It is difficult to fathom the level of economic and social degradation occurring today in Venezuela under chavismo, the movement founded by the late leftist firebrand Hugo Chávez, who died of cancer three years ago. What began as a war against the "squalid” oligarchy in order to build what he called "21st-century socialism” - cheered on as he was by many leftists from abroad - has collapsed into an unprecedented heap of misery and conflict. Unsurprisingly, Chávez was incapable of reinventing socialism as anything other than a prescription for abject failure. Ultimately, all he wound up bequeathing to his people is this century's longest national train wreck.
Hugo ChávezRelated topics
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We must now try to sum up, to draw together the threads of what has been said above on the subject of imperialism. Imperialism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of capitalism in general. But capitalism only became capitalist imperialism at a definite and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites, when the features of the epoch of transition from capitalism to a higher social and economic system had taken shape and revealed themselves in all spheres. Economically, the main thing in this process is the displacement of capitalist free competition by capitalist monopoly.
Vladimir Lenin
To belittle the socialist ideology in any way, to turn aside from it in the slightest degree means to strengthen bourgeois ideology. There is much talk of spontaneity. But the spontaneous development of the working-class movement leads to its subordination to bourgeois ideology; for the spontaneous working-class movement is trade-unionism, and trade unionism means the ideological enslavement of the workers by the bourgeoisie. Hence, our task, the task of Social-Democracy, is to combat spontaneity, to divert the working-class movement from this spontaneous, trade-unionist striving to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social Democracy.
Vladimir Lenin
The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw in the mysticism of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system, which might, from its indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power and pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them; and for this obvious reason, that nonsense can never be explained.
Thomas Jefferson
Market power and externalities are examples of a general phenomenon called market failure-the inability of some unregulated markets to allocate resources efficiently. When markets fail, public policy can potentially remedy the problem and increase economic efficiency. Microeconomists devote much effort to studying when market failure is likely and what sorts of policies are best at correcting market failures. As you continue your study of economics, you will see that the tools of welfare economics developed here are readily adapted to that endeavor. Despite the possibility of market failure, the invisible hand of the marketplace is extraordinarily important.
Greg Mankiw
The KGB, in Kalugin's view, was more successful than the CIA, partly because of its skill in exploiting the corruption which became endemic under Indira Gandhi's regime. As Inder Malhotra noted, though corruption was not new in India: People expected Indira Gandhi's party, committed to bringing socialism to the country, to be more honest and cleaner than the old undivided Congress. But this turned out to be a vain hope. On the contrary, compared with the amassing of wealth by some of her close associates, the misdeeds of the discarded Syndicate leaders, once looked upon as godfathers of corrupt Congressmen, began to appear trivial.
Indira Gandhi