Funny how Italians are more are more proud of America and our flag than Democrats. Perhaps that is because they remember what fascism truly looks like.

🗜

I'm still surprised that people still believe socialism works. Literally all you have to do is talk to a regular person that lived in a socialist country and they will tell you fuck socialism.

@mikeflarkin As if the 100+ million corpses is not enough evidence of failure?

Yea I don't support a 100% socialist regime

USA has a special blend of capitalism and socialism

That's not quite true. A lot of Venezuelans still think socialism is good and that it's just Maduro's corruption that was the problem

for example

The problem is that people somehow overlook the corpses, who unfortunately are unable to say how much socialism sucks.

Stalin

@yearspastmatter Maduro was corrupt, Chavez was corrupt, Pol Pot was corrupt, Castro was corrupt, Mao was corrupt, Stalin was corrupt. Tell me, is there one leader of a socialist regime who was not?

Well socialism under Chavez worked for Venezuela. It was frustrating for the middle class because the heavy taxes, but Venezuela was a functioning country under Chavez

Then inflation problems and Maduros corruption and economic sanctions turned Venezuela into a nightmare

@Gary Payton Tribute Account No it wasn't it was artificclaly proped up by oil exports to the US at the peak of the Oil Bubble.

@Gary Payton Tribute Account Chavez was estimated to be worth $1 billion at the time of his death. Venezuela was certainly working for him.

Well Chavez was corrupt but the Venezuelan people enjoyed a somewhat stable society and better standard of living compared to other Latin American countries

Many Venezuelan poor people were uplifted out of poverty under Chavez's regime

@Gary Payton Tribute Account I hear Berlin was a stable and prosperous place in 1938 too.

That's an obvious strawman

Maduro is corrupt no doubt, but hes not a nazi

Maduro is an international socialist rather than a national socialist? Does the adjective make that much difference?

Yea Maduro is really screwing Venezuela and I'm not defending socialism, I'm not a socialist

A lot or Venezuela's problems are due to inflation because of their banking system essentially printing unlimited money (kind of similar to USA federal reserve under the Obama admin.)

And then USA has a lot of economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela which further hurts their economy

But really the problems with Venezuela stem from their banking system failing to control inflation, and government corruption at the highest levels

The government corruption factor always happens to a socialist regime, which is why socialism doesnt work for a country in the long term

@Gary Payton Tribute Account Hyper inflation and a devaluation of the currency always occurs when a regime is about to fall. I believe it is a symptom of the crisis and not its cause.

Remember those pictures of people with wheelbarrows of Marks trying to purchase bread in Germany at the end of WWI and WWII.

Mark us Summers

"Socialism" only works when you have a healthy export ecomony bringing in money and normally that means Private Capitalist firms making products for export effectively. Both were killed under Chavez.

i would like to join boyscouts...

but i'm a boy 😭

@Khanclansith Actually it only works in theory or with a very small group of people. Once the group is large enough that everyone doesn't know everyone else and can motivate them to produce it always fails. One of the original colonies in the US was run via socialist principles. The people were starving and ready to return to England. A new governor divided the land and gave it to the colonists with the idea that what they grew was their own. The colony was saved.

@CasualSailor yeah, I feel like in really small rural areas socialism wouldn't be a terrible idea, but even running something the size of a county would be a problem

denmark norway and sweden are literal hellholes

socialism will never work

If they had a tougher immigration policy, they would be fine

@mikeflarkin Exactly. And it needs to be a tight nit group with common morals and values such that those who refuse to produce can be motivated with something other than force. Otherwise, if I can eat as much as you and do no labor then I'm headed for shady tree to have a nap.

but Stalin type of communism is very tyranical and people who were raised on tirany actually like it tbh, i think same goes with slavery...

No idea what prompted me to look up Chompsky, but lo and behold, from Wikipedia: "In his youth, Chomsky developed a dislike of capitalism and the pursuit of material wealth. At the same time, he developed disdain for authoritarian attempts to establish a socialist society, as represented by the Marxist–Leninist policies of the Soviet Union". I like the general direction here...

@DarKinGate you see that with prison systems as well, sometimes when someone has done a really long sentence they don't know what to do when they get out and actually miss it.