Do they? I dunno. In Europe we had a regular ritual of hauling kings and the like out to the town square and hanging them. They knew where the problems originated. Of course, the Kings and the Lords did exactly the same thing to the plebs, and a lot more often, but eventually the elite came around to the idea that ordinary people aren’t playthings, and that life would go a lot better if we could all just get along. It took about 600 years, but we got there in the end.
It’s just my opinion, but I suspect there’s a co-dependency thing going on there. Both the elite and the plebs benefit from the status quo in that they all get to do the things they like doing. The plebs get to feud with their neighbours, and the elite get to pillage the country. Everyone’s happy.
I realise there are structural reasons why people feud (eg., lack of a functioning justice system, or bad laws about land tenure) but those reasons are theoretically fixable. It’s just that nobody really, truly, wants them to be fixed. Or at least they don’t want it badly enough to actually make it happen.
The Lucifer Principle mentions an experiment in which a group of rats were subject to electric shocks from the floor of their enclosure. They turned on their weakest member and tore him to bits.
When people can’t - or won’t - identify their real enemy, they look to a scapegoat. The scapegoat is always the one they fear the least.
This is the psychology of moral panics and witch hunts.
As for revolutions, they only happen when the regime has rotted from within, And it’s not the sans culottes who lead the revolutions. The peasants are mere cannon fodder.
The “elite” aren’t the problem in Venezuela’s lack of capital. Nationalizing direct investments of capital is problem #1.
Venezuela could build their own Ft Knox there, ring it with their army and pass laws saying no bank transfers outside the country. Wouldn’t do a lick of good, nobody is going to make direct investments there until Maduro’s gone and communism is dead there.
@Icon: have you read Hernando de Soto’s “The Mystery of Capital”? He reckons it all boils down to lack of property rights and byzantine laws that exclude the poor from economic participation. I think he’s mistaken to assume that these are mere accidents of history that can be corrected once lawmakers are shown the flaws. They are symptoms of a faulty social philosophy: they’re not errors, they’re deliberate, and implemented by broad social consensus. However it’s a very interesting book for the discussions of concrete scenarios and some potential routes towards fixing the problems.
Yeah the allure of socialism never fails to drop my jaw. Tens of millions dead, hundreds of millions put through more suffering, whole economies wrecked, national borders dissolved and new ones created in the past century - all thanks to Karl Marx. A zombie apocalypse gots nothing on socialism.
And still we get young people like America’s AOC and a 21st-century academy, both with a faith in Marx that’s unwavering.
Agreed on deliberate. Not so sure aboutr consensus. that would imply an informed choice. If not well educated not freely informed, how can people make the choice? Any choice.
For exmaple, the papers say teh military support Maduro. For centuries, teh military in latin America has been teh social escape valve, allowing people to get into upper social strata when they do not have the means to do so. Currently, there is a handful of generals on Maduro´s side…who are paid in dollars. What about the rest? Well, 20 somethings who have been raised in teh ideology since Chaves. they believe in their hearts that US is teh devil, that it is all conspiracy and manipulation and that they are doing good for defending their country. They are sincere about their efforts, more than the generals and more than teh bands of ruffians armed with AK47 and Uzis and motorcycles by the regime.
“CUPE ‘rejects any attempt by the Canadian government to interfere with the democratic processes and sovereignty of the Venezuelan people”
Uhm…but do they also reject any attempt by the Venezuelan government to interfere with the democratic processes and sovereignty of the Venezuelan people? Because that’s what the current government is doing there…
I wonder if any of these socialists ever read Marx. Marx said there would be a constant struggle between classes and it would be pretty volatile. It’s exactly how he said it except they never get to their perfect communist utopia. Just a lot of death.
Let’s see the evidence. Lots of documents declassified officially and unofficially through Wikileaks. The amazing thing to me is how little there there is there. So, all of the whispered and shouted conspiracy theories have … come to what exactly? Everyone blames the CIA which is what? Some kind of market research agency now? or at least since Watergate/Carter. Everyone likes to bash the US and blame the US for the problems that are 90-99% inherent and local in nature. Again, disagree, let’s see what you have.
Remember I worked as a volunteer translator for local ACNUR offices and other agencies, mostly transcribing and translating witness accounts and stuff. Family members in law enforcement also had direct contact with the kind of stuff you would only see in American Made.
So rather than evidence, I should just “take your word for it.” Did you know that I am the direct descendant of The King of Scotland and a second cousin to Queen Elizabeth. I also starred in many action movies and was a celebrated model during my youth. On my last IQ test, I scored 220, which makes me the smartest person on the planet or nearly there. On a recent flight, Princess Diana and Jackie Kennedy both made passes at me. It was ridiculous. I finally went home with Pamela Anderson Lee after doing a little Mile High Club action in the First Class suite that I had. Henry Kissinger regularly calls me for advice on China policy and the King of Saudi Arabia gave me this set of prayer beads, but I digress. What was it that you were saying again about providing proof?
