Price controls, subsidies and socialism

[blackwidow]

Venezuelans wary that food ID cards are thin end of rationing wedge
Electronic cards that restrict families to shopping once a week aim to prevent widespread food shortages across country.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/a ... tion-cards

The future?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eob532iEpqk

[jonriv]

Price controls in most case lead to two things- shortages and black markets. It is amazing how much venezuela has screwed up that country. Socialism, cronyism and a sprinking of incompetence leads to a BIG mess.

As far as the IBM shopping thing, I look at as and "Easy Pass" for shopping-- (would be tough for the ulta-couponers!"

[Dugout Dad]

There are 8 levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a social state. The first is the most important.

1) Healthcare –
Control healthcare and you control the people

2) Poverty –
Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.

3) Debt –
Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.

4) Gun Control –
Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state.

5) Welfare –
Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income)

6) Education –
Take control of what people read and listen to – take control of what children learn in school.

7) Religion –
Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools

8) Class Warfare –
Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.

All socialist countries have taken this path. Is this beginning to sound familiar?

[jonriv]

Which socialist state started this way????

From my recollection- all socialist states were the result of violent revolutions, were imposed on them by a foreign power following war or a vaccume of power following the withdrawal of a colonial power.

As for western Europe- all which have socialized medicine and some form of welfare etc..., they are far from what Marx would ever consider Socialist State

[Dugout Dad]

Cuba, Valenzuela, Nazi Germany, USSR. The word "all" may have been too inclusive.

Sorry, go back to your normal activities, all is well.

[jonriv]

USSR started from a violent revolution

NAZI(even though socialist is in there name) was a Facisit State- Gun control, socilaized medicine and welfare were in place in complete form by Bismark(under Wilhelm the First)--- other strict controls began after the death of Hindenburg


Cuba was a revolution(I am sure you saw Godfather II)

Hugo Chavez is the only one that came close to your model

[Dugout Dad]

My post is not a model, rather elements of socialism. Nazi Germany had almost all of the above elements, regardless of how they came to be. Why did Cuba and USSR have revolutions?
No worries, none of the above 8 are happening in the USA.

[jonriv]

Both Cuba and USSR had autocratic dictatorship/monarchies that had too much wealth and power in a very small concentrated group. Both countries had extreme wide spread poverty and perverse corruption. Niether had any kind of freedoms-nor did it have any form of represenative government

[Dugout Dad]

#'s during the last 5 years, if we keep going in this direction, the story does not have a happy ending.


Full time workers: 120 million vs. 116 million

Workforce participation: 66% vs. 63.2%

Home ownership: 70% vs. 62%

Median income: $55,484 vs. $52,098

Poverty rate: 13% vs. 15%

People on food stamps: 31.6 million vs. 47.8 million

Debt-to-GDP: 64.8% vs. 101.6%

[jonriv]

Closest the country ever came to revolution(outside of the civi war) was probably the Great depression

Do I think we are heading towards a socialist state- no.

If these trends continue, I agree we have problems....

Posting some list you grabbed off the internet and declaring we are on edge of socialism is not the way to go. Next time do some historical homework.

The great proliteriat revolution that Marx predicted never happened- the Communist/Socialist revolutions all seem to occur in agrarian societies- not the Industrial West