[IGI-111]

And there is that meme again, people fail to understand what socialism is. Social policies or redistribution don't make a socialist state.

Norway is a liberal democracy. The workers don't own the means of production there.

And the Soviet Union was indeed a socialist state. Statism and socialism aren't mutually exclusive, and being both is exactly the point of a dictatorship of the proletariat. That it didn't bring what it promised is just one more tired argument. Scotsmen are never true socialists for some reason.

All in all, Venezuela's woes aren't all to blame on socialism, but you can't really help but point out that it's a direct application of the principles layed out in The Road to Serfdom. The State grew by violating private property to redistribute it, scared off any outside investment, consolidating into an all-in policy on oil. And that investment had to be controlled, which means loyalty became more important than competence to recruit oil industry officials. And the rest was just one market fluctuation away.

[ionised]

The workers didn't own the means of production in Venezuela either. Businesses there are 90% privately or publicly owned.

[andrenth]

While in theory that’s true, Venezuela also has strong government-imposed price controls backed by a violent militia.

[AstralStorm]

Nation owned is still publicly owned, not ran by workers.

This is exactly the same thing that happened to originally collectivist farming in Soviet Russia - it quickly got nationalized or virtually nationalized by centrally mandated quotas.

[andrenth]

“Giving it to the people” is code for government ownership.

[IGI-111]

This is why I wouldn't blame it on socialism per se. It was the stated goal of the socialist government however to get there. And I'd rather argue that this aim partly caused the outcome.

In fact I feel this is the main miscommunication that causes the "it wasn't real X" debate. People use the term X to refer both to the goal and the method of implementation.