Reassurance from The New Yorker

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William Finnegan [link fixed] tells readers

Understanding Venezuela’s failing state as just another failure of socialism, and of statism generally, is ahistorical. Venezuela before Chávez was often extravagantly statist. Corruption has been a major problem in every era. Even dire food shortages are not new. These things happened under capitalism, too, as did intense political repression. Today’s crisis is for most people the worst in memory, but it is not all about socialism. The predatory state, the extreme insecurity, the sheer weakness of the rule of law—these are problems more profound, at this stage, than a traditional left-right analysis can clarify, let alone begin to solve.

The actual reporting in the story makes clear how bad things have become. If he would only let the readers make up their own minds about what it says about socialism, it would be an excellent essay.

7 thoughts on “Reassurance from The New Yorker”

  1. “If he would only let the readers make up their own minds about what it says about socialism, it would be an excellent essay.”

    It’s in the New Yorker. The whole point of the essay is to tell people, “this isn’t socialism’s fault.”

  2. They are right that this is a South American basket case. Sometimes they shoot themselves in the foot with socialism. Sometimes with a “right” leaning kleptocracy. Either way, South America sucks.

    Thanks for importing South America though. Let’s all clutch our pearls about how cruel it would be to deport the people that are going to make America like Venezuela.

  3. Seems to me we have a good idea of what a traditional left-right analysis can solve. Not much. So, almost true by definition.

  5. You could replace ‘Venezuela’ with the name of nations for which there are clear historical cases of Socialism-caused economic calamity and the ‘points’ would be equally as arguable in isolation and lacking just as much validity in aggregate. Twas the leftism; guilty as charged.

  6. Sounds like a No True Scotsman argument…… If only Venezuela had “good” socialism instead of “rampant corruption socialism”… right…

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