The Dem Primary is bound to never pick a winner for President.

@Roadsterrider No need for hyperbole. Even Bernie wants to retain capitalism, he just wants a beefed up welfare state. Far left of Stalin 🙄

And what happened in Venezuela has relatively little to do with socialism anyway - just old fashioned corruption and mismanagement. Chavismo was really just populism anyway.

@QuixoticSoul Chaves himself called it Bolivarian Socialism. Elected in 1998, taking over private industry in 2002, state owned industry, productivity started falling off, oil workers went on strike, the snowball just kept getting bigger till they are where they are now.

@Roadsterrider Venezuela’s crisis is nowhere near that straightforward. Norway also nationalized its oil industry with wildly different results. The whole “Venezuela = socialism in action” thing is largely a tired trope, because reality is complex.

Chavez called it “Bolivarianismo” and it’s a mix of socialism, nationalism, and populism. But at its core, Venezuela always retained its capitalist market economy.

It’s not even the nationalized oil industry that fucked them up - it’s everything else. Currency and price controls as a response to economic stress, chiefly.

@Roadsterrider Venezuela was a third world social democratic star crippled by the oil crisis, sanctions and right wing militias. Its not an analogy.

@Burnley123 Venezuela was raking in money and doing well, then they embraced a socialist political view and went from doing very well to where they are now. The oil crisis isn't something that had a negative effect on Venezuela, when oil slowed down in the middle east, they were free to produce and sell more. That their "state owned" oil industry couldn't adapt to the changing environment is a good example of their problems in that country. They took a path from prosperity to poverty in a few decades, the main change in the country was the political view and structure.

@Roadsterrider My main point is that Venezuela is not socialist and not a relevant example. Your points haven't dealt with this but you are also wrong.

The economy was not doing well in the previous regime and poverty was massive. This went down substantially under Chavez due to redistributive programs.

The economic crisis of Venezuela is directly linked to the oil crisis, not change if regime. Check the chronology. Saudi Arabia have so much oil, they could just over produce to cover revenue loss. Venezuela, like Russia, didn't have that luxury so pressured the other side of opec to reduce production and control prices, which they refused. The Saudis increased production and further reduced the price. Venezuela is also heavily hit by sanctions and a violent anti democratic opposition. Its been in slow burn civil war for a decade.

So no it does not show that redistributive policies damage an economy in any sense. Sorry.

@Burnley123 https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/book/venezuela-1980s-1990s-and-beyond

In the 80s Venezuela was one of 4 Latin American countries deemed by the world bank to have an upper middle level of income, Chaves started his "Bolivarian Socialism" plan and initially wages increased, unemployment went down, as he dumped more and more money into social programs, poverty went down. Then it all started to fall apart. Mid 80s to mid 90s, already high inflation went from 29% to 35%, poor population from about 46% to 68%, Chaves took over the oil industry, following his socialist beliefs and then after he died, Maduro kept the ball rolling. They can call it whatever they want but that doesn't change the philosophy of it. It may not show that redistributive policies damaged the economy in any sense but, looking at the economy and the country as a whole along with economic indicators, it is very obvious that it did absolutely nothing to help the economy. And further moves into socialism caused deterioration of the economy.

@Roadsterrider Chaves was not in power until 97 so your chronology is all over the place.

The causality is wrong too and you are ignoring sanctions, oil prices and political instability.