I must begin by thanking you for the good comments, I hope you liked my publication even though you may disagree.
First may you define socialism in your own words.
I would define socialism, obviously being quite summarized, as a system of social and economic organization based on the ownership and collective or state administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.
Based on that definition, I am aware that social democracy is not literally socialism, but is a conglomeration of some half-baked ideas among which Marxist socialism predominates, one could say that it is a less radicalized version of socialism, however, what it deserves with the title, is that many modern political figures who call themselves social democrats are people more attached to socialist ideas than they like to admit, but are afraid to say it publicly for all the historical weight that this it brings them.
Coming back to Venezuela a lot of the sector is mostly private according to the ILO 72.2% to be exact, which is responible for around 70% of the GDP.
Only the oil industry represents more than 50% of GDP in Venezuela, which is a mono-producer country, that is, that its economy depends almost entirely on a single product, and absolutely all this industry is state controlled , so I would doubt the ILO data, but without dismissing it, since the data presented by the government are not transparent at all and ceased publication at the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016.
Under chavism the GDP has skyrocketed only plummeting when the oil industry had a crash, which inherently is a fault of capitalism and not "supposed socialism".
Efectively, and this is because the Venezuelan economy is totally dependent on oil, this is not a failure of capitalism, since the prices in the international market were not established through a free market, but rather, OPEC speculated with the price of the oil manipulating the demand, as it still does, creating a price bubble that was unsustainable in the long term, however, the government, despite being aware of this, did not diversify the industry and only destined more money to public spending through the increase in the number of social programs and government subsidies.
The west has taken the stance of embargoing the crippled nation for the reason of "undemocratic election" which the country had a history of fully fair and democratic elections.
Venezuela does not have an embargo, today, the main commercial partner of Venezuela is still the United States, which together with China represent more than 50% of exports and also imports of the country. The sanctions placed during these last two years they have only made it impossible for the country to borrow more, but commercial deals have not stopped. And the economic crisis that the country is going through, started four years before these sanctions, in fact, the height of the crisis occurred between 2015-2016, just before the sanctions were placed.
Although during the Chávez administration I am totally sure that the elections were clean, since you could even see on the street that the Chavistas were the majority, since the arrival of Maduro to power the elections have been much less transparent, the opposition won the last elections cleanly held in 2015, and since then the government has imprisoned some politicians and vetoed others, and talked about the main opposition leaders, also closed the parliament, which was controlled by the opposition, and held elections for a National Constituent Assembly without following the established guidelines in the constitution, that is, in an illegitimate way, and even in the elections to choose this assembly, in which the opposition did not participate, the company in charge of providing the technological services for the elections, and which lent them throughout the government of Chavez, Smartmatic, said the elections were rigged by at least 1 million votes. So the antidemocratic sanctions of the United States are not so detached from reality.
You must ask, why hasn't this been done to other social democracy such as Denmark, and Sweden.
Well, for more than 18 years, Venezuela was not sanctioned, but as we saw, it totally abandoned constitutional democracy.
Embargo may have been the wrong word to choose I was writing without sleep for 20 hours, there are many points that I agree with you on. Such as venezuela failing to diversify their economy in spite of a oil crash; it doesn't disprove a social democratic system of governance.
Also some correction to your claim about the GDP produced by the oil industry, according to the OPEC their responsible for 95% of the exports and 25% of the GDP, which falls closely my claim of how much the private sector is responsible for.
Other than that, I don't have much to say I think we can come to a more or less agreement unless you want to dispute that.
Of course we can reach an agreement, personally I like to discuss different arguments, it is the main way I know to carry out a good feedback.
But you will see, in Venezuela there is private property, with few guarantees, since it can be expropriated by the State at any time. But the truth is that the private company is totally hanged by the State, because it does not matter if the ownership of the means of production is public or private, when the process of production and distribution is at all levels controlled by the State. According to the Central Bank of Venezuela, the private sector is over 50%, but it is less than 60%, according to 2013 data, however, the most important companies are dominated by the government, in addition to the fact that the entire Venezuelan economy is directly subsidized and dependent on oil.
I invite you to pass the following publications if you have enough time and interest in this topic. Thank you very much for your comments.
How Venezuela met Socialism? brief political history (4/5)
How Venezuela met Socialism? brief political history (5/5)
private property can not exist without the monopoly of force provided by a government, so the fact that the gov can take it at any time means nothing
In fact, there have been cases in history where private property exists without the need for a government, and it is something that in itself is quite feasible, as long as someone can protect their property by itself, or as long as nobody tries to take the property of another, that situation could occur, without the need of the State. Although it is true, the State is perhaps the best mechanism to secure private property, but the fact that the government removes the property at any time does mean something, and something very negative.
"Private property is a social relationship between the owner and persons deprived (not a relationship between person and thing), e.g., artifacts, factories, mines, dams, infrastructure, natural vegetation, mountains, deserts and seas. Marxism holds that a process of class conflict and revolutionary struggle could result in victory for the proletariat and the establishment of a communist society in which private property and ownership is abolished over time and the means of production and subsistence belong to the community. (Private property and ownership, in this context, means ownership of the means of production, not personal possessions)."
Private property is a relationship between those who control the means of production and those who don't. Control can only be done through force. That force is the state. (Even if it is a "business" they simply become a state)
Ok, I understand then that you mean private property, but exclusively talking about the means of production, or not? If that is the case, I can say that in the same way, the participation of the State is not necessary for there to be such property.
In addition, Marx the only thing that got with his theory is to increase the power of the State, not to diminish it, socialism, brings maximizes all the problems of capitalism and does not bring any of its benefits.
"In addition, Marx the only thing that got with his theory is to increase the power of the State, not to diminish it, socialism, brings maximizes all the problems of capitalism and does not bring any of its benefits."
complete opposite actually, all it did was improve the condition of the workers
"Ok, I understand then that you mean private property, but exclusively talking about the means of production, or not? "
Private property is a relation between people over the means of production. I'm not using the stupid capitalist definitions
if you think that there will be no problem in that you give us your account and all the money in it. that is, property is a robbery, right?
private vs personal property.
Private property itself is offensive violence and thus requires a monopoly of force
It requires the use, or intent, of the use of force, but not the monopoly of it. There may be cases in which individuals have the power to defend what they consider their property, without the need of the State.
Check that amazing words