Chomsky's Venezuela Lesson

Townhall.com ^ | May 31, 2017 | John Stossel

[John Milner]

Isn’t Chomsky the dog on Everybody Loves Raymond?

Oops sorry, never mind. I had in mind a thinking mammal.

[riverdawg]

“How is he any different than the guy who invented the Transistor and was a big racist Schokly - oh the transistor was probably the the most significant invention of all time and Noam theories on linguistics are interesting. Oh my bad MIT employed him too”

I think you are referring to William Shockley, who received his Ph.D. from MIT but, to the best of my knowledge, was never employed there post-Ph.D. He was an engineering professor at Stanford the last 12 or 13 years of his career.

[i_robot73]

Unfort., only if/when the People revolt (surprise), would there be any chance of retribution.

Any sort of heads-up would see the mass exodus of these (now rich) ‘Central Planer Soclialists’ before they can be brought to any sort of justice.

Just wonder how many need suffer/die before that event occurs?

[pepsi_junkie]

... the transistor was probably the the most significant invention of all time ...

Now that is an interesting topic of debate / discussion!

[Buckeye McFrog]

In 1973, when Chile abandoned its short-lived experiment with socialism and embraced capitalism, Chilean income was 36 percent that of Venezuela. Today, Chileans are 51 percent richer than Venezuelans. Chilean incomes rose by 228 percent. Venezuelans became 21 percent poorer.

Pinochet achieved that by rounding-up all his Leftists and dumping them into the sea. A really, really harsh reality.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

“Socialism” is a misleading name for governmentism.

“Socialists” systematically and cynically subvert a society, claiming that it is a simple matter for government make society better. See, for example, LBJ’s boast of a “Great Society.”

Losing Ground:

American Social Policy, 1950-1980
- Charles Murray

documents how easy it was for government officials with that attitude to make things dramatically worse.

“Socialists” claim that “society” and “government” are, or at least should be, synonymous.

SOME writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil . . . - Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776)

I, Pencil is an article written in 1958 by Leonard E. Read. The burden of the article is how diffuse are the inputs to make a simple item like a pencil. Of course a particular company - Eberhard Faber, in the example instance - made the pencil. But Mr. Eberhard and Mr. Faber did not simply speak the pencil into existence; the company has to have buildings housing machinery, and workers to operate the machines. But beyond that, the Eberhard Faber workers have to have food, shelter, and normal amenities - including those required by their families.

And the same is true of the vendors who supply Eberhard Faber with the machinery they require, and all the obvious materials - wood, graphite, rubber, and the ferrule material and the enamel. All those vendors have their own equipment, workers, and supply chain. And in all cases the workers need food, shelter, and normal amenities. So although the pencil certainly does not exist without Eberhard Faber, society works together to make pencils - and everything else.

So, “you didn't build that? Somebody else made that happen?” Yes - but that “somebody else” was not government. The “somebody” was more like everybody - mostly very indirectly.

Government planning is merely interference in society’s subtle workings by people who have nowhere near the competence needed to make such large decisions and be responsible for them. It is nothing more than the irresponsible separation of responsibility from authority, in violation of the first principle of good management. Improvement in efficiency via government “planning” is a paper tiger.

[exDemMom]

Michael Moore praised Chavez for eliminating "75 percent of extreme poverty." Hello?! In Venezuela, Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, created extreme poverty.

Hey, let's be fair. Poverty is only extreme if *some* people experience it. If everyone (except for a handful of privileged elites) experiences poverty, then it is no longer "extreme"--it becomes normal.

[SteveH]

Socialists do not claim Angola, Benin, Cambodia, and so on as successes. (Instead, they use Sweden.)

[SteveH]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/425800/bernie-sanders-socialist-success-sweden