ADSactly World - Continuing the discussion about Venezuela and socialism

Introduction

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In the previous article about this topic, I explained some of the misconceptions about the actual meaning of the word socialism, and we also discussed whether or not this term could be used to describe the different systems that were implemented in several countries, I specifically mentioned Venezuela and the Scandinavian countries due to their relevance in current political discussions regarding socialism.

As a short summary of the arguments shared in the previous article, we can say that based on the actual meaning of the term, socialism has always been about having control over the means of production, this means that any country where private property is protected by law (like the Scandinavians countries) shouldn’t be considered a proper example of a socialist model, but rather a social democracy or a welfare state in a capitalist economy.

The same cannot be said about other countries such as Cuba or Venezuela, where private property is not protected by law, and the governments are known for doing a lot of expropriations which in simple words, consists in stealing land, businesses or factories and leave them under the totalitarian control of the socialist regime.

It was also mentioned in the previous article, the fact that well known socialists such as Bernie Sanders or Michael Moore in The United States did indeed praise the wonders of the Venezuelan revolution, but once it collapsed they seem to have forgotten about Venezuela, with other people sometimes even denying it was a socialist country in the first place.

Therefore, today we are going to continue exploring the different measures that Karl Marx wrote in one of his books, and see if they were applied in Venezuela. The first measure was already discussed and it was about the absence of private property protected by law, this is why in the following paragraph I am going to start with the second measure.

Karl Marx measures

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• A heavy progressive or graduated income tax ^Source: this measure is indeed not only applied in Venezuela but in virtually every country there is on the planet. In today’s world, it is seen as absolutely normal that the more an individual or a company earns, the higher the percentage they need to pay in taxes.

• Abolition of all rights of inheritance ^Source: as we can see, socialists really hate everything about private property and the creation of wealth. Abolishing inheritances is the same thing as being willing to use force to destroy the wealth created by a person throughout his entire lifetime.

^Source

Surprisingly to many people that aren’t Venezuelans, this measure wasn’t applied in this country. People can receive their inheritances peacefully but there is a tax they have to pay for it. If you wonder why this measure wasn’t applied in Venezuela, it might be because the government elite is multimillionaire thanks to the money they stole, with some estimations saying they looted more than 400 billion dollars mainly thanks to the oil boom, and there is certainly a great part of that stolen money that is in Venezuela. Abolishing the inheritance rights would prevent their family members, and especially their children from enjoying all of this stolen money.

I personally think that is the reason why this measure wasn’t applied, they have proved time and time again they don't have any respect for other people’s property, so I could bet they would love to make inheritances illegal and having all this wealth going under the control of the government, but as I just mentioned, I think they see this as a potential complication for their own family and simply decided to not apply this measure.

• Confiscation of the properties of all emigrants and rebels ^Source: this measure was half applied in Venezuela. There was a program that was called “plan ubica tu casa” which in English would mean “locate your own home plan” that was meant to take away the homes of the people that no longer lived in the country. This is similar to a criminal underground movement in Spain known as “okupas” that are always looking for empty properties to use them as their unpaid home, the difference is that in Venezuela the property owners aren’t protected by law. Reports about this in Spanish can be found here and here.

There were also cases of property owners that rented houses being forced by the government to sell their properties with an extremely low price, effectively making these people lose a big percentage of their wealth. This allows the government to gain some popularity and support from the people purchasing the cheap properties, whether this is moral or not is of no importance for the government supporters.

It is clear the war of socialists against private properties is always one of their most important strategies to take control over an entire country and its economy.

Conclusion

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In today’s article, we continue to explore more of the measures written by Karl Marx in his popular book “The Communist Manifesto”. I have the feeling that most people would be surprised realizing the progressive income tax which exists in the majority of the countries is a marxist measure, luckily this measure isn’t capable of destroying economies and as we can see, even the most free and prosperous countries on the planet can apply this measure without anything bad happening.

The measure that has the most destructive impact in people’s lives and in entire countries, are those with the goal of destroying the private control over properties and over the means of production, this is why every country that has decided to apply these measures has ended up with a total economic collapse.

I have even heard some people joke about the fact that socialism is even more destructive than an atomic bomb, so I have a question for all the Venezuelan steemians reading this. What do you think is more destructive, the socialist revolution from the chavistas or an atomic bomb? Because in my case, by looking at Japan, I think the answer is very clear.

Authored by Hive account@dedicatedguy