this post was submitted on 28 Apr 2024
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Tf happened to Venezuela?
Dictator
Mildly communist government fucked their economy. Corruption ate the state oil company from within.
Communism was the ideological proposal to justify authoritarian power. The political measures themselves weren't communist at all. They seized the means of production… then accumulated those means in the hands of a small group of people who supported the ruling party to stay in power.
Isn't that what happens every single time?
And not even, like, smart communists. The kind that think printing more money to pay for stuff is no big deal.
But MMT says I can (probably misrepresenting it severely, that's what I've been given to understand by internet comments)
MMT says you can get away with spending slightly more than you take in. The logic is that if you can print it you're not going to run out, per se, and a small amount of inflation is thought to be good anyway. I'm not qualified to comment on how correct that is, but it's true most countries accumulate debt over time, and nobody in finance cares until it's multiple times the annual GDP.
If you're straight up pretending that making more money gives you more stuff, your green paper is just going to lose the fight with reality. Places like Venezuala or Zimbabwe, instead of taking the hint early on, double down, and that's how you get 100 trillion dollar bills after a while.
You're implying there's smart communists to begin with
I mean, the USSR didn't have hyperinflation until they were trying to redo the recipe at the end. "Money is real, and making more will help" is honestly a weird line of reasoning for people who hate "capitalism".
Depending on how you define smart, sure, there's been smart ones. At this point there's an accumulation of evidence markets work better than the Soviet system of markets+random constant intervention, but that wasn't always the case, and even now there's people who are smart but have Ben Carson syndrome, and think because they're good at their field they understand economics, and can quantify it's limitations with no research.
By some people's standards I'm a communist, too, since capitalism is poorly defined, and communism is often just defined as the opposite of it.
Vietnam is doing pretty well actually.
Brutal US sanctions cut them off from global trade. An over-reliance on oil meant their economy crashed along with oil prices. A seemingly high level of corruption in government. Multiple coup attempts by foreign actors.
Our hyperinflation crisis pre dates US sanctions by about 3 years. People were dying of hunger on the rural towns way before the US sanctions. I mean, fuck the US, but they aren't particularly the reason we are fucked up beyond recovery. And to call them brutal is an exaggeration. They are actually some of the mildest, milk toast sanctions that a country might impose on another. The rich in power still ride around in US made Lamborghinis, Fortunners and Teslas. While the rest of the population works for $5 a month.