The nation that proves oil wealth can be used to help the poor [Archive]

JAG

08-21-2005, 04:18

Though I am sure the normal fanatics will come with the same response's and not even read the article, I hope some of the more open minded patrons will read the article and realise that there is huge merit in what Chavez has done and is doing, it is unparelled in South America, even after US intervention and behaviour more in line with terrorists than the 'freedom bringing messiah'.

Who can deny the good that is being done? Who can deny what the left tries to bring to those who have worked hard and not be able to gain anything?

The nation that proves oil wealth can be used to help the poor
Venzuela´s Salsa revolution

Latin America is a graveyard of false prophets. On every corner there is a reminder of the political Messiahs who failed. Bolivar, Che, Evita, Fidel - all are remembered in statues and wall paintings that look out over a continent now almost as poor and unfree as Africa. But something is rumbling here in the barrios around Caracas, something that is causing tremors that are felt in the White House and every poor country in the world. A Salsa revolution is spreading out from the slums of Venezuela, and it is the first in Latin
America to be both totally democratic and slowly, startlingly effective.

But to begin this story, I have to take you on a tour of the Old Venezuela. Barrio Nueva Tacagua is a shanty-town in the high hills that sprawl around Caracas, built by the government at the height of the 1970s oil boom. The hundreds of homes here are made of pressed cardboard and rusting tin. They are connected by paths made of more of the same, with the odd old bedspread tossed in.

The barrio nestles in what looks like a river of trash and shit. Because there is no rubbish collection, because the sewers cannot cope with solids, everything is simply thrown further downhill, in the hope it will rot away. Children with old, lined faces play there. Gladys De Tarate lives in a swollen sardine tin with her four children, her husband, and her mother. She tells me, “This land was never meant to be built on. It is not safe. We are on a fault-line, and we feel like we are waiting for the next mudslide, like the ones in 1999 that killed tens of thousands of people.” But there are more immediate worries: when it rains, the water acquires crashes downhill so fast it can carry cars and homes with it. Last month, it took a small girl.

In the early eighties, the government sent some trailers here and boasted about it for years – but they were unbearably hot, “like ovens on the inside”, one man explains, and had to be trashed. The public sector was virtually non-existent: nobody here saw a doctor except in the most extreme emergencies, and the school closed for three years after the roof caved in.

This is the life that was given to the eighty percent of mostly brown-skinned Venezuelans, locked out of the country’s white oligarchy under forty years of corrupt psuedo-democracy.

This Venezuela is collapsing. Not just metaphorically but literally. The barrios are sagging down the hills; homes disappear in landslides every other month. And – as a result of the slow-burn social revolution here - these communities are (at last) being relocated or rebuilt as part of what everybody here calls “the process.”

To understand how The Process began, you have to go back to 1991 – the year the old Venezuela reached its nadir. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) demanded the elected government of Carlos Perez cut the tiny thread of government support provided to places like Barrio Nueva Tacagua. As ever, they put their own neoliberal ideology – small government, low taxes, make everyone pay for public services – above democracy. Even though Perez had campaigned on precisely the opposite platform, he gave in. The price of food quadrupled, unemployment soared, and the meager scraps of public services available to the poor were cut. The barrios erupted. The government’s response? A massacre of over 500 people. Residents of this barrio remember machine-gun toting soldiers arriving on the day of the uprising. They shot a man and tossed his body downhill. The protests ended.

But from this IMF-ed up chaos, they explain, an alternative emerged. A left-wing Venezuelan general, Hugo Chávez, began to articulate an alternative to the neoliberalism that had been imposed on Latin America for over two decades – the neoliberalism that has created the slowest economic growth and the highest inequality in living memory. In 1998 he was elected President. Since then, he has been approved – in free, open elections and referenda – no less than seven times.

The Chávez Process is made flesh in a woman called Maria González who I stumbled across in one of Venezuela’s roughest barrios. She is a 60 year old woman with a determined face and a sweet swarm of grandchildren buzzing around her. She was sitting in a class in one of the tens of thousands of educational ‘missions’ established by the Chávez government. After the government doubled education spending, the barrios are now filled with new schools. These aren’t just for children, but for the adult majority who were failed by the education system.

Maria explains that, in the old Venezuela, most people left school at the age of 12. She wasn’t even that lucky - she wasn’t educated at all. Like millions of Venezuelans, in the midst of spurting oil wealth she was left illiterate and innumerate. She brandishes a piece of chalk with a smile, and slowly, carefully, writes her name on a blackboard. She turns to me and offers a small nod. “I have worked all my life like a mule. But now I will not die as ignorant as a mule,” she says.

In every barrio, I seek out the medical missions, one of the other jewels of the new Venezuela. These are freshly minted clinics – acquired with the country’s oil wealth - where the poor are seeing doctors, often for the first time in their lives. Thousands of sickly Marias troop through for medicine every week: I met many who said they would be dead without the Missions. Often, those of us concerned about human rights think only in negative terms – a massacre here, a prison there. But all across Venezuela I keep finding the polar opposite of massacres in the missions: people mown back to health with medicine-bullets. They have even appeared in Barrio Nueva Tacagua while its residents wait for relocation.

Despite all this, the democratizing process in
Venezuela has been subject to torrential demonisation and even a (briefly successful) coup. I’ll be talking more about the opposition next week, but the core reason for these assaults on Venezuela’s elected government is stark. Oil wealth is supposed to trickle (no, cascade) upwards to multinational corporations, not downwards towards the poor. The President sitting on the largest pot of oil outside the Middle East is not supposed to listen to his people and spend his country’s petrodollars on education and health. He is not supposed to increase taxes on the likes of Haliburton from a negligible 1% to 30% in order to pay for schools and hospitals for people like Gladys and Maria.

A classroom, a hospital, a barrio: these might sound like unlikely locations for a social revolution. In Europe, we take it for granted that our governments should provide these services for the poor. But on a continent which has had neoliberalism undemocratically forced down its throat for decades, it has taken a Salsa revolution – the loud, proud call from the barrios of Venezuela - to produce social democracy.

The Independent - 19/08/2005

Red Harvest

08-21-2005, 04:31

As I've said before, I supported reforms in Venezuela. It's problems were stereotypical and the IMF is not much help in such matters.

However, my problem is with the way Chavez is posturing internationally as well as indications that he favors Cuban/Russian/Chinese style communism. If he wants to work on a nuke program with countries like Iran (as he has stated), support leftist guerrilla's and work actively against the U.S., then I think we should entertain various ways of removing him from power before he becomes a real threat.

Soulforged

08-21-2005, 05:13

I agree with that, but as always seing policts from a moral point of view is always wrong, they always are playing between hell and heaven, in the end "the end justifies the way (that's how english say it?)".
I don't like that the article say that el Che or Evita failed, they don't failed. El Che Guevara was about to make a revolution on Argentina, and then he failed, but in Cuba he achived all (it's a shame tha Fidel Castro threw it all to the trash). Evita was one of the best builders and progresists here, but she never failed, she just well...died.

Redleg

08-21-2005, 05:17

I agree with that, but as always seing policts from a moral point of view is always wrong, .

I would like to know how someone from South America feels about the efforts of Chavez. I know what is reported - but its often skewed by the political desires of the reporter.

Can you provide any insight to the issue, Soulforged?

Soulforged

08-21-2005, 05:36

I would like to know how someone from South America feels about the efforts of Chavez. I know what is reported - but its often skewed by the political desires of the reporter.

Can you provide any insight to the issue, Soulforged?

You mean like my insight or my countries insight. I would say you this:
I see Chavez as the product of years of economical and political isolation, degradation, opression and manipulation of Latin America. I don't see any man in politics like a good person, but here we need revolutionary people or at least people wich takes decitions fast. Chavez is providing socialism at least to calm down the destruction that capitalism and specially neoliberalism does. But is hard to do so in a place where you are pressed by all sides.
Even so, for now i'll stick to my view of a demagoge, but without denying that demagoges sometimes do instead of just talk.
For my country's side, well... I really don't know, here most people are exhausted of hearing to politics and liars, and corrupts, and i'm not the exception, but i know something because i study laws in the UBA (the greatest public university in Argentina), so i will say that Chavez is just another subject of background. Argentinians are too worried to view anothers country politics, and the ones that can made some time (the rich of course), most are against Chavez politics for being a socialist (or at least is what him sais), the ones who aren't are either, politics (who should never be trusted) or philantropes that cares for giving to the poor, so that way they can stay in the position (at least is how i see it).

Red Harvest

08-21-2005, 05:46

My Venezuelan friends had rather mixed opinions of him when I asked around the time of the coup. They had relatives on both sides, and one in govt who I believe was detained briefly.

Crazed Rabbit

08-21-2005, 06:03

Soulforged

08-21-2005, 07:28

How long, I wonder, will they be able to tax the companies before they destroy them? Before he drives all business out and all that's left are slums, like Cuba?

Oh, and if Chavez is such a great guy, why has he seized control of newspapers that speak against him, and criminalized protesting or even speaking against the gov't? Care to explain?

Crazed Rabbit

No politic is meant to be a great guy. Bush isn't, Roosvelt wasn't, Julius Caesar sure wasn't. The personal feelings and moral should be out of the question to any politics that has some selfrespect. And as i said, not everybody, even here, sees Chavez like a "good guy".
The thing with the newspaper can be done for the lack of loyalty on administration and the little real power that people has. Anyway if the things start to go smoother from now on, i asure you that all Velezolans will forget about the limited freedom of the press for a long time. Your country is proud of the freedom of any kind (tough i don't know it's such as everybody paints it) that they've, but here the great majority of the people starts for thinking if they'll survive another day without starving to death, die of some desease, being killed by extremists or terrorist, being rob or killed by one buck...do you get the picture?

lars573

08-21-2005, 15:54

No politic is meant to be a great guy. Bush isn't, Roosvelt wasn't, Julius Caesar sure wasn't. The personal feelings and moral should be out of the question to any politics that has some selfrespect. And as i said, not everybody, even here, sees Chavez like a "good guy".
The thing with the newspaper can be done for the lack of loyalty on administration and the little real power that people has. Anyway if the things start to go smoother from now on, i asure you that all Velezolans will forget about the limited freedom of the press for a long time. Your country is proud of the freedom of any kind (tough i don't know it's such as everybody paints it) that they've, but here the great majority of the people starts for thinking if they'll survive another day without starving to death, die of some desease, being killed by extremists or terrorist, being rob or killed by one buck...do you get the picture?
I get the picture I always have. But I think south america and communist europe and asia are proof that the unretrained implementation of socialist and capitalist ideals in a nation lead to inequality, poverty, and oppression. In countries like Chile, Bolivia, and Venezuela where capitalist/neoliberal ideas were put into practice made the country poorer and worse off than they were before. And in eastern europe and east asia (and Cuba) the "communist" governments there impelemented socialist ideals woth out restraint and it also made the nation poorer and worse off than they were. In both cases you had all the power concentrated in an elite. In the capitalist nations in south america you had the power in the hands of the wealthest families, in the communist countries the loyal party followers had all the power. But in both cases it leads to the vast majority getting bent over a table (and ass-raped by those in power). When what is really needed is equal parts socialism and capitalism in the running of a government.

Also Soulforged you keep saying politic when you should be using politician. That is the english term for a person involved in governing politics (like a president or senator or king). And it's the ends justify the means in english too. Hope you don't take this the wrong way I'm just trying to make your posts easier for me to read. I really want to hear what you have to say.

Soulforged

08-21-2005, 21:56

Oh no, i like being evaluated, in fact that's my politics, thanks lars. ~:cheers:
But you're wrong in the case of Cuba. Before Castro, Batista was a puppet of USA (tough yankees will say i can't prove it), he followed the politics in favour of the yankees and left his people in misery, the yankees banks received a lot of profits in that period, and that's why so many people supported the revolution on the first place including "El Che". The "communism" of Fidel improved many things on Cuba, specially education, but yes it's not communism and it has a limited freedom of expression, but as i said, to a country on misery that's the last important thing. You've to think more in terms of actions that leads to the more benefial end than in terms of ideal liberation, when the economic background in asured then you can think in the rest. The communist nations (i keep saying) implemented little of the socialist ideas, they never tended to make the people a community but to make some elite group richer than the others and at the same time make the others stay in their places and shuted up. El Che belived in that, Fidel Castro was just the result of a man too ambitious to be in power of a socialist-communist nation, i really don't know what will happen when he dies, he is the pillar of the "communist" party there and a great politician.
The situation here is difficult to explain clearly, and more difficult is to explain it's causes. But in general the opening of third world commerces to the rest of the world, wich implies the incoming of powerful competitors, was the first cause for the situation. The corruption took it's tool too, but it grew when the commerce was opened.

lars573

08-21-2005, 23:16

IIRC Fidel has set up Cuba so that when he kicks it his brother Raul or one of Raul's kids become president. He also made most governmental positions below president elected. But even though Fidel runs an autoritarian regime he has made things better for the common Cubans, even if only marginally. Education is decent and universal, health care is free and mostly acessable. Still I get what you mean by if you worry about where your next meal is coming from or if your tarpaper wellfare shack is going to blow over in the next strong wind personal freedoms mean exactly jack and shit, and jack left town.

Papewaio

08-21-2005, 23:27

The nation that proves oil wealth can be used to help the poor: Norway.

Gawain of Orkeny

08-22-2005, 00:32

The nation that proves oil wealth can be used to help the poor:

Isnt this a non sequitur. I mean whats to prove? Is there any doubt that wealth no matter where it comes from can be used to help the poor? Maybe a better title for this thread woud be the nation that proves robbing from the rich can help the poor but again that goes wothout saying.

Redleg

08-22-2005, 00:46

You mean like my insight or my countries insight. I would say you this:

Either is fine - since the media often protrays things that are really not there. I like personal opinion better since its what you know and understand, but a good local editorial on the subject is perfectly fine also.

I see Chavez as the product of years of economical and political isolation, degradation, opression and manipulation of Latin America. I don't see any man in politics like a good person, but here we need revolutionary people or at least people wich takes decitions fast. Chavez is providing socialism at least to calm down the destruction that capitalism and specially neoliberalism does. But is hard to do so in a place where you are pressed by all sides.
Even so, for now i'll stick to my view of a demagoge, but without denying that demagoges sometimes do instead of just talk.

Thats good - can you expound on the effect Chavez is having on "calming down the destruction," I find the term interesting in the aspect that you used it - and wish to understand how come you chose that term.

For my country's side, well... I really don't know, here most people are exhausted of hearing to politics and liars, and corrupts, and i'm not the exception, but i know something because i study laws in the UBA (the greatest public university in Argentina), so i will say that Chavez is just another subject of background. Argentinians are too worried to view anothers country politics, and the ones that can made some time (the rich of course), most are against Chavez politics for being a socialist (or at least is what him sais), the ones who aren't are either, politics (who should never be trusted) or philantropes that cares for giving to the poor, so that way they can stay in the position (at least is how i see it).

Thanks.

JAG

08-22-2005, 01:19

The nation that proves oil wealth can be used to help the poor: Norway.

Agreed, but Chavez ain't doing a bad job either.

Gawain of Orkeny

08-22-2005, 01:20

Agreed, but Chavez ain't doing a bad job either.

Says you. ~:)

JAG

08-22-2005, 01:31

Says you. ~:)

Yes, how observant.

So what is Chavez doing so wrong then, real things rather than made up US media things, please.

And are you denying the great steps being made by Chavez, as the article states, is anything but good?

Soulforged

08-22-2005, 02:11

Thats good - can you expound on the effect Chavez is having on "calming down the destruction," I find the term interesting in the aspect that you used it - and wish to understand how come you chose that term.

Well i read very well english and spell it very well too, but writing it.... :help:
What i mean with calming the destruction is simple: capitalism works, between other things, by creating two classes -capitalists and workers- the socialists politcs and actions -for example increasing education, pensions, social assistence- from the keynesian model or the benefactor state try to do exactly the oposite this way decreasing the differences between clases. If you ask me it fails, because as i always said the problem is in the model and no politics could help if the economy still needs for two classes to work.

Redleg

08-22-2005, 03:14

Well i read very well english and spell it very well too, but writing it.... :help:
What i mean with calming the destruction is simple: capitalism works, between other things, by creating two classes -capitalists and workers- the socialists politcs and actions -for example increasing education, pensions, social assistence- from the keynesian model or the benefactor state try to do exactly the oposite this way decreasing the differences between clases. If you ask me it fails, because as i always said the problem is in the model and no politics could help if the economy still needs for two classes to work.

Okay I think I understand what you are saying.

Crazed Rabbit

08-22-2005, 04:24

So what is Chavez doing so wrong then, real things rather than made up US media things, please.

Perhaps you missed this:

Oh, and if Chavez is such a great guy, why has he seized control of newspapers that speak against him, and criminalized protesting or even speaking against the gov't? Care to explain?

Crazed Rabbit

Soulforged

08-22-2005, 04:26

And perhaps you missed my post after yours...

Seamus Fermanagh

08-22-2005, 04:50

Papewaio

08-22-2005, 05:09

The capitalism you describe, workers and owners locked into their respective roles with no changes possible, existed (exists?) only where the pre-existing culture favored a rigid class or caste system. That is a result of the pre-existing cultural structure, NOT of capitalism.

This is why I think education should be run by the state (with private ones to cater for special interest groups) so that everyone has the knowledge sets to choose their career and that you are not locked into your education path by the wealth of your parents. The best students get the best education regardless of parental class.

Gawain of Orkeny

08-22-2005, 05:34

This is why I think education should be run by the state

This is why I think it shouldnt.

(with private ones to cater for special interest groups) so that everyone has the knowledge sets to choose their career and that you are not locked into your education path by the wealth of your parents.

All schools here used to be private and yet people still rose from poverty to the upper class. Free education like free anything makes you less appreciative of iit. I found that out real fast in college when I discovered they didnt care if you showed for class or not like in HS as they had your money. If you fail you can give them more and take the class over.

Soulforged

08-22-2005, 05:39

Soul:

I understand your point, but disagree with the premise. Nothing inherent in Capitalism requires that you stay a "worker." You too, through hard work, luck, intelligence, can acquire capital and put it to use. The capitalism you describe, workers and owners locked into their respective roles with no changes possible, existed (exists?) only where the pre-existing culture favored a rigid class or caste system. That is a result of the pre-existing cultural structure, NOT of capitalism.

Good stuff on this thread, I'm learning a lot about Chavez and Venez'

I wouldl't label Batista a U.S. Puppet. We generally worked to keep our puppets in power. He and his administration were corrupt enough to make one start thinking about RTW 1.0 diplomats and briberies.

SF

Well you interpreted me wrong then. The point is that x number of the members of any given capitalist society has to be capitalists (without them the very word that describes the economic model will lost sense) and another y number must remain workers. One without the other are pointless, but specially capitalists because to mantain that privileged position that they keep without working they need the workers. You would be right about the persistence of the culture, because for what i understand USA was at the beggining a country of laborers instead of capitalists, but you will be wrong with that broad assumption, here it was not for culture but for political issues (i can't explain it here, is too large, and is part of history). Anyway this is not a discussion about capitalism vs. socialism-communism, it had been discussed before.

And i would still call Batista a puppet. This is my definition of it: weak figure with lack of character to remain on and apply power, that needs the support of others to make his government legitim. The supporters will be USA. Why? Because they needed (need?) an open Cuba to commerce and crush it's economy, it doesn't matter if the crushing is intended or not, eventually some weak group of companies will be crushed, it happened so many times...

Soulforged

08-22-2005, 05:47

This is why I think it shouldnt.

All schools here used to be private and yet people still rose from poverty to the upper class. Free education like free anything makes you less appreciative of iit. I found that out real fast in college when I discovered they didnt care if you showed for class or not like in HS as they had your money. If you fail you can give them more and take the class over.

And you will be wrong. Information and ideas should run free of charge, because of what they are and for the sake of evolution and progress. Here the public ones are the more visited and the ones that give more importance to your title (even internationally), also the ones with more qualified profesors and with more qualified egresants (the ones that recieve the title).
I asure you one thing: if you end with the intelectual property and with all the restrictions to knowledge and information use, there will be much more interest on taking it and learn. Most of the people here are disuaded exactly because private education on their field of interest/talent is too expensive.

Papewaio

08-22-2005, 05:55

All schools here used to be private and yet people still rose from poverty to the upper class. Free education like free anything makes you less appreciative of iit. I found that out real fast in college when I discovered they didnt care if you showed for class or not like in HS as they had your money. If you fail you can give them more and take the class over.

In Australia you only go into a private university if you don't have the brains to get into a public one. It is a competitive system with a quota of places in each course at each university, and the universities will also compete for the best students (PhD poaching is quite common).

So if you have the goods you do it for free. If you don't have it then you can pay your way through... same as foreign students do as well.

Del Arroyo

08-22-2005, 08:20

Bah! I had a nice, medium-length, coherent post on this, and then internet explorer crashed. I hate that. Too late at night to try and recover much of it but anyway basically--

Chavez's recent reforms are in many ways superficial. He has used the unanticipated boon of high oil prices to buy some freebies for the poor, but the underlying economy remains weak. In many ways this has always been a problem for Venezuela-- too much being focused on oil and other sectors not getting developed.

It is also a fact that Chavez, through his wrong-headed, confrontational style of politics, brought on several years of political and economic chaos which devastated Venezuela. I was there last in 2003-- thing were not pretty. Poverty increased dramatically, and Caracas became an extremely violent city. Small businesses were going bankrupt left and right, and the only people who supported Chavez were the very poor, who had nothing to lose, and some of the passively rich, who also had nothing to lose.

I can't comment much on the current situation, I've been out of touch-- but I imagine things have leveled out a bit. It is at least evident that Chavez has effectively smothered the political crisis-- which, practically, is a good thing. I also imagine that things are a bit better economically, and that people are not as pressed as they were before.

But I can guarantee you that the economy is still fundamentally weak, and definitely weaker than when Chavez took power. Chavez can use $60-a-barrel oil prices to build as many token schools and cart around as many Cuban doctors as he likes-- but he cannot solve Venezuela's problems without more sustainable changes, without creating a new foundation for Venezuela to build upon (nearly all the foundation that existed before he has ripped out).

I am not saying that the Chavez "revolution" will necessarily end badly-- I am just asking you all to take it in its context, in terms of what has actually happened.

DA

AntiochusIII

08-22-2005, 08:38

Lazul

08-22-2005, 11:31

To make things simple I just say I agree with JAG on this one :bow:

Del Arroyo

08-22-2005, 22:28

Well a good example, Lazul, would be Venezuela's democratic institutions, which before existed and now do not. You could argue that the institutions before were corrupt, but what is left is effectively a one-party state; which is basically just talking the talk, handing out freebies, and putting out daily propaganda broadcasts.

If Chavez's regime is positive, it is only so in comparison to certain aspects of previous ones. In my opinion it is hollow.

DA

Soulforged

08-23-2005, 01:20

So you're saying that Chavez practically cleansed the entire country's economy and now have to rebuild it back from zero, then? Well, I haven't actually visited Venezuela so I can't really take a stand about Chavez. And I think that by "capitalists" Soulforged meant the word in its negative form. Capitalists as "fat yankee monopolising all the businesses, bribing officials, 'stealing' 'our' resources, etc." rather than capitalists as those people who support the free market. You know, the Banana Republic style.

Anyway, what's the US media saying about Chavez?

And you will be wrong. I mean capitalists in the only way that there's. Man who doesn't work and adds to production bia "putting money", inversions, sort of that. They don't need to be corrupt, only by standing in a position above the others is sufficient to me to look bad at they, and it's worse the kind of capitalists (like our actual president) that talks about being on the side of the workers but he don't fight with them, he only uses the traditional ways of the "left" and a little of bla, bla, bla. If you truly support the workers you must leave your position and put your money at the disposition of the community, simple as that. If you look at the term capitalists technically you'll see what i'm talking about.
I'll say only this, if you want to see if the government of Chavez if one of progress (therefor good) then at the end of the year it must be like this: civil order and economic stats better than the year before, period. And i've already sayed that i see Chavez as a demagoge, maybe a good politician, but as i say wait until the end of the year, or if that doesn't result look at the end of the leadership.

Papewaio

08-23-2005, 01:41

Redleg

08-23-2005, 02:23

Name a social animal that doesn't have a social hierachy?

Even chickens have a social hierachy. Guess where the worse fighting happens? When chickens can't figure out what the pecking order is they then fight it out.

And the loser sometimes gets eaten by the other chickens in the chickenhouse.

Chickens are dirty nastly crap (edit: not crab as initially written) eating cannibals. How I hate chickens.

ICantSpellDawg

08-23-2005, 03:42

Soulforged

08-23-2005, 04:30

Name a social animal that doesn't have a social hierachy?

Even chickens have a social hierachy. Guess where the worse fighting happens? When chickens can't figure out what the pecking order is they then fight it out.

Making everyone socially equal achieves nothing other then being PC.

Giving everyone the ability to be socially mobile (both the skills, responsibility and accountability) is a better solution IMDHO.

Hey go PETA!! And the "civil" animal movement!! :dizzy2:

LOL- This is beatiful. You're trying to compare the complex social structure full of mental structures, laws and mutual economic relationships, with an animal one. The whole point of evolve is to separate us from our craddle. We did it with aliments, with sleeping, habitat and sex. Marx said it's time to do it with society. Let's evolve. We've anuled or deminished every single one of our instincts to make it a more rational and social orientated life.
And it seems you hate equal people, who gains equally and truly equal before the law. And again nothing is socially mobile in capitalism, you need capitalists and you need workers, always.

Papewaio

08-23-2005, 04:48

You're trying to compare the complex social structure full of mental structures, laws and mutual economic relationships, with an animal one.

We are animals that are self aware. We are animals with ideas... those ideas that you despise are the only thing that separates us from animals.

And it seems you hate equal people, who gains equally and truly equal before the law.

How do I hate people? By giving them an equal chance to perform?

And what does making everyone socially equal do? Is it equal rights, vote, access to health and education?

Sorry to inform you of this not everyone actually is equal even after given the oppourtunity. We all have different attributes, likes and talents. You do not make a football team purely of strikers. What difference would it make if we were all workers or all capitalists... would this be a more happy and productive society?

And again nothing is socially mobile in capitalism, you need capitalists and you need workers, always.

And if you are self employed? What are you then?

Let's evolve. We've anuled or deminished every single one of our instincts to make it a more rational and social orientated life.

Really? I don't think so. We are humans, are emotional and irrational side is an evolutionary strength. It is what binds us together and our irrational side allows us to be unpredicatable which is an evolutionary strength. Combined with our rational side and ability to think a few steps ahead we have the ability to think of more strategies and to modify.

Soulforged

08-23-2005, 05:30

For the last time don't turn my words, i don't dispise ideas. Ideas don't exist so you've to reward actual work. And that's, ladies and gentlement, how you make society equal. Equal work = equal reward. No teory will ever pretend to achieve perfect equalty or individual equalty, but all being rewarded the same, treated the same by law (not necessarly the state), by other people in the objectives relationships (no more domination of man over man), being educated the same and being treated equally by you specially ~;) (naturalist to the grave he? ~;) ) cannot be wrong, is that simple. It's wrong to make social differences between people, for no material reason at all, and then saying the ones below, hey accept it, you will work for us the rest of your misserable life. Can't you see that. Is the very idea of communism, but if you can see something simple as that, like something good then i wish you to be the capitalist the rest of your life and keep your position man, so you don't suffer as those one's below.
I will give you a simple explanation for what you're wrong in this statement:

"We are animals that are self aware. We are animals with ideas... those ideas that you despise are the only thing that separates us from animals."

The freedom is nothing when you face animals. So you're right, the actual societies are animals vs. wish to be human. An human can only be free can only be complete among equals, having an equal to reflect, and to have some freedom of action beyond animal instincts. We're animals, but we're trying to become humans, some as you perhaps don't want it. For that the individuals unite and create a language, they give something to share and make them equals, and that separates us from animals. Again somebody appears to need some actualization. Naturalism (positive science) is out of the question in social matters, for that we have social science that doesn't work the same way. If you want to do analogies then don't do it like PETA, do it like Marx, like Habermas, Castoriadis, Hegel, Weber (tough he was a liberal), etc.
You don't give them an equal chance to perform, you just give them the illusion of that. Some may aquire the status of "high class", wich only reproduces this patologic society, some others may achieve the "middle class" being always between hell and heaven and trying forever to imitate one of the other two. But some others, idealists, will stay as they're, workers, because the capitalist system needs them.
I can't asure if you'll be more happy, but you've too many perjudices against equalty, and you don't want to see it for what it's, simple community what society has tried to get from the begginings of time, again the reconcilation of society with itself. What i can asure you is that we'll be more productive and many more than now lie death because the system marginalized them (because they had no talent as you say or for the simple mechanism of offer and demand) and they starved to death would like to be in it, and others will be saved.
Yes the selfemployed. Ok you've a point there. But how will make a selfemployee to do when all he sees is high multinationals competitors? Or when the market satures of selfemployee? Well there you have the response. He maybe mobile, but not for much time, at least not the great majority of them. But even so you're again missing the central point here "NO MATERIAL DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER BETWEEN THE MEMBERS OF A SOCIAL STRUCTURE". Reciprocal iqualty, community, you're human, i'm human, you see me and treat me like one and i do the same.
Finally. Irrational strenght and evolving? ~:confused: .Do you really believe it? Care what you're saying man. Irrationality has been the factor that more and more has kept us close to animals and not close to humanity. One of the many elements that distincts humanity is freedom and rationality, irrationality surpreses freedom because you are binded to your emotions, and that are words of Aristoteles not mine. That's what makes the human (politics) and the others barbarians or gods.

Gawain of Orkeny

08-23-2005, 05:45

Yes this guy sounds wonderful

Twenty years ago, however, after paternalistic politicians began to mismanage the country's lucrative petroleum-based economy, Venezuela's people began to look for a savior. In 1998, they turned to Hugo Chávez Frías, a charismatic army officer who once tried to overthrow a legitimately elected president and now promised voters that he would carry out a revolution against corrupt politicians to help the country's majority poor.

Once elected, Chávez instead manipulated the constitution to increase his own powers, bullied opponents, and alienated key sectors of society. Beyond Venezuela's borders, he encouraged leftist movements in neighboring countries and forged ties with the world's pariah regimes. As corruption and poverty increased, the business community and labor joined disillusioned citizens in the streets to protest. By February 2002, senior military officers were calling for the president to step down.

On April 11, when between 100,000 to 200,000 protesters marched on the presidential palace, Chávez shut down the media. When assailants fired into the crowd, dissident officers told the president they no longer supported him and asked him to resign. On the spot, they assembled a transitional government; but then, as the improvised junta made mistake after mistake, the military withdrew its backing and restored Chávez to power.

LINK (http://www.heritage.org/Research/LatinAmerica/BG1545.cfm)

Papewaio

08-23-2005, 05:50

Finally. Irrational strenght and evolving? .Do you really believe it? Care what you're saying man. Irrationality has been the factor that more and more has kept us close to animals and not close to humanity.

A strategy that is predictable is soon defeated with experience. The reason the TW AI is easy to beat is that it is predictable.

And I did say that it is combined with our rationality that gives us the true strength.

You don't give them an equal chance to perform, you just give them the illusion of that. Some may aquire the status of "high class", wich only reproduces this patologic society, some others may achieve the "middle class" being always between hell and heaven and trying forever to imitate one of the other two. But some others, idealists, will stay as they're, workers, because the capitalist system needs them.

Middle class in Australia is hardly between heaven and hell. In Aus we all have an equal chance at higher education. So what if someone comes from a richer family and their parents help them? What is wrong with parents helping their own children?

I live in a country that is a capitalist and socialist combination.

Equal work = equal reward.

My variation is equal output = equal reward. Trying to make a cake is no where as good as making one.

We're animals, but we're trying to become humans, some as you perhaps don't want it.

We are all humans and all humans are animals. I like animals, I just see us as having evolved a self aware brain and the ability to communicate which makes us all special. We should look after our weak and old, that is a good human trait. I also define evil as denying the humanity in others. So by no means do I deny other humans being human.

I don't think the government system is as important as its accountability.

Soulforged

08-23-2005, 06:42

A strategy that is predictable is soon defeated with experience. The reason the TW AI is easy to beat is that it is predictable.

And your point? How irrationality interfers here?

And I did say that it is combined with our rationality that gives us the true strength.

Yes i saw it. But water and oil doesn't mix.

Middle class in Australia is hardly between heaven and hell. In Aus we all have an equal chance at higher education. So what if someone comes from a richer family and their parents help them? What is wrong with parents helping their own children?

I live in a country that is a capitalist and socialist combination.

Perhaps you don't understand what it's heaven and hell. Heaven is the high class and hell is the poor class (beautiful discrimination of capitalism), when i said that they are between is that they are trying to imitate one or the other, but never reaching the low ground or the higher floor. So you have education. Are all rewarded as equals. Not. Again you missed my point. You can make circles around capitalism all that you want, differences will spread and you cannot fix it by putting your hands in all the holds. Socialism applied to capitalism doesn't makes the classes fade away it keeps it by giving the illusion of opportunity and of diminished differences between classes.

My variation is equal output = equal reward. Trying to make a cake is no where as good as making one.

Equal output of what? Care to explain. Idealizing the cake is not as productive as making it.

We are all humans and all humans are animals. I like animals, I just see us as having evolved a self aware brain and the ability to communicate which makes us all special. We should look after our weak and old, that is a good human trait. I also define evil as denying the humanity in others. So by no means do I deny other humans being human.

I don't think the government system is as important as its accountability

Wrong, obsolete naturalist/positivist scientific point of view of society. Again you seem to ignore all the ideal that surrounds humans and all the material that supports it in the objective relationships (in few words economics). You're ignoring the hard work of the developers of the social science, i sited a few before. Self aware brain doesn't make you an human, the monkeys (i don't know how you call chimpances) show state "re",wich is a sign of self awareness. You don't deny humanity explicity, you do it in an implicit way, when you try to keep the social structure of the differents. Aristoteles (siting again) said that the outsiders and not politicians were no humans, they were barbarians or gods. The greeks considered themselves as equals (far from reality) and that's why they were free. The one that doesn't have all the means that the other has it's not free (an absurd of liberalism), so as it's not free and is still a prisoner of his senses, he cannot evolve beyond that and become an human, and even if he could,without others humans to look at you're alone and are not free because you don't have choices. But to put it simple to the most materialist way (tough the things before were materialist), the one that doesn't has the money of the other is not as free as the other, or not free at all, so it will be less than human or not human at all. A man without freedom, without options to choice, without others to look at and identify himself is not complete as human, so he's not human, he's in any case less than human.

Confucio: "If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it makes noise".

Papewaio

08-23-2005, 07:30

And your point? How irrationality interfers here?

Cold war... the Russians were afraid of the 'irrational' cowboy USA presidents. Irrational means unpredictable, which means far more hard to compete against.

====

Equal output = Equal reward.

Means that you get paid on output not effort.

So if you work 8 hours and make a cake you get paid x.
While if someone else works 1 hour and makes the same cake they also get paid x.

====

Perhaps you don't understand what it's heaven and hell. Heaven is the high class and hell is the poor class (beautiful discrimination of capitalism), when i said that they are between is that they are trying to imitate one or the other, but never reaching the low ground or the higher floor. So you have education. Are all rewarded as equals. Not. Again you missed my point. You can make circles around capitalism all that you want, differences will spread and you cannot fix it by putting your hands in all the holds. Socialism applied to capitalism doesn't makes the classes fade away it keeps it by giving the illusion of opportunity and of diminished differences between classes.

I'm not that materialistic that I want equal amount of goods to others. I also do not equate social class with money earned or amount of material goods. Material goods does not a scholar make. Nor do I want to have everyone an equal material wealth if that means we are all poorer then having a range of wealth.

The degrees of freedom in Australia and New Zealand are pretty huge. In Australia university is free (the best universities with the most prestige are the free public ones), you only have to pay back HECS if you earn a lot of money. Health is free. Doctor, emergency. My wife just had a child and not only was the Hospital stay free (four days) the government is going to pay about $3000 Australian for having a child. In addition I can get tax benefits for having the kid on a single or low paired income. Public transport is subsidised (which is good as it frees up the roads for trucks). It is also a fairly successful multicultural society, and a society with plenty of sporting and inventive achievements.

====

I used to think that the stock market and the stockbrockers just made money for themselves and were parasites while the workers and designers added the real wealth to society. Workers were the muscle, the designers the perception. However after a bit more studying I see the role of capitalists is similar to that of the ATP <-> ADP cycle and that of Vitamin B and fat storage. Capitalists and stock markets allow a free flow of capital, it also works somewhat like a casino (which is a tax on stupidity).

I do think that industry should be legislated for accountability and honesty.

Soulforged

08-23-2005, 08:13

Cold war... the Russians were afraid of the 'irrational' cowboy USA presidents. Irrational means unpredictable, which means far more hard to compete against.

Wow i don't believe it,you called irrational a president. Do you really eat that? No leader of modern nation is irrational they think on rational ways, they were educated in rational ways, and the only way they can rule is rationaly, they only seem irrational to the public because as i've discovered right now it appears to appeal to your senses. Rationality makes surprises, irrationality is not more than a rant, unsupported assumptions, but you're reducing all to war. This doesn't give you any points.
====

Equal output = Equal reward.

Means that you get paid on output not effort.

So if you work 8 hours and make a cake you get paid x.
While if someone else works 1 hour and makes the same cake they also get paid x.

So you don't include the ideas in your scheme. That was my doubt, for what i see it seems that you're really begining to understand that real=exist,ideal=doesn't exist. Real=remuneration, Ideal=no remuneration. Real=keeps us all at the same level. Ideal= can't exist alone because we don't have robots that make the actual work for us. And you seem to not understand communism again. Well is better if i talk of socialism. You think that amount of work is calculated in hours, i just stated that all will work the same hours, not that they will be rewarded for that. My scheme is the same as yours.

====

I'm not that materialistic that I want equal amount of goods to others. I also do not equate social class with money earned or amount of material goods. Material goods does not a scholar make. Nor do I want to have everyone an equal material wealth if that means we are all poorer then having a range of wealth.

I too. But i want all to have the same real posibilities of doing what we want in life and not just some rich few, that even receive their riches from intelectual property, inheritance right, manipulation of the others, robbery, or simple and plane interest, we have one life for now. Besides is not just being or not being materialist, you cannot chose you're binded to the material world. If i could think in a million dolars and suddenly they appear in front of me then that would be great, but that doesn't happens, ideas doesn't help you to scape reality, but if eventually you achieve it then it would be no good at all, it would be an illusion that a prisoner makes to avoid the "Awful Truth".

The degrees of freedom in Australia and New Zealand are pretty huge. In Australia university is free (the best universities with the most prestige are the free public ones), you only have to pay back HECS if you earn a lot of money. Health is free. Doctor, emergency. My wife just had a child and not only was the Hospital stay free (four days) the government is going to pay about $3000 Australian for having a child. In addition I can get tax benefits for having the kid on a single or low paired income. Public transport is subsidised (which is good as it frees up the roads for trucks). It is also a fairly successful multicultural society, and a society with plenty of sporting and inventive achievements.

Well again taking circles around capitalism instead of seeing its central problem. Socialism will never make society a society, because for that it must be reconcilated, and keeping differences doesn't help. We've a lot of freedom here too, guess for what it serves...for nothing.
====

I used to think that the stock market and the stockbrockers just made money for themselves and were parasites while the workers and designers added the real wealth to society. Workers were the muscle, the designers the perception. However after a bit more studying I see the role of capitalists is similar to that of the ATP <-> ADP cycle and that of Vitamin B and fat storage. Capitalists and stock markets allow a free flow of capital, it also works somewhat like a casino (which is a tax on stupidity).

I do think that industry should be legislated for accountability and honesty.

You're mistaking me. I don't care if capitalists make money for themselves or make gift to that and to that. It doesn't matter the capitalist ramains in privileged position and influences the elites in charge of the state, wich means that the state is the instrument of the "higher classes", like always was from the beggining of times and tries to keep the lower classes in position giving to the illusion of ideal "equal before the law" when actually your financiery situation matters a lot more to the system that breeds on that. Coming back to Marx and what he calls prehistory: Patriarcal form of domination (first form: father like chief of the family and probably of a whole tribe considered a family)- Antique form of domination (second form: classes of "equals" and patrcian families dominate the slaves)-Servitude (thired form: noble/lord-vassals, he extend this one until absolutism,to Marx an Engels the structure was the same)- Capitalism (fourth form: Capitalist/burgousei-proletariat)-beyond that in some way humans achive history finally. So simple, what we've to do to achieve history and equality, finish the system of domination that existed all the prehistory and you achieve the sintesis of society, pure logics.

English assassin

08-23-2005, 16:32

Maybe a better title for this thread woud be the nation that proves robbing from the rich can help the poor but again that goes wothout saying.

Actually, Big G, the neo-liberal consensus is that robbing from the rich ultimately destroys wealth for all. If robbing from the rich really did help the poor we would have to look very carefully at trying socialism again.

So far I'm seeing that Chavez has used some oil revenues to make some much needed improvements to the lives of people who were just about at rock bottom. Thats good. That's obviously better than spending the money on tanks or gold taps in the presidential palace. So lets not be mean spirited, one cheer here.

(genuine question) Has he created the conditions for general wealth creation and political freedoms? Is private property respected? Can it be bought and sold without punitive taxation? Are contracts honoured? can I start a business and employ people without too much red tape? Is there freedom of speech and association, the right to organise, to form new political parties?

Without these things, they are just burning through their oil cash, like spending your savings without actually having a job. OK, its good they are spending them on schools, but the people are still dependent on Chavez's largesse and sooner or later that will end. Then if he hasn't created the economy to generate wealth in the future its back to poverty all over again.

JAG you should try looking at the per capita wealth of different nations and correlate it to things like private property rights, political freedoms, levels of state intervention in the economy etc. There is a reason for the neo-liberal consensus and its written right there in the economics.

lars573

08-23-2005, 17:52

Yes this guy sounds wonderful

LINK (http://www.heritage.org/Research/LatinAmerica/BG1545.cfm)
Yes he does if I was Venezulan I'd vote for him in a second. As long as he carries through on his promises he deserves his office. And he'll probably keep it for a long time without having to rig presidencial elections. He is after all buying votes in the countries biggest voting block, the poor.

Grey_Fox

08-23-2005, 18:47

Yes this guy sounds wonderful

LINK (http://www.heritage.org/Research/LatinAmerica/BG1545.cfm)

From the link:

December 1999 A new 350-article charter is approved overwhelmingly by referendum, despite a 54 percent abstention rate. The country's name is changed to Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, social benefits are expanded, and the president's term is raised from five to six years.

I believe Bush was re-elected even though almost half (if not half) 'abstaned'.

October 2000 Chávez signs a pact with Fidel Castro, agreeing to supply a third of Cuba's petroleum needs in return for Cuban help in training teachers and developing curriculum for "Bolivarian" schools. Although Venezuela has high unemployment, Chávez reportedly gives Cuban doctors, sports coaches, and intelligence officers jobs as part of the bargain.

Cuba has the highest literacy rate in the world, which is a glowing reflection upon it's education system. It also has the highest doctor-patient ratio in the world, which means a good health system. What's wrong with importing foreign specialists that your own nation cannot provide?

January 2001 President Chávez introduces his National Education Project to indoctrinate students against the forces of globalism and threatens to take over private academies.

Many students is Ireland are against globalism and fee paying universities. Does that mean we have been indoctrinated to become commie scum?

November 2001 Chávez introduces a package of 49 decrees that tighten state control of various industries and enable the government to confiscate what it deems unused land.

Didn't the US Supreme Court do basically the same thing? Anyways, it is no different to what goes on in many Europeam countries. I fail to see what is evil about it.

Chávez allows the Bolívar to free float, losing about 30 percent of its value.

This happens to most state companies that are privatised.

During a massive march on the presidential palace, Chávez closes commercial television stations.

Actually it was the leaders of the military coup that shut down the pro-Chavez media stations. They then blamed Chavez for it.

April 11, 2002 During a massive march on the presidential palace, Chávez closes commercial television stations. Suspected Bolivarian Circle members fire on marchers.

There was an interesting documentary on the military coup on the TV here a few years ago. It showed the Chavez supporters on a bridge firing their weapons at what the news commentator called 'an opposition demonstration'. Then the news channel cuts to the anchorman. What the news channel did not show was the camera zooming out to show the 'opposition crowd'. The road where the crowd was meant to be was empty. The Chavez supporters were engaged in a gunfight with military snipers loyal to the leaders of the military coup.

Gawain of Orkeny

08-23-2005, 19:07

Cuba has the highest literacy rate in the world, which is a glowing reflection upon it's education system. It also has the highest doctor-patient ratio in the world, which means a good health system. What's wrong with importing foreign specialists that your own nation cannot provide?

At what cost? Would you like to live in cuba? And just what does highest literacy rate in the world mean? The biggest percentage that can read and write? What good is that if you cant read and write what you want? Being literate doesnt make you educated.

Grey_Fox

08-23-2005, 20:12

At what cost? Would you like to live in cuba? And just what does highest literacy rate in the world mean? The biggest percentage that can read and write? What good is that if you cant read and write what you want? Being literate doesnt make you educated.

All I'm saying Gawain is that there is no problem in contracting specialists from other countries that have good health and education systems. The whole idea is to improve the system, and this is done by importing people from nations that have successful systems, which the person in the article you provided seems to think is wrong.

Anyways, the political cost is irrelevent, all that matters is that Chavez wants to model his health and education systems on the Cuban health and education systems which are some of the best in the world.

All I can figure about that whole argument about importing the Cuban specialists is that the author is angry that Venezuela isn't getting it from the Americans.

Gawain of Orkeny

08-23-2005, 20:43

The whole idea is to improve the system, and this is done by importing people from nations that have successful systems, which the person in the article you provided seems to think is wrong.

So why Cuba? Are you claiming their as or more succesful than the US? Wouldnt you want to import people from here? No were evil thats right. Cubas people are far better off. I want to be like them not those filthy americans.

Anyways, the political cost is irrelevent, all that matters is that Chavez wants to model his health and education systems on the Cuban health and education systems which are some of the best in the world.

Are they? How many great Cuban scientists are there? I know people from all over the world are running there for operations and avoiding the US which accordding to many here has the worst heathcare system in the industrial world.

All I can figure about that whole argument about importing the Cuban specialists is that the author is angry that Venezuela isn't getting it from the Americans.

Again why would you want to model yourself on Cuba over the US? I dont know about you but that for me gives me pause to think.

Grey_Fox

08-24-2005, 00:40

I know people from all over the world are running there for operations and avoiding the US which accordding to many here has the worst heathcare system in the industrial world

That is closer to the truth than you'd imagine. Many inner city areas in the US have a higher infant mortality rate than Nairobi.

The people in Venezuela are mainly poor. They cannot afford to have a healthcare system modelled on the US system, therefore a socialist model is needed, like in many European nations. Cuba fits the bill nicely. It needs oil, Venezuela has lots of it. Venezuela needs trained doctors and teachers, Cuba has lots of them. It's about practicality, not idealism. And last time I checked, the US government is fairly hostile to the Venezuelan governent.

Are they? How many great Cuban scientists are there?

Cuba provides free education up to university level for anybody that wishes to take it.

Del Arroyo

08-24-2005, 01:16

I think the point is not that Cuba is more successful than the US, but that it has been much more successful than most Latin nations which were supposedly following the US model. Cubans are comparatively well-educated and the nation is quite stable by Latin-American standards, and its cultural impact, especially in terms of music, has been quite disproportional to its size.

Cuban culture is in fact probably the most-imported culture in the Latin world, behind US culture. They have also sometimes served as a conduit for US culture-- things like baseball have spread mostly thanks to them.

DA

Gawain of Orkeny

08-24-2005, 03:04

I think the point is not that Cuba is more successful than the US, but that it has been much more successful than most Latin nations which were supposedly following the US model.

The word here is supposedly. Those that did are far better off than Cuba. So then are you supporting racism? They should choose Cuba over us because their latin?

That is closer to the truth than you'd imagine. Many inner city areas in the US have a higher infant mortality rate than Nairobi.

This is because of fertility drugs and the like not because we have lousy doctors here,

The people in Venezuela are mainly poor. They cannot afford to have a healthcare system modelled on the US system, therefore a socialist model is needed, like in many European nations.

Its only a temporary solutution and will not work forever. A free market system and true democracy would be a much better solution.

The Black Ship

08-24-2005, 03:30

Soulforged

08-24-2005, 05:32

So how is Chavez different from Peron? Does Argentina still believe Peronism was a force for good, or have all the economic decay endemic since the end of his reign force a new perspective?

Playing Robin Hood hardly seems sustainable as a political movement. Eventually, once the Sheriff and his cronies have lost all their money you realise that your still left with all the Saxons in the forest...Saxons that have learned to expect wealth from your deeds.

Care to make a wager on if Chavez will step down at the end of his term? I see a constitutional amendment coming, indeed there has already been rumblings, so that Chavez stays in power.

You'll be right Black, Peron is the most loved man ever here. Why?- the yankees ask- well he worked for the poors and him, by assitence of Evita, tried to make the life of the poors (very harsh from those here in that time) more enjoyable. Peron and specially Evita did aplied a politics of censure, specially on the schools. But only against their party (i'm not justifing it, but everybody will do better on start to think like a politician). From the other hand guess who was the group against Peron? (I will let you guess Orkeny)

Playing Robin Hood appeals to the eyes of people because the poors live worse than the rich ( ~:eek: what a new). But being serious true socialism will imply the redistribution of riches, by seizing the private property and putting all those fat asses to work. Period. So yes you, yankee capitalist (probably), will not like socialism (tough it functions to a certain degree in your society) and will attack socialist politics. Also it's not convenient that a commerce closes it self to protect it from being crushed by more powerful companies.

And racism Orkeny,mmmm. Are you sure that you want to use that expression? They are not choosing Cuba over you, they are chosing socialism over capitalism, tough i will wait a little more time to say that with certainty.
I was expecting to a yankee say something like true democracy, again see the meaning of true and then of democracy. And a free market is not superior to nothing, free market just will make the ones from the side of the offer to become more rich, or at least to make some people rich and well capable and others workers.

Del Arroyo

08-24-2005, 08:13

All right Soulforged, my English-as-a-Foreign-Language teacher instincts are taking over, I'm going to give you some tips.

----
**You'll be** [we don't use the future tense in this sense in English. correct="You are"] right Black, Peron is the most loved man ever here. Why?- the yankees ask- well he worked for **the poors** "the poor", "the rich", "the unemployed", "the unwashed", "the unclean", "the priviledged", etc., collectively using the singular form] and **him, by assitence of Evita,** ["and he, with Evita's assistance"] tried to make the life of the **poors** (very harsh **from** ["for"] those here **in** ["at"] that time) more enjoyable. Peron and **specially** ["especially"] Evita **did aplied** ["did apply", or "applied". "did apply" adds emphasis] a **politics of censure,** ["policy of censorship"] **specially** on the **schools. But only against their party** [this should be all one sentence, and should read something like "but only against the opposition". It sounds like you're saying he censored only his own political allies.] (i'm not justifing it, **but everybody will do better on start to think like a politician** [you might say "but everybody will do better if they think like a politician"). **From the other hand** ["on the other hand"] guess who was the group against Peron? (I will let you guess Orkeny)

Playing Robin Hood appeals to the eyes of people because the **poors** live worse than the rich ( ~:eek: what a **new** [could be "what a surprise", "what a shock"]). **But being serious** [you might say "but if it is serious"] true socialism will imply the redistribution of riches, by seizing **the private property** ["private property"] and putting all those fat asses to work. Period. So yes you, **yankee capitalist** ["a yankee capitalist"] (probably), will not like socialism (**tough** ["though"] it functions to a certain degree in your society) and will attack socialist **politics** ["policies". Also it's not convenient that a **commerce** "economy"[/b] as in a national economy?] closes it self to protect it from being crushed by more powerful companies.

And racism Orkeny,mmmm. Are you sure that you want to use that expression? They are not choosing Cuba over you, they are chosing socialism over capitalism, **tough** i will wait a little more time to say that with certainty.
I was expecting to a yankee say something like true democracy, again see the meaning of true and then of democracy. And a free market is **not superior to nothing** [[i]"not superior to anything"-- in English double-negatives work the same way as in mathematics. I'm also not sure what you mean here.], **free market** ["a free market" **just will make the ones from the side of the offer to become more rich** ["will just make the people on one side of the bargain richer"], or at least **to make** ["make"] some people rich and **well capable** [perhaps "comfortable"?] and others workers.
----

Soulforged

08-24-2005, 08:22

Del Arroyo

08-24-2005, 08:39

No, no irritation. Just a personal compulsion. I hope I didn't irritate you ~;)

DA

The Black Ship

08-24-2005, 13:35

Aenlic

08-24-2005, 14:20

When proponents of capitalism talk about free markets, they really mean laissez faire capitalism, not free markets. In a truly free market, the workers would be free to band together and bargain collectively to market their labor. "Free market" capitalists don't really want this. By free market, they really mean the freedom of capital to do as it pleases without regard to the wishes or needs of the workers or the communities in which the capital does business.

Such a "free market" capitalism doesn't exist today and hasn't existed since the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, thanks to the advent of socialist theory which was only gained at great and often violent cost. By the beginning of the 20th century, the struggle to force capital to accept restrictions to improve the lot of workers and communities, in the industrialized nations, finally began to improve things.

I'll list some examples of things we take for granted today which are directly the result of socialist theory and collective bargaining being forced upon the laissez faire capitalists and robber barons. These things would not exist (and certainly didn't exist during the heyday of "free market" capitalism) if they hadn't been fought for by workers seeking their rights under socialist theory.

Profit sharing, retirement and pensions, overtime pay, workplace safety rules, workplace health rules, health insurance, minimum wages, discrimination laws, child labor laws, laws against indentured bondage, environmental and community health standards and many more.

Each of the above are the direct result of socialism being thrust upon free market capitalists against their will. I challenge the defenders of free market capitalism to do without them in their own lives. Without them, our lives would be very different. Without them, we'd be nothing more than glorified economic slaves with subsistence wages paid in company scrip which can only be redeemed at the company store for inflated prices while living on company land and subject to the meerest whim of the company. If you want a clear picture of what life would be like for most workers in a free market capitalist system without the benefit of socialist theory, you need look no further than miners in America prior to the advent of unions. Capital is only concerned with acquiring more capital. The health, safety and general well-being of the workers and the communities are of no concern, except in so far as they can be kept healthy enough to supply more workers at the least possible cost. That is free market capitalism, when it isn't severly restricted.

Gawain of Orkeny

08-24-2005, 18:19

Looks like I was wrong about Chavez.

Chavez offers Americans cheap fuel

Wednesday 24 August 2005, 10:08 Makka Time, 7:08 GMT

Chavez: We want to sell fuel directly to poor communities

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, popular with the poor at home, has offered to help needy Americans with cheap supplies of petrol.

"We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States," the populist leader said at the end of a visit to Communist-run Cuba on Tuesday.

Chavez did not say how Venezuela would go about providing petrol to poor communities.

Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA owns Citgo, which has 14,000 petrol stations in the United States.

The offer may sound attractive to Americans feeling pinched by soaring prices at the pump but not to the US government, which sees Chavez as a left-wing troublemaker in Latin America.

Petrol is cheaper than mineral water in oil-producing Venezuela, where consumers can fill their tanks for less than $2.

Average petrol prices have risen to $2.61 a gallon in the US, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

Now he he is going to implement this is the question. I guess you could go to you nearest Citgo station and produce your welfare benifit card. ~D

But his compasion for Americans doesnt end there.

Free health care

Chavez and Castro (R) offered to
train US doctors free of charge
Chavez said Venezuela could supply petrol to Americans at half the price they now pay if intermediaries who "speculated ... and exploited consumers" were cut out.

Venezuela supplies Cuba with generously financed oil, and plans to help Caribbean nations foot their oil bills.

Chavez, in Cuba to attend the graduation of Cuban-trained doctors from 28 countries, was seen off at the airport by Cuban President Fidel Castro.

Washington has accused the two leaders of being a destabilising influence in South America.

Chavez and Castro offered to give poor Americans free health care and train doctors free of charge.

See even good old Castro cares about us.

As for me I will never buy gas at a Citgo station again as long as this idiot is in charge . I say we all boycott Citgo. ~;)

believe it or not I found this on Al Jezzeera ~D

LINK (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/998CE86F-D4B3-4C71-8CD0-1533DD28659C.htm) http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/rdonlyres/998CE86F-D4B3-4C71-8CD0-1533DD28659C/88753/50639A005AB3481FBD087D132234B90F.jpg

Aenlic

08-24-2005, 18:48

Have any nice photos of U.S. marines invading Nicaragua and staying there from 1910-1930 to prop up the dictatorship controlled by U.S. owned fruit companies? The origin of the term Banana Republic is not flattering to U.S. foreign policy.

How about something sentimental of president McKinley giving his "Benevolent Assimilation" proclaimation to Congress to justify our putting down of the rebellion of the Phillipinos and Moros when we took over the Phillipines in 1898 after they rose up and helped us in the Spanish American War; and then we returned the favor by refusing to let them govern themselves?

Maybe a photo of a CIA agent giving financial and military advice to the forces of Pinochet in the overthrow of the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende? The CIA even helped set up the DINA, Pinochet's secret police which was responsible for many murders and disappearances over the years, with many of its officers trained at the U.S. Army School of the Americas.

Hey! How about a photo of the School of the Americas itself! That would be propagand-tastic, wouldn't it?

Edit: I don't mean the above to sound quite so sarcastic as it does on a second reading. Blame the blinding headache I've acquired while trying to track down an elusive bug in a stupid unit_prod.txt file which is also making me tear my hair out in clumps. So attach many grinning blue ~D to the above.

Soulforged

08-26-2005, 06:43

OK Soulforged, now I have to ask, why isn't Peron villified for his contribution to the Argentine economic contraction? Did Peronism work? Does working for the poor grant you total immunity?

BTW, are all individuals on the top tier of the economic scale "fat asses"? Did any of them earn their wealth legitimately through hard work?

I notice noone took me up on my query regarding Chavez running for another term... guess everyone thinks it's a foregone conclusion?

Well the question about the capitalists in general and to the high middle class has been responded many times (by me in another post) and here with great autority by Aenlic.

About Perón: Well some criticized Peron exactly for that (mostly, and ironically, the follower Menem), but you've to understand that if you let open your economy to free competition when it's still weak then your own companies will fall eventaully. On the other hand, not open it will be the other extreme and in some time will make your economy less competitive for the same reason. The best way to combat this by making unilateral agreements of importation, so you import new technology but your products are not overwhelmed by foreing superior products at less prices (or tax the importation products making them more expensive), this was the implemented, though never acomplished much in the long term, and making unilateral agreements will not result many times.
Perón didn't have total immunity, that's why he fell eventually overthrown by his own ex-partners, the military. There were basically two groups against Perón: the agriculturalists (that even had some status of landowner, wich Perón tried to reduce in various ways) and one of the factions between the military, that to the end of his second mandate turned into all. The first were against Perón because he was the first to not give them all the rights on this land (they were always the most powerful people here, some still are), Perón created an assotiation of industrial workers and subsidied the creation of heavy industries (wich of course was not convinient to the undiscussed hegemony of the agricultural sector). The military at the first gained the favor of Perón and he granted many positions to them, but eventually he stoped that practice (here called clientelismo), and also the agricultural sector made an "alliance" with this proposing many favors to the sector and also power if they helped them to overthrown Perón. They did it.
So the answer was not, mostly here where the real power in society didn't lied on the worker or middle class, nor in the industry, but in the camp. But Perón implemented most of the social laws and created most of the social institutions that we have now (though many of those laws were changed in the progress of time). Hope i've answered your question.