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.
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
