Damn, who knew it wasn't incompetence, but huge sanctions that stifled their economic development?
I mean, a lot of it was just the spot price of gasoline. Venezuela's darkest days paralleled Exxon's and Saudi Arabia's.
The sanctions suck, but they've been working around those since the Bush Era. They just need a high value commodity to trade.
when the embargo is lifted a little because empire is declining and shitting itself over oil prices so AES can actually build productive forces with little limitation :very-smart: :some-controversy:
It’s like when runners move to high altitude and run with leg weights. Moment you take the restraints off… boom
i'm gonna be a bit of an 'akshually' guy but i feel like it's worth noting that even in Latin America communists avoid calling Venezuela socialist, not because of optics or whatever, but because it's debatable how committed to socialism the venezuelan government actually is. kind of similar to Gadaffi, but way less eccentric. people usually just call Venezuela anti-imperialist.
they got a fuckton of communes for not being socialist tho :thinking-about-it:
that doesn't really matter tho. if you're not committed to class struggle, to abolishing capitalism and social classes you aren't really fixing the issue. it'll be interesting to see how the Venezuelan government acts now that they have a bit more room to maneuver, then we'll be able to have a richer analysis of Maduro's role in class struggle.
Sure, but PSUV is ambivalent towards them. I'd describe Venezuela as a capitalist country with a very strong socialist movement, like Sweden in the 70's.
Venezuela is in urgent need of defence support from China. I don't trust crackers
I really hope China emerges from its isolationist cocoon and grows some teeth. They let Khan fall in Pakistan and it was right next to them. They need to learn a lesson from Russia, when allies are in peril you need to stand up for them or else they will keep knocking over your allies
China wants to eliminate blocs altogether, not create new ones. They will maintain this "no interference" position to take up a position as the moral leader of the world and instead aim to influence completely through economics.
Ok then the US will keep funding terrorists to blow up their BRI projects and keep throwing coups and overthrowing their allies. Eventually when nations see China sitting there doing nothing they will stop allying with China.
It’s time to emerge from your isolation China and enter the real world. “Moral leadership” sounds like idealist hogwash and we all know it. I think they are overreacting from their embarrassing foreign policy gaffes during the late stages of the Vietnam War by completely giving up on the global stage. They need to correct for their mistakes and get back up there instead of giving up.
I disagree. I think the promotion of national sovereignty and use of economics to create the material conditions that makes free sovereign countries WANT to be friendly with you is the only possible way to avoid a ww3 scenario.
Economics is not idealism at all. China is not shying away from economic influence globally and you can see this in all of their projects across latam, africa and belt and road.
Political influence will emerge from economic influence without the need for blocs.
Economic influence can be destroyed with a military strike. There is no replacement for defense. Like I said, we will see increasingly bold sabotage of Chinese investments until it’s no longer viable for them to invest, or the Chinese are reluctantly forced to defend their investments or withdraw economically. Might as well get ahead of it and just defend your investments in the first place
Be dialectical. The effects of that behaviour are not sustainable. They contribute to the closing of ranks of sovereign countries outside the imperial core and turn every single sovereign country into an entity that regards the empire as an enemy and other sovereign countries as allies in opposition to it. It will unite the sovereign nations and their response will be to reduce economic ties with the empire while increasing economic ties with free sovereign countries.
As this developing world gains in power the empire will be forced into either walling themselves off from this new economic alliance of the free countries and seeking greater profits from its own population.
This is the only option on the table. It's that or ww3 :posadist-nuke:. The empire may choose ww3 regardless of China's attempt to go down this path but it is the only chance for something that doesn't kill us all.
I think it’s the idealist and non-dialectical tact is “moral leadership” and just hoping, despite all evidence, that the imperialists don’t fuck your shit up. They will fuck your shit up. They will destroy the BRI with violence, and they will throw coups in dozens of nations if that’s what it takes to try and cling to power. There is zero doubt about this, this is how the American empire has always acted and will continue to act.
They will have to be confronted. There’s no way around it.
Refusing to accept this reality will ensure your shit gets fucked up a lot harder and a lot sooner. It’s sticking your head in the sand to ignore the violent wing of imperialists. If Russia had acted this way Syria, Belarus and Kazakhstan would be fascist US puppet states right now.
I don't know why you're getting hung up on me saying the phrase moral leadership rather than the economics of the situation.
Sovereign nations will learn to counter the coups and cooperative arrangements to prevent that interference already exist and will only continue to develop further. Those "no interference" arrangements can only be achieved if they are real and authentic.
It will either work or ww3 will happen regardless. There isn't a different option on the table that doesn't create ww3 and I don't see how anybody wins in that scenario.
you're right. China is thinking long term and hedging their bets on the global south (not a bad bet with their demographics, and Chinese capital investments can allow them to use their workforces much more efficiently).
Their policy of non-interference has already allowed them to displace the United States as the "champion of the United Nations." If you read diplomatic dispatches from the Chinese government, you will notice they speak in terms of "upholding the UN charter" which is a lot more comfortable for other sovereign states compared to America's (and the IMF's) "democracy (and free markets) are non-negotiable" stance.
Sure China may look weak now compared to America just waltzing around destroying countries in the Middle East, but that's the point of that "shock and awe" shit the US does. We all know America's imperial power is on the decline, but China is currently treading a careful line between "evil communist competition" and "awesome source of economic profit." It's tending towards the former, but their military still cannot compete with the US in force projection (aircraft carriers are the geopolitical meta rn but we are seeing some shift), so it wouldn't do much good for China to get humiliated in a military standoff or proxy war. They've have already made some early moves towards protecting their allies though, like in the Solomon Islands where they signed a defense pact. All the anglos are freaking out about how China can build a military base there.
IMO I prefer China's methods. I don't want them to start getting into a imperialist competition with the US and toppling governments around the world. Authentic revolution can only happen from within, and nobody likes armed missionaries. And if, theoretically, there was some sort of serious armed communist revolution in the western world, I believe current China would hook us up with some weapons and support. It would be geopolitically dumb for them not to, let alone the ideological compatibility.
(Apologies if this is hard to follow I'm kinda inebriated at the moment)
Syria was sovereign before the civil war. It could not counter the coup on its own without Russian assistance. Neither could Belarus or Kazakhstan. Neither could Ukraine. They all fell or would have fallen.
I think China’s idealist, pacifist foreign policy has been shielded for the past decades by the fact that it was integrated into Western Economies and not confronting them. As that shifts and the Western nations start to feel increasingly at odds with Chinese interests, that shield will fall. If China doesn’t adjust to a materialist, realist foreign policy then it will suffer greatly when it brushes up against the reality of the imperialist war machine
Ironically, Russia’s foreign policy is much more Marxist than China’s due to the history of being attacked and shoved into the corner by the west very recently and there is momentum in its policies and alliances from when it was the USSR. China has been allowed to detach its foreign policy from reality because it was very economically useful to the west for a period. That period is closing
Ironically, Russia’s foreign policy is much more Marxist
We definitely completely disagree with each other. China would not be poised to lead the world with it's extremely foreign policy, created by the material conditions necessary for it to get where it is now.
I think China’s idealist, pacifist foreign policy has been shielded for the past decades by the fact that it was integrated into Western Economies and not confronting them. As that shifts and the Western nations start to feel increasingly at odds with Chinese interests, that shield will fall.
If this occurs, and I agree it is a possibility, that will create new conditions and change in policy. Actions before that occurs will only guarantee it happens sooner, and while they're tied together with the west on manufacturing for now they can do more with the current line.
All I’m saying is that if Syria, Belarus and Kazakhstan had China as their principal ally they would all be US puppet states by now. If Pakistan had Russia as their principal ally the coup would have been stopped.
This is simply just a fact. Russia has done more for anti-imperialism internationally in the last decade than China has in the past 5 decades. China does well cracking down on color revolutions internally, I merely wish their external policies were aligned with their internal ones.
It’s not a competition obviously, I just very much wish China gets its head out of the sand and learns from Russia before it’s too late and they or their allies pay a heavy toll. China needs to stop doing military deals with the Solomon Islands and Pakistan if they aren’t willing to commit, they are recklessly endangering them. They are painting a big red target on their backs and then walking away and hiding when someone comes to shoot it
Yes and I agree with the position of offering critical support to their actions on anti-imperialist lines. But we don't want Russian capitalism. We want Communism.
I will not support Russia uncritically nor will I claim China should act before the west disconnects by itself. It is the accurately correct marxist position to take.
Russia does not do anti-imperialism because it wants communism, they have been a useful temporary ally at best because they simply disagree with a neoliberal globalist capitalism and want a different capitalism where they may gain greater wealth and power. This must not be forgotten.
China officials recent comments and actions give me hope that they starting to slap back at the US. From Taipei to the Pacific region. Pakistan is too complicated since their military has a long history with the US, but their new puppet still have to balance the relationship since China is still their biggest trading partner and a deterrence against India.
I think China will stir from its slumber as it is increasingly harassed, it’s just a question of how much needless losses do the anti-imperialist nations have to sustain before they do
In fact, the lack of action from Russia in 2014 during the Ukrainian Maidan coup is exactly why we are in this current crisis. The war could have been avoided if Russia was able to act at that time, but they were constrained in various ways.
It goes to show that idealist pacifism now will only result in even worse war and crisis later.
Use this moment of strength to crush the bourgeoise and compradors Maduro
Out of curiosity I looked up some GDP numbers for Venezuela. The decline due to sanctions seems immense, like less than a quarter of what is was as recently as 2015. The latest numbers are less than one Ukraine lethal aid package.
:guts-rage:
damn, it's almost like their entire situation is one of intentional underdevelopment as punishment for the slightest amount of class agitation against capital and not the inherent inefficiency of "muh gobbulism" :parenti:
Would be nice if they actually had a shot at diversifying their economy. Alas, sanctions.
Do they have access to all the raw materials they'd need to really take advantage of that new infrastructure? I legit do not know, if someone knows about Venezuela I would appreciate the information.
Yeah that makes sense, I guess I'm just afraid that our fearless leaders will escalate the sanctions into a full on blockade like the one on Cuba.
No, you have to build a broad manufacturing base, and that's really impossible for a poor country to do without soaking up foreign money.
picture of oil rigs...
like how do they turn this into permanent sustainable gains? oil prices have bulged Venezuela's numbers before but when it went down they hurt bad.
It makes the whole argument against Venezuela that liberals use even more frustrating because the sanctions have the added bonus of feeding into their narrative that electing leftists will lead to Venezuelas economic woes.
But they have 167% inflation, sweatie, so that’s like negative 147% growth
