Socialism’s One-Percenters: "The Rich People Are Thieves… Our Socialist Dream Is Falling Apart"
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Thomas DiLorenzo via LewRockwell.com,
A defining characteristic of socialism in all its forms in all places and at all times is a relatively small political elite (and its “private sector” cronies) that lives lavishly by plundering its population, destroying its economy, imposing a regime of equality of poverty and misery; and turning almost everyone into a dependent on the state for survival. Joseph Stalin was the wealthiest man in the world during his time, not the Rockefellers, Morgans, or anyone else, as the de facto “owner” of the entire Soviet Union. African and Latin American socialist political thugs in the “post-colonial era” have long been notorious for becoming millionaires or billionaires, with Swiss bank accounts galore, while their people starved and begged them for subsistence. Socialism’s one percenters make today’s Wall Street plutocrats seem impoverished by comparison.
The latest glaring example of the disgusting and immoral corruption of socialism’s one percenters is Venezuela, a country that has “long been the darling of the [socialist] Left,” according to a June 16 article in the Daily Mail. The article, authored by Jake Wallis Simons, has the headline: “Super-rich socialists quaff champagne in Venezuelan country clubs while middle-class mothers scavenge for food in the gutter . . . even the dogs are starving.”
Venezuelan socialism, known as “Chavismo,” after the wealthy socialist one percenter Hugo Chavez, has indeed destroyed the country’s economy. Thanks to government-imposed price controls that hold prices below costs, supermarkets are empty, everything is in short supply or simply unavailable, and middle-class people are literally “rummaging in stinking piles of rubbish for cabbage leaves . . . and fetid meat,” according to the Daily Mail article, which includes dozens of pictures of these pathetic scenes. Among the most disturbing pictures are those of starving dogs and other animals in this socialist “paradise.”
Nationalization, price controls, and suffocating government regulations have so destroyed the remnants of capitalism that hospitals can’t afford toilet paper, let alone medicine; people wait in queues for ten our twelve hours a day, just like in the old Soviet Union, in hopes of buying something – anything – that might come up for sale in hopes of trading it for things they actually need; there is raging hyperinflation as the government tries to print money like mad to continue paying for its socialist fantasies; and crime is the worst of anywhere on earth. One middle-class woman is quoted in the article as saying “Chavez’s legacy is people like me looking for food in the garbage.”
Black markets are pervasive, also just like the old Soviet Union, but the wealthy make out the best from this situation because only they can afford to pay the astronomically higher black-market prices or to pay the bribes demanded by black marketeers. The politically-connected socialist elite lives high on the hog, entertaining themselves quite lavishly at such places as the Caracas Country Club, where the membership fee alone is almost 500 times the …read more
Source: Socialism’s One-Percenters: "The Rich People Are Thieves… Our Socialist Dream Is Falling Apart"
