Socialism in Venezuela has made illiteracy a thing of the past

Hi,There were a few posts on Venezuela here a few months back, after Pat Robertson suggested that the elected president of Venezuela be assassinated.I thought that the people involved in those discussion would appreciate an update on the progress of socialism in Venezuela.Socialist policies implemented since 2003 have eliminated illiteracy in Venezuela.The official news report from UNESCO is hereQuote from the UNESCO news report:

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a nation-wide literacy programme that started in 2003, has enabled almost one and a half million people to read and write. The Minister explained that the programme’s success owes much to the Cuban literacy teaching method Yo Si Puedo (Yes I can), through which students learn to read by establishing an association between letters and numbers. “As a result,” he said, “Venezuela is officially declaring its territory illiteracy-free on 28 October 2005.”

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The literacy program was established in 2003. Chavez was elected in 1998. The Bolivarian socialist revolution took off after the contested 2000 elections.Socialism works.Mick

A few months ago I got into a tangle of words and definitions about liberalism and left wing over the Guardian, and I fudged my side by saying the paper was not left-biased, at least by any non-US definition.The reason I bring this up is I did not have the courage of my political convictions and say 'So what! The Guardian is a leftist, socialist paper born out of the struggles of the working classes of Manchester in the 1800s'. No, I stated that the US view of left-wing was biased and derogatory.Well thank you Mick for highlighting an unabashed socialist state that , despite it's near neighbour's (and biggest economic partner) condemnation and vilification, has succeeded in putting forward a social agenda that includes the poorest and disenfranchised. Considering the (potential) economic power that Venezuela has, the working class has had little benefit from massive oil revenues, which successive (military, right wing) governments, with US military support and training, has squandered on armaments and self-agrandisement.The history of socialism is scattered with the corpses of well meaning and corrupt politicians, yet the success stories, or even the 'little guy against the big guy' stories are thin on the ground. Cuba stands 80 miles from the US and has suffered the perfidy of US foreign policy which baldly states it's intention to undermine it, yet consistently posts better standards of living figures for its people than many right wing regimes in South America that the US actively supports. The reason, a long standing, and pointless foreign policy (by both governments) that accepts values consigned to the bin when Russia hit the buffers nearly 20 years ago. [to illustrate - holiday in US - customs declaration on entry - Do you have? Firearms, narcotics, alcohol and a list of other illegal items, and at the bottom of the list Cigars from Cuba - not cigars from anywhere else , just Cuba] [WTF!!]Mick, we are going to get hit for this, but thank you. (well done at Rotherham at the weekend btw)

The Soviets had a high literacy rate as well. Teaching people to read is a good thing, but it takes more than that for a functional soceity.

It is certainly true that literacy alone proves and solves nothing about an economic system's functionality.Then again, what do the Soviets have anything to do with socialism? They were a communist dictatorship. Your subthread title is socialism doesn't work, but you provide nothing for that claim. At least the OP suggests something that can be helped.Scandinavian nations are socialist. They also have the highest standards of living. Many other European nations are socialist and they also usually fare better than strictly capitalist nations regarding standard of living.This tends to suggest socialism does work.Netherlands is about to end all of its socialist practices (except apparently those programs involving thought/moral legislation) and will probably pay a large price for it. Well we already do know they will pay a large price for it. Despite taxes remaining the same, health costs will now jump tremendously (this is already known) with coverage likely lessening. The selling point on privatized healthcare being cheaper health costs, which of course is the standard lie, quickly disproven in practice.For large scale activity/service needed by a majority of the population for quality of life issues, there is no better system than socialism to provide it. That is unless you are living in a very small community.This message has been edited by holmes, 11-07-2005 04:19 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Um that they called themselves the united soviet socialist republic? They were a nasty repressive oligarchy, not that much different to our current administration.But to the right wing propogandists they are the symbol of all that is bad with liberal thought and they truck it out whenever they want to discredit a liberal notion, while ignoring all the known socialist states that operate just fine and have better living standards than the US, including better medical care for lower cost and available to more of the population.This message has been edited by RAZD, 11*07*2005 08:11 AM

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It would appear that you don't think that the Soviet Union was a functional society. That may very well have been the case, but what when do you consider a society functional?

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

Socialism doesn't work?? What about the United States since Roosevelt? Worked pretty damn good for most of that time. Most of the ways we operate here were planks in Eugene V. Debs' platform - the Socialist Party platform - back in the 1920's!

First off, as one pointed out, we already have a measure of socialism in the US, and no, it didn't help pull us out of the Depression. WWII did that.But it's interesting because socialists will often talk of how the Soviets were supposedly not socialist, and how they can envision a Third Way, and are extremely critical of the United States, all the while ignoring the fact the US is the third way. We have a "mixed economy" with plenty of socialism.In fact, many think we have too much socialism.As far as Scandanavia, they defense was paid for by the US for 50 years, and they are smaller nations with different immigration issues, or used to be different, and are not analogous.Did socialism work in any of the large nations it was tried, such as China and Russia? It hasn't worked in many smaller nations either such as Cuba.The answer is a predominantly socialist economy does not work, unless subsidized as the Scandanavian countries were by the US for so long.Furthermore, in a global economy, we are seeing nations that are more socialist fall behind, and the ones adopting more of a free market move ahead.

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First off, as one pointed out, we already have a measure of socialism in the US, and no, it didn't help pull us out of the Depression. WWII did that.

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Ha ha ha. This is exactly what the Marxists say.-

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socialists will often talk...how they can envision a Third Way

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I hope not to commit the "No True Scotsman Fallacy", but none of the Socialist articles I read advocate a "third way".-

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As far as Scandanavia, they defense was paid for by the US for 50 years....

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To be exact, the imperialist policies that guaranteed a constant flow of raw materials and cheap labor from the Third World into the West (including Scandanavia and the rest of Europe) has been paid for (in money and blood) largely by the US (although the UK and France also helped a bit). This, again, is right in line with Marxist critique.-

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Did socialism work in any of the large nations it was tried, such as China and Russia?

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Was Socialism ever tried in Russia or China? If I recall correctly, one of the first things the Bolsheviks did when they got into power was to dismantle the independent workers councils and co-ops, instituting centralized state control. I don't know much about China, I admit, but I've been under the impression that their economy was largely under centralized state control as well.-

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It hasn't worked in many smaller nations either such as Cuba.

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Actually, since the collapse of the Soviet Union (and the subsidies that Cuba recieved), Cuba has had to implement a lot of actual Socialist policies, like decentralized planning processes, which has had a relatively large effect on the economy, despite that Cuba has few natural resources and is under trade embargo with the US.At any rate, Cuba has done a very good job in educating its citizens compared to the rest of Latin America, and exports medical personnel and medicines. Nicaragua under the Sandanistas were also making great progress under Socialism, until the economy was badly damaged by the terrorist campaign funded and supported by the US -- since the end of the Sandanista regime the standard of living for the Nicaraguans has decreased.-

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...a predominantly socialist economy does not work....

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This could possibly be true -- since the only attempts at socialism (Cuba, Nigaragua, post-Kerensky Russia) were destroyed or badly warped from the wars waged against them by the capitalist powers, we have no data by which to judge what a socialist economy can do. All we have are the very positive gains that occurred during the very short time that socialism existed and the declines that occurred when socialism was destroyed. That is what makes Venezuela so exciting -- it is an actual experiment with definite socialist tendencies -- my guess is that it won't be long before the capitalist powers destroy it.-

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Furthermore, in a global economy, we are seeing nations that are more socialist fall behind....

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Actually, what we see recently are the failures of "neo-liberal" capitalism; every Third World nation that has implemented capitalist "reforms" has suffered terrible losses in the standard of living among its citizens.

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

Hmm... so, if you spend billions of dollars to undermine socialist economies, they will collapse. Go figure, eh? Then, if I bulldoze randman's house and it collapses, that must prove that conventional construction methods don't work.

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People who think they have all the answers usually don't understand the questions.

Judging by the responses thus far, that seems to be the case, which is an interesting fact.But the sample is probably too small.Are there no evos here that think socialism doesn't work?

I'm no socialist, but I would like to see some form of national health insurance. I know they have it in some other countries, but I don't know how well it works.

Are the creos here Limbaughites?

Chiroptera, socialism involves centralization, nearly by definition, since it involves the taking of the means of production away from private ownership into the hands of something representing the soceity as a whole, which usually is the central government.Central planning is a major feature of socialism, and socialism was tried in the Soviet Union and China and elsewhere, and failed miserably.Private co-ops are not socialism on a macro-scale, but actually part of capitalism. You just have ownership via the co-op, kibuttz or group of people, workers, whatever, running the entity.This message has been edited by randman, 11-07-2005 04:40 PM

Stated like someone that watched the West Wing last night?