RE: ADSactly Education - On Socialism
This is completely the truth! I'm a Venezuelan who likes to read and get informed about the past socialist governments and regimes in history, and it's weird when you realize that everything Karl Marx said in his communist Manifesto is happening here in Venezuela and has happened in other socialist countries.
For example:
The first plank of the Communist Manifesto states: "Abolition of private property in land and application of all rents of land to public purpose."
This is exactly what this regime is been doing since Chavez was in power. They are either forcing companies to leave the country by imposing sanctions and impossible rules they have to follow, or just directly expropriating the company (illegally), which 99.9% of the times will stop the production.
The fifth plank of the Communist Manifesto also says: "Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly."
The biggest bank in Venezuela Banesco is now being taken away by the regime. Their main goal is to control the transactions and limit the amount of money people are allowed to spend. Many Venezuelans survive by receiving dollars from abroad or making them either working on the internet or re-selling stuff in Colombia. This is not convenient for the government because it makes them lose control over the population. Day by day, the limits decrease and the people who convert our dollars to Bolivares (including SBD), are afraid of being imprisoned and leave the country.
There are some people who say this is not socialism, but if you read all the 10 rules of the Marx's red book, you will realize that all of that is being accomplished here in Venezuela. The countries that proclaim to be socialists and don't follow these rules, are NOT socialist, as simple as that.
The centralization is never a good thing. Everyone must have the rights to decide what they want and the variety of ideologies is something that should always exist.
Finally, I think it's worth for foreigner people to know that tomorrow there are elections, but the regime knows how to play. ALL of the candidates are people from the government pretending to be opposition, in addition to the fact that the regulating entity of the votes (CNE) is Chavista, and they can easily fake the results, at the end of the day, they don't allow the foreign community to check the veracity of the elections.
Sorry for my bad broken English. I had to explain this, I hope my ideas ae understood.
Marx himself believed Socialism to be simply a way point to Communism.
Thank you for a wonderful 'on the ground' explanation of the process in Venezuela, and your thoughtful comment.