se te acabaron los dolares para vender en el mercado negro?

Impressive. Very nice.

Stop buying internet access and spend it on food you complete dumbass.

Venezuela isn't socialist it's just using empty socialist rhetoric to sway the masses, it's capitalist. And furthermore socialism is not responsible for any deaths, it's authoritarian leaders. MLs and state socialism aka SS, are both cancer, I'll concede that much. But, those are not the entirety of socialism.

Is Parenti a huge dick to the hosts at every forum they let him speak?

TBF he was debating Christopher Hitchens…fuck him!

Congratulations, you're in the top 5 of the most retarded posts about Venezuela this month.

1kg of flour costs 3000Bs

1month of internet costs 1000Bs

It's nice to have cheap services.

Are you serious? That's a pretty good argument for Venezuela's system.

Don't know if you're being sarcastic but I can post bills for 1kg on flour and 1 month on internet if you like.

Where do you live? I live in Maracaibo and that shit doesn't go under 5000BsF here.

Fuck off nigger, my point still stands

So you're telling us to just ignore the first part of your post? There isn't anything in the rest of your post that hasn't been said in other threads about Venezuela.

I like how you said "other threads" because you know it's true that no one in THIS thread pointed out how user should've saved his money by not paying for internet access.
Of course not, please take my post to heart, here let me reiterate:

That's the part that I meant to point at with "the first part of your post", and I thought that you were talking about the last paragraph in "my point still stands".

Your post is just stupid bullshit, saying "and spend it on food" just shows how little you know about the cost of food and services in Venezuela. A (somewhat unstable) 1.5/0.5 internet connection costs 272 BsF.

1kg of rice costs 4000-5000 BsF
1kg of cheese costs 6000-6500 BsF
1 egg carton (30 eggs) costs 7000 BsF

With 272 BsF, you can buy 1 egg. That's it. If you cancel your internet service in late December, you can buy 1 more egg in January! Think about how useful that egg will be!

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Helllllooooo NSA! Thank you for continuing to impersonate Venezuelans online when it's 11:00pm in Caracas and actual people are sleeping.

Who in the fuck sleeps at 11pm on a friday night?

People who are hungry and unemployed.

since when do unemployed people sleep?

When do “actual people” sleep?

Pobody, he´s probabluy an Aussie shitposter.

Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador all claimed to be """21st Century Socialism""". 2/3 isn't bad for an end result.

Ask you self the question.

How comes Bolivia, which has a similar system as Venezuela not spiralled out of control?

And why is Mexico which has NOT a similar system as Venezuela going through the same shit as you do right now?

Maybe the problem isn't the system. Maybe your particular problem has something more to do with Mexico than with Bolivia.

see

that website is just part of the government's media program to "combat ‘fake’ news" misionverdad.com/

You cannot have socialism in one country.
You cannot have socialism along with capitalism.
State capitalism isn't socialism.

Fuck off.

ANTV was owned by the National Assembly (not the government) before the opposition won.

>On January 4, 2016 there were complaints from several employees of mass layoffs channel and loss of equipment. The ANTV Foundation has argued that no layoffs had happened because the former ANTV was liquidated and the new channel had not yet begun. ANTV Foundation also has denied the theft of equipment.

some real porky shit right there

Maybe this is why Venezuelans are poor.

There are privately owned stores and companies in Venezuela. Venezuela is social democrat like Scandinavian countries.

Is one egg worth more than internet for a month to you?

Venezuela.
Capitalism ruled by oligarchy, shitpost regarding socialism and communism.

In a starving shithole like Venezuela? Yes.

One egg gives you less than half of a breakfast, and it doesn't fill you as much as being distracted by looking at dumb shit on the net.

Whatever keeps me alive.