Re:Venezuela Forcibly Converts Pensions into Petro
by arielserafini on Monday December 17, 2018 @05:48AM
(#18698149)
I'm not even trying to get into the "true socialism" debate, but what they are trying to refer to is dictatorial policies, not socialist policies.
Re:Venezuela Forcibly Converts Pensions into Petro
by lucozade on Monday December 17, 2018 @06:08AM
(#18698221)
I would tend to agree with you. What was state socialism has evolved into totalitarian dictatorship.
In fairness, pretty much every state socialist regime has, fairly quickly, evolved into a totalitarian dictatorship so it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
It's clear that Marx was right in the sense that societies evolve, but wrong in that state socialism evolves to communism: it clearly doesn't. It's why I find intelligent people advocating for socialism to be particularly heinous. What they are, effectively, advocating for is totalitarianism.
Chavez and, to lesser extend, Maduro, were/are, under most any definition, socialists.
What I believe makes you want to avoid the association is that naturally, some intellectually dishonest people will turn around and use a completely different definition of the word to jump from arguing against, say, rules prohibiting forced arbitration clauses (to use an appropriately arbitrary example) directly to painting the spectre of Venezuela-style breakdown of civilisation in our future.
Personally, I believe it's more use to argue against instances of the latter folly (which really deserves its own debate-ending "...fallacy" designation). Otherwise, it's that No-True-Scotsman thing.