The policy that led to a collapse in oil production in a petro state? The policy that led to an economic collapse so severe that 20% of the population has emigrated? That's the policy you call defensible?

That was the policy that allowed him to build a social welfare state for people tired of being exploited. Famine decreased, life expectancy increased, and the HDI became high. Unfortunately, this ended when the country was sanctioned and embargoed.

Why do these strong, socialist countries anyways need US trade to function?

The Venezuelan economy was dying before the sanctions.

Burning the economy to hand out free money isn't good for the people.

Maduro and Chavez fixed the exchange rate, imposed price controls, printed money and did a wave of nationalisation (not the oil infrastructure that was in the 70s). USA isn't to blame for Venezuelan dysfunction.

> socialist countries anyways need US trade to function

Sanctions go way beyond just direct trade with the US; they attempt to prevent all countries on earth from trading with the sanctioned entity, by force of the USD settling system, or as the past week has shown - the US Navy. So it reduces the number of potential trading partners from hundreds to a handful with (near) reserve currencies, and a navy that's not a pushover.

Now I hate your typical south american dictator just like the next guy and know a thing or two from the ground about what sort of instability and crime wave his regime caused across much of South America, but some reality check - if US blocks you from selling oil and you are a regular country and not a china/russia, you practically can't sell oil, not in stable big numbers that can contribute to economy. Yes bits here and there on black market for much lower price, but thats it. And all oil is sold in USD, hence the popular 'petrodolar' expression, and US will fight till its last soldier and missile to keep that status.

Also tells you how serious US is with sanctioning russia and its army of oil&gas resellers btw, which is the primary cash flow financing russian war in Ukraine.

As it was all collapsing because no one cared enough to make oil to support those things?

They were under embargo, they can pump as much oil as they want but pdvsa can't sell it.

The Saudis did it in the 1970s. It's a great policy.

Where it failed is that Venezuelans are an utterly corrupt people lacking any sense of nationalism or patriotism.

You mean due to the collapse that the United States engineered?

Chavez actually did quite well in the early years. I'm not sure he nationalized oil but took greater amounts of the revenue in tax and used it for positive things for the people. It went downhill after a while with many of the problems common to communist policy though.

He was awful from the start, sending political opponents to prison and transferring oil money to himself and his croneys, but he claimed to be taking from the rich to give to the poor, so the Western left lapped it all up. It took them years to realise what he was actually doing (from the start).

He could give a hell of a speech. I've listened to him make speeches where pretty much everything he said was correct from a policy standpoint. The problem was he was an incompetent administrator running a personality cult.

I'm reminded of Noam Chomsky and what has recently come out about his social time with Epstein. He would talk about how the media only allows leftist thought in public as a sort of controlled opposition. Then he turns out to be exactly what he was complaining about. One moment he's calling Steve Bannon the enemy and the next he is smiling with him and Epstein, in a photo I've heard multiple people describe as "the happiest they have ever seen him".

All this is to say: it's not enough to "say the right things". Your actions have to match.

Can’t believe that both sides of the Chomsky Foucault debate were possibly diddling children!!!

Also can’t believe that no matter who I voted for in 2016 I had to vote for someone who performed fellatio on bill clinton.

> sending political opponents to prison

sounds like a common theme… only this one involves war and prison and taking oil money for US cronies.

whole thing truly makes me skeptical of anyone’s claims that “socialism always leads to corrupt leaders while capitalism doesn’t.”

Chavez was corrupt but the people he replaced were also corrupt. Even when Venezuela was "rich", most of the people were poor and felt like they weren't benefiting from it. The US is probably going push Venezuela to that prior state, where the country is rich on paper but most people are struggling, setting up a call for another Chavez. That assumes the US can just waltz into the country and take complete control, which is probably not going to happen.

Better some people are poor than everybody is poor, which tends to be the result of putting leftists in charge.

How large is your ideal value of "some"?

Typically this translates into everybody below me on the social ladder.

The upper class Cubans in Florida want their plantations and slaves in Cuba back, is that a reasonable tradeoff so some people aren't poor?

> Better some people are poor than everybody is poor

Well, technically it's only better for the few that are not poor, for all of the others, it's the same. It's even probably worse because rich people in a country with mostly poor people tend to be very efficient with capturing most of the value produced by the others.

You always get that last golden egg out when you kill the goose.