There is the old joke of a man who propositioned a woman by telling her he would pay her $25,000 for one evening of certain, um, favors.
"Wow!" she exclaimed. "Twenty-five thousand dollars for a couple of hours? Sure!"
"Well then," he said, " what about doing it for twenty-five dollars?"
"What kind of woman do you think I am?" she angrily replied.
"Oh, I have already learned that. Now we're just haggling over price."
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| Venezuela's late-stage socialism |
The horrendous history of China, the USSR, and their imitators, should have permanently discredited socialism as completely as fascism was discredited by the Nazis. But it has not – so far – fully done so.But all is well, comrades, because fairness!
Just recently, the socialist government of Venezuela imposed forced labor on much of its population. Yet most of the media coverage of this injustice fails to note the connection to socialism, or that the policy has parallels in the history of the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and other similar regimes. One analysis even claims that the real problem is not so much “socialism qua socialism,” but rather Venezuela’s “particular brand of socialism, which fuses bad economic ideas with a distinctive brand of strongman bullying,” and is prone to authoritarianism and “mismanagement.” The author simply ignores the fact that “strongman bullying” and “mismanagement” are typical of socialist states around the world. The Scandinavian nations – sometimes cited as examples of successful socialism- are not actually socialist at all, because they do not feature government ownership of the means of production, and in many ways have freer markets than most other western nations.
Venezuela’s tragic situation would not surprise anyone familiar with the history of the Great Leap Forward. ...
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