Chavez launches biting US attack ["Captalism: road to Hell"}

BBC ^ | 3/11/2007 | BBC

[Sine_Pari]

You are correct in your statement and let me add; the Venezuelan people are capitalist at heart. One has nowhere more to go than to the streets sourrounding the Parliment building and Casa Amarilla in El Centro (downtown Caracas) to see street vendors demonstrating capitalism at its most basic form. Unfortunately, Venezuela has a 70% plus poor population that lived under numerous corrupt right of center corporate like governments; corruption is nothing new to the Venezuelan people hence they tolerate it from Chavez's cronies. The difference is that Chavez has given the poor a percieved voice which they never had before. Until the Venezuelan right understands that government answers to all and not just the wealthy Chavez will continue to rule.

[ronnie raygun]

Fat head Ted is a lock. He's Massachusettes pet rock, no one cant get rid of it either!

[dr_who_2]

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean majoritarianism, as in let's vote on whether farmer Juan takes his pig to the butcher and distributes the meat to everybody in the village?

[dr_who_2]

I think people (not just in South America) tend to think that capitalism is not so much "you do something for me, i do something for you" but "I've got lots of allies vs. Will you be my buddy?" instead.

[webheart]

A "Biting" attack, eh? That sure gives Chavez a lot more credit than he is due.

[GSlob]

No, classic corporatism, aka collectivism [in one of its forms]. The social individuals there tend to be not biological individuals proper [unless it be the el supremo of the day], but the social corporations/groups: a "party" [or rather nomenklatura thereof] like PRI, the "movement", "the church", etc. The thing is that the farmer Juan of your example is not much [if any] of the social individual. The "cacique" of his village or district is [to an extent] a social individual - but only as a cog in a larger machine. That machine is a social individual in its own right. And liberal democracy, as traditionally understood, is feasible only in an individualistic society.

[JmyBryan]

"Those who want to go directly to hell, they can follow capitalism," Mr Chavez said in the town of Trinidad in Bolivia.

The question is: Why don't we taech capitalism in our public schools?

[dr_who_2]

Hmmmm!

[Sine_Pari]

You may have something there...I like to think that capitalism allows me (the individual) to produce as much as I can for my own benefit. At the micro level the individual benefits i.e. personal wealth and a better life. At the macro level, society as a whole benefits as the individual's business grows it helps others and the overall economy. At any time the government stifles the individual, personal success is interrupted.

[dr_who_2]

Personal success is interrupted whenever the individual is stifled by anybody. Unless that person is about to slit their own throat. Only so much you can do about that.

[Calvin Locke]

Without oil his communist experiment would be impossible.

And charisma, lies, and, of course, Foggy Bottom.

[The Great RJ]

If capitalism is hell, Chavez should ask the people of Cuba about the socialist paradise they are living in.

[bert]

ping

They're talking about you

[wodinoneeye]

For the want of a bullet millions will live in fear, terror and degedation.

[I Hired Craig Livingstone]

Good grief. If the tragedies of the 20th century didn't persuade Mr. Chavez that the road to hell is paved with excessive government control over the economy and its people, then I don't know what to tell him.

[NicknamedBob]

" If it was up to me, I would blockade the bastard..."

Chavez needs to sell his oil more than we need to buy it.

"Of course you realize ..." <Bugs Bunny voice> "... this means War!" </ Bugs voice off>

[LibKill]

I recall the words of Reagan;

"Communism only works in heaven, where they don't need it, and in hell, where they already have it."

I can't improve on that!

[pending]

The only possible benefit of Chavez will be that young folks who think they are leftists,and have neither experience with nor real picture of 20th century realities will see the destruction in real time. They believe Chavez is a good guy. Chomsky says so, after all. Unfortunately, good innocent folks in Venezuela are going to suffer.
I believe Mr Chavez is not sane. Normal rules do not apply. He shares the distictive thug/paranoia/controlfreak complex of Stalin,Hitler,Amin and Hussein. It is a toss up whether he or the economy cracks first. Both are in progress.

Recent Views of Chavezonomics
Associated Press: Holding on to the family nest egg has suddenly become much harder in Venezuela, where inflation and uncertainty reign as President Hugo Chavez says,nothing and no one can stop him from transforming the country into a socialist state.

LATimes; Inflation, food scarcity roil Venezuela Economists say the government is overreaching in controlling prices, fueling a black market.

Salon: A famous Venezuelan, Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo, referred to oil as the devil's excrement. For countries, easy wealth appears indeed to be the sure path to failure. Venezuela might be a clear example of that.

New York Times: President Hugo Chavez has threatened to jail grocery store owners and nationalize their businesses if they violate the country’s expanding price controls.

[Let's Roll]

"And those of us who want to build heaven here on earth, we will follow socialism,"

Right, that's why Russia and China had to kill 30 and 20 million* of their own people to get the rest of their people to submit to socialism, because it was such a heaven on earth.

*Or was it 20 and 30 million respectively - it gets so confusing when those kinds of numbers are reached.

[I Hired Craig Livingstone]

I believe Mr Chavez is not sane.

Definitely agree with you there. The one thing that keeps me optimistic when all the winds seem to be against free societies is that socialism is a miserable failure wherever it's tried long enough.

"Chavezonomics" will be relegated to the ash heap of history along with other flavors of massive forced wealth distribution. But when will the world learn?