The Socialist Dream Crumbles in Venezuela

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Dharma Bum]

I am a standard social democrat, and would gladly join and help support the formation of a political party based on this formulation in the US.

[Medius]

I just don't see how a planned economy, with business under government control, could ever mesh up with a democratic government. The desire of the general people to keep things the same comes into irreconcilable conflict with the objective reality that things change.

In short, people, in general, won't vote to end their own jobs or disrupt their own comfort, even when those jobs produce things that are irrelevant and unnecessary.

[JDHURF]

I'm not arguing for a stated managed planned economy, but just to be clear on the facts here: a planned economy is not equivalent to government control. Furthermore, even SOE's are more democratic in form than private corporations where executives who were not elected by the general public dictate policy down through various hierarchical levels of managerial control without appeal. I suppose I mean to ask you what in the world you're talking about.

We can vote for the President and members of Congress and apply some minimal amount of pressure to induce them to support policy that we favor. Recall the last public election for Google's executive officers? WalMart's? Exxon Mobile's?

[Spider]

[The Dharma Bum]

Let's be clear, we were talking about a society in which social justice has emerged, meaning there were no class distinctions.

THIS MEANS ALL INDIVIDUALS ARE OF THE SAME SOCIOECONOMIC CLASS AND WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT IS THE FORMATION OF SOCIAL CLIQUES, NOT THE REINTRODUCTION OF SOCIAL CLASSES.

It's an artless question, that's all there is to that.

[Medius]

[The Dharma Bum]

Spider, I suppose the purpose you are trying to serve here is to promote the idea that human society is inherently divided into socioeconomic classes and that this state of affairs represents unchangeable reality for human beings.

However this is untrue.

[Professor]

Here's a very good example of a US government-run "company" that we can use as an example.



And their results?

[The Dharma Bum]

They also supply all of the water in Texas because they built every lake in the state (except one).

Is that an example of the incompetence of the ACE as well?