Topic: Enjoy comunism: Venezuela raises monthly minimum wage to $2.40 - page 3. (Read 763 times)

That’s the right wing media that make things the way they are right now. If you are against capitalist companies ruining the world, you are suddenly a communist. What is it so communist about wanting people who worked hard all their life to not be rationing their insulin for example? If you want insulin to be free and paid by the government from our taxes, you suddenly become a communist, how so? I mean I paid my taxes, I want to take the medicine that keeps me alive, the other possibility that I won't be able to afford insulin and die, how is that bad?

However media makes sure that they talk about billionaires and protect their rights over people because those same billionaires are the ones that are paying their salary, so they do their best. Politicians are also bribed by them, so the whole nation is basically a big corporation heaven. Then they show poor people in venezuela and act like everything is cool with USA, just because Venezuela sucks doesn't change the fact that the biggest capitalist nation allows people to die so that big pharma can make more profits.

This is an eloquent distillation of my entire argument in this thread.

The Venezeulan crisis is not a black and white issue. The presence of vast oil reserves is the underlying fact. What we then have is generation after generation of messy history applied on top. It's easy to blame whoever is running things at the moment, but to do so is to conduct only the most superficial analysis. Maduro certainly hasn't been great, but picking up the presidency when he did was akin to picking up a live grenade... which had been passed through many hands before it reached him.

Dealing in absolutes is easy. Harder to rigorously define those terms before use.

I always thought governments akin to companies that have gone beyond notions of 'efficiency'. Groupings of individuals lead to interesting things with mixed results, whether you think statelessness^* is good or not. Creating an amalgamation of individuals to progress toward some ideal can always have unintended consequences - it's all a matter of how one structures power in different ways at the end of the day.

If every single voter had preferred Maduro during the elections, then your argument would have been correct. But that is not the case here. Let's take an example. During the March 1933 German federal election, National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP) of Adolph Hitler was voted in to power. The NSDAP won 43.91% of the vote, with a turnout of 88.74%. That means that less than 40% of the registered voters preferred the NSDAP, while the remainder either abstained or voted for other parties. Now will you say that the entire race of Germans need to be blamed for the rise of NSDAP, including those who voted for the opposition parties?

That is something that those of us who believe in little intervention and regulations tend to do, exaggerating. I acknowledge that. At the slightest regulation or tax increase we accuse of communism.

Ideally, I believe that there should be some intervention (some free market theorists argue that everything should be private, justice, security forces, etc. everything). I believe that sectors such as health, justice and security forces should be if not offered and controlled exclusively by the government, at least in cohabitation with the private sector, in health for example. Just as the government has to help people who cannot fend for themselves. From there, I understand that the best thing is the minimum of regulations and the minimum of taxes possible, which is a system that has its flaws, but at least it is not as disastrous as extreme interventionism.

This salary increase no longer seems strange to me, sincerely there is nothing worse that can happen, although the salary increase for the rulers represents the best way out, it is a total economic fallacy what they continue to do, this is not what people anymore take into account, Venezuelans have an alternate economy, everything is handled in dollars, and everything is much more expensive than in any country, any item, inflation is already immeasurable, people can set the price they want in Bs, which Actually, it is handled in Dollars, when it comes to Bs, absolutely nothing can be bought.

The reality of the country when it began to sink faster than the titanic was having elected Chavez, thanks to him the communist current that they disguise as socialism originated, which has nothing of socialism.

The best thing that Venezuelans do is to continue living their day to day without taking into account the traditional economy, the banks do not even offer credits of any kind, because it is not profitable, neither for the banks nor for those who want to acquire it, if you have bs you must get out of them quickly because in minutes you lose more and more value. For me, the case of Venezuela in particular has no solution, the only solution is for all the rulers to leave, perhaps by changing the model, Venezuela can be reborn, I am truly realistic.

If you read my post, I'm saying that Chavez is partly to blame. I'm also saying Maduro is partly to blame. I'm not an apologist for the far-left. But I'm also saying that sanctions have an effect. Surely that's not so controversial? Also I don't have a particular problem with America. America behaves as the powerful have always behaved, throughout history. Britain, France, Spain, etc... back to antiquity.

COPEI is certainly not left-wing, neither was Caldera. And Venezuelan oil was nationalised not by Caldera, but by Perez, his successor. Perez was probably centre-left? Certainly not a communist. And in any case, nationalisation of a country's primary industry is by no means incompatible with a capitalist framework. Just as a person who buys house insurance (which is obviously a form of socialised risk) shouldn't be hunted down by a McCarthyist mob and extradited to Russia.

The thread title is 'Enjoy communism'. The current situation in Venezuela is not a result of communism.
It is in large part a result of Maduro, and also of Chavez, yes... but not communism. It is also due in part to oil, sanctions, the US, previous administrations, etc. I don't see why this should be such an outrageous and controversial idea.

I should also point out, before someone alleges something to the contrary, that I personally am not a fan of communism. History demonstrates quite clearly that it is prone to corruption, and that it is unworkable. But I take issue with the popular belief that anything to the left of the hard-right libertarian laissez-faire ideal should be decried as communist.

And the people of the country - what is it, biomass crazy, needs and desires? Remember a simple axiom - we are responsible for our actions, and for inaction too!
If the people by OWN VOICES brings an idiot to the presidency, then the people are a participant in this negative process, and they share the guilt for what the president did later, but THEY DID NOT DO ANYTHING TO STOP IT! Therefore, their guilt is unambiguous, okay, they fell for promises, but then they did not stop the policy of idiocy and the murder of the economy. The position "we have nothing to do with" is a very bad human quality. It's always easier to pin the blame on someone else without admitting your mistakes.

You're another one who doesn't read. They are in the fourth year of hyperinflation, and in these 4 years the minimum wage has not stopped rising:


It was also raised in 2019 and 2020, a simple google search tells you that.

We know the Venezuelan currency collapsed and the crisis is still on. Despite the crisis, it’s way better to increase the minimum wage than none at all. Right here in the Philippines, our minimum wage is 387 Philippine pesos ($8.04). That’s just good for a low wage earner who is single, but way, way, way not enough if you are a bread winner of having a family with kids. Just saying.

Let's look at the history of countries where resources form the country's budget to one degree or another. Middle East, Saudi Arabia (2nd place in the world for oil reserves). An interesting example!
The oil industry is the backbone of Saudi Arabia's economy (40% of GDP, 75% of revenues and 90% of exports).
The development of the extractive industry starts around the 30s of the last century, OREK is created, around 60-70s the country begins to receive tangible income from the sale of oil. It seems completely. a resource-based economy, BUT huge money is invested from oil revenues in investment funds, the construction business, and the chemical industry.
Saudi Arabia invests in major international projects, in the purchase of real estate and land abroad.
The question is - what prevented Venezuela from acting wisely and diversifying its revenue side?
Of the positive examples, I can also give the example of Norway. Of the negative - an example of a Soviet union - a non-competitive economy and the budget's dependence on oil sales led to catastrophic internal processes and the collapse of the USSR ... depending on how it is controlled.

That's why I said that this thing should happen a long time because right now it will be problematic since they are experiencing a hyperinflation. I know that raising wages causes inflation but in a healthy inflation, it is a good thing.

I don't know if you have noticed that purchasing power has gone down at the same time that Maduro has raised the minimum wage. There are no lobbies left in the country to pressure Maduro. What you call decency is being poorer and poorer and going hungrier and hungrier.


If you read. If you had at least read the OP, you wouldn't ask such things:

How hard will Venezuelan people need to experience before kicking Maduro in position ? i felt sad seeing venezuela suffering from this when they use to be a great country .

I thought that Asian and african country has this lowest rates but Now venezuela is even worst.

This wage raise should have happened a long time ago, the people that are in power just got lobbied to not raise those wages because the companies don't want to have workers have more cut on the profits of the company that they are working for. This is not communism, this is human decency in action.

It's really sad to see Venezuela in such a state, a country with so many reserves in natural resources and minerals, such as gold, oil etc. This is the result of years of economic mismanagement and corruption, leading to such poor living conditions, in a country that has so much potential. Most Venezuelans are actually using USD for their everyday needs, since Venezuelan Bolivars are way too inconvenient to use, due to the high inflation, you'll have to be carrying bags of Bolivars just to spend $2. A similar example of a corrupt and mismanaged economy was Zimbabwe.

Here I disagree with you. It is not the oil, it was the Chavista policy of practically basing the economy only on oil when the price was high in order to carry out populist policies by showering the people with money. The saying: feast today, famine tomorrow applies better than ever here. You talk about Dutch disease but Norway as I mentioned before managed its oil and gas discoveries very well.


I don't know if he had good intentions or not. Like many communist leaders, I don't know how they could have gone from trying to protect the poor, for at least that was the initial discourse, to mass murder of the poor, either directly by mass murder like Stalin, Pol Pot and others or indirectly by starvation.

Caring about the poor implies empathy but killing them is for psychopaths, so I do not know if they were already psychopaths and the initial discourse was an excuse to gain power, or they were someone who really cared about the poor and once they gained power they lost touch with reality and to stay in power and their political project became more important than the lives of the people.


Very interesting, txs.

Venezuela paid a price for insisting on what they want to happen. Increasing the minimum wage is pretty fair for what is going on since the prices of commodities are also going up.

Isn't this what is going on in US as well?  Biden announced to raise $15/hour for American employees, this is what is going anywhere in the world. The resources is just not enough anymore.

USA is considered as one of the best examples of capitalist economies. They became the largest economy in the world, solely because of the capitalist system. Back in the 20th century, the USSR had more natural resources when compared to the USA, but their economy failed because they followed the socialist system. But the trend nowadays is to move towards a more populist system of governance. It requires more and more government handouts and rewarding the unproductive population. The funds required for this obviously need to come from the taxes. As per the American Families Plan, the tax rate on capital gains may increase to more than 50% for certain states such as Oregon, California and New York. If that is the case, then why the rich should invest in capital assets? They will just keep their money in the liquid form rather than taking the risk.

That's one rough interpretation which, just like the rest of the other interpretations of socialism, is highly debatable. Taxation, for example, has some socialist underpinnings. It could also be interpreted the way you interpret socialism even if it is implemented in a highly capitalist society. For others taking somewhat extreme positions, they would also consider taxation as a kind of stealing. And taxation is applied everywhere.

The Biden administration's American Families Plan, for example, is seeking to impose heavier taxes on the wealthy. Those rich people who are earning more than a million USD a year, for instance, might see their capital gains tax rising to almost double the rate.

Would you, therefore, consider the USA as a socialist country more than a capitalist one?