Venezuelans struggle to find food in Chavez's socialist economy Venezeulans face long lines and shortages of food similiar to the former Soviet Union and communist Cuba http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071120...a_shortages;_ylt=AoxaC0RoD3dCOB104t8_H3pvaA8F
Before you take jabs at Venezuela, look at your own country. Bush runs his mouth everyday and there are millions of people in america living in poverty and struggling to get food, and this is in a so called democracy!
Chavez is attempting to convert his economy to socialism and look what happens. Long lines and scarse supplies of bread, milk, eggs, sugar etc There is no shortage of food in the US and if a poor guy can scrapr together $4 he can buy himself a gallon of milk unlike in Venezuela
You're right, socialism dosen't work. I mean, look at Norway! They are at the bottom of all rankings.
Social democracy has worked very well for some countries, in managing the transition to a fully industrial society and the concomitant rise of a mobilized working class. The nordic social democracies are a good example.
Norway is really not a poster child for socialism. They have a low population and substanial exports of oil. Iran and Venezuela have approx the same oil exports and little else, but with a lot of hungry mouths to feed. Norway has a population of 4,627,926 and exports 2.6 million barrels a day of oil and 3.28 trillion cubic feet of natural gas for 2007. Traditional economic activities are shipping (fourth largest fleet in the world) and fisheries, along with which must now be counted fish farming. Venezuela (Population: 26,023,528 ): Petroleum exports of 2.8 million barrels per day represent 80 per cent of exports. Iran (Poulation: 65,397,521 ): Petroleum exports of 2.8 million barrels per day represent 80 per cent of exports.
Norway and the other nordic social democracies - Finland, Norway and Sweden - have done a helluva job at managing economies that respect market forces while making a concerted national effort at the maintenance of "public goods," most notably, low poverty. Here, a good article from the Scientific American: http://scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=31&articleID=000AF3D5-6DC9-152E-A9F183414B7F0000 Another resource would be the historical/developmental look drawn out by my late professor, Greg Luebbert, in his book, Liberalism, Fascism or Social Democracy: The Political Origins of Regimes in Interwar Europe. Professor Luebbert explore the history of several countries to show that the political economic "solution" of social democracy in the nordic countries was an outgrowth of the specific pre-WWI development among the middle and working class in these countries. Great read.
Ask any woman if she would prefer going hungry, or getting 200 lashes and 6 months in jail after being gang-raped. Guaranteed, she will go for the first option. We think the UN needs to get their priorities right and crack down on Saudi Arabia first, then they can hassle Iran and Venezuela. Just our 2 cents.