These comments, articles, & memes make the argument that Venezuela’s current economic trouble somehow proves that socialism will never work. Since the Venezuelan crisis is truly heart-breaking, right-wing bloggers often try to persuade people ( & themselves ) that it “exposes” socialism by using deeply flawed — but sadly effective — emotional arguments. To help clean up our shared digital environment, here are a few of the clearer & quicker ways to dismantle a what-about-Venezuela argument with a bit of logic & critical thinking…

Weapons of Mass Instruction:

Does the Venezuelan Crisis “Disprove” Socialism? Logic Says No

The ad Venezuelum fallacy wears many different masks but they are all the same once you remove the packaging. Whether it’s a meme or some fancy-pants article in the National Review, the implied reasoning is: if economies fail as a result of bad economic ideas & if Venezuela’s economy is failing, then socialism is a bad idea. Here it is in its basic logical form:

It may be awkward but that is one way to turn an argument into formal logic and the cool thing about formal logic is it’s a lot like math ( math is cool, right guys? ), which lets us grade their work. Formal logic is either true, false, or invalid, just like math — 2 + 2 is definitely 4 and dividing by zero is invalid ( unless you want to torture a calculator ). Formulas like E=mc² prove things in physics and syllogisms are like formulas to prove things in logic. Like E=mc², a valid syllogism must give the right answer — the numbers change but the formula must always work or its wrong. Make sense?

So, if the major premise is true ( failing economies are the results of bad economic ideas ) then we will see bad economic ideas wherever we see a failing economy — like Zimbabwe in the ‘90s.

If the Major Premise Is True, Capitalism Also Fails

And here we see the ad Venezuelum fallacy in meme form…

In 1992, Zimbabwe — a capitalist country — watched as its manufacturing output dropped by half, dragging real wages with it. After cutting social spending, privatizing public infrastructure, & opening their markets to foreign capital, Zimbabwe’s inflation skyrocketed while growth stagnated. By ’98, their economy went into free fall & their currency devalued by over 80%. By 2002, 60–70% were under the poverty line, life expectancy dropped to 37 years, interest rates ran at 70%, & millions could no longer afford to eat.

According to the reactionaries’ own argument, capitalism must also be considered a bad economic idea since the logic also applies to Zimbabwe’s economic crisis, as you can see below:

If the reasoning is correct , we could make the same argument against capitalism using the great depression in Argentina from 1998–2002. Or the the United States after the “Roarin’ Twenties” when stocks crashed by 90%, production fell by half, 1/4th were unemployed, & 50% of children underfed, while those in Appalachia were so hungry that folks had to stop them from chewing their own hands.

Even if their argument was correct, the reactionary logic still puts the two modes of production on equal footing — which means the whole thing is pretty much useless. As they say — those who live in a glass house shouldn’t throw stones.

We Should Wish Venezuela Luck

Instead of Reveling in Their Misfortune

US child protesting the failure of capitalism in the ‘30s

The science of the production & distribution of wealth in society — economics — is complex. Even well-thought out policies can go awry & good systems run by smart folks can fail when you consider shortages, trade, war, natural disaster, climate, luck, & the actions of others — things nobody can control. Instead of gloating over the suffering of other nations with different ideas, it would be better to study & understand the real causes so that humans can avoid them in the future.

Besides, the best human innovations are often the ones which we tried & failed at the most. As an analogy, look at the attempts to engineer a working airplane before the first successful flight-test of an airplane, from Da Vinci to Orville Wright. In the year 1900, just a bit before the first successful test-flights, the idea of of an airplane had been around for some time but — so far — each attempt to build a working one failed. Do we want to be remembered as the ones who dismissed the idea of a vehicle which uses the principle of lift to achieve flight — just because 1 attempt went down in spectacular flames? We do not. And, for the same reason, every one of us ought to be rooting for Venezuela’s success — not using their plight to reinforce our faith in our aging ideologies….

In solidarity,

John Laurits

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