Socialism Destroyed Venezuela

The recent riots, in addition to underscoring the importance of owning a weapon suitable for defending yourself, have shown that the left is an inherently socialist ideological force that doesn’t understand that socialism destroyed Venezuela. Antifa, BLM, and others don’t just want “justice,” whatever their twisted version of that is, they also want socialism. They want state ownership of industry, redistribution of wealth, and immensely higher taxes because they have some twisted ideology that conflates those socialist ideas with ending racism and police violence. It’s a ridiculous ideology, but it’s what they think. Of course, what they obviously don’t know is that socialism destroyed Venezuela.

First, a recap of how socialism destroyed Venezuela might be in order. As the image at the top shows, Venezuela had a good think going before socialism came to its shores. It was economically free, had a high per-capita GDP, and was generally thriving. Then, Hugo Chavez stepped in. He nationalized industry, instituted a massive welfare state, and destroyed any vestige of freedom in Venezuela while implementing his socialist policies.

As a result, Venezuela is now hell on Earth. It is one of the least free nations in the world, police and gangs regularly murder citizens, everyone is starving, and the economy has collapsed. Socialism destroyed Venezuela.

Even more relevantly to our current situation, Venezuela is a far more violent place now that the socialists are in charge. Rather than have due process, they have armored cars deliberately running over pro-freedom protesters, coup attempts frequently, government-hired thugs beating up innocent civilians to create an atmosphere of fear, and the government abuses anyone who dares to try to live a life of freedom.

Before socialism destroyed Venezuela, none of that happened. Venezuela was free and had a higher per-capita GDP than most of the industrialized, Western world. Now, the exact opposite is true. It is basically in the dark ages and everyone is miserable and suffering, as could be predicted by Churchill’s quote on socialism. That misery now exists because socialism destroyed Venezuela; if you want to read more of the sickening details about it, just read either (or both) The Case Against Socialism and Socialism Sucks.

Both do an excellent job of showing how the inherent violence and flaws of the socialist ideology led to the current miserable conditions in Venezuela and what happens when real socialism has been tried. That might be Bernie Sanders’s version of the American dream, but it’s certainly not mine.

So, why did socialism destroy Venezuela? Because, despite what the leftist rioters might say, socialism is a completely unworkable ideology that never helps anyone and always fails.

Socialism always fails because it is an ideology founded on laziness, coercion, and envy. It’s the ideology of greed and fails for that reason.

There’s a place for selfishness in a functioning society, as Ayn Rand makes the case for in The Virtue of Selfishness and Atlas Shrugged. Some selfishness helps people make the decisions they need to for companies to succeed and a functioning society to work.

But envy, the beating heart of socialism, has no place in society. It is one of the deadly sins for a reason- it makes it impossible for one to work with others, makes those infected by it do anything to get what they want, and it utterly corrosive. The envy of socialists is seen not just in wealth redistribution proposals, but also in the recent looting- who would break into a store to steal from it except for an exceptionally envious piece of sh**?

So, in summary, socialism destroyed Venezuela because it replaced consent with coercion. Freedom with slavery. Virtue with envy. Hard work with laziness. How could a nation infected by such a system possibly survive?

By: Gen Z Conservative, author of the blog www.genzconservative.com