WTF Venezuela

VIVA LA REVOLUTION!

Ah Venezuela... the most recent attempted at a socialist paradise. 

Also known as: the most recent attempted at a fundamentally flawed system. 

The Venezuelan Government's latest brilliant idea to... you know, make sure everyone doesn't starve, is using forced labor to increase food production.

Amnesty International reported: "The decree, officially published earlier this week, establishes that people working in public and private companies can be called upon to join state-sponsored organizations specialized in the production of food."

I talked to someone I know who grew up in the Soviet Union about Venezuela's food lines and forced labor initiative. He just laughed in a nostalgic manner, and said it reminded him of home. He also said it reminded him of why he got the heck out of the Soviet Union.

He told me how he was forced to work on a farm during his summer breaks while in college. In typical Soviet fashion, he bribed a dude so he could get a job in the kitchen rather than working in the fields. I asked him,"did the forced farming actually work?" He responded quite bluntly they had no idea how to farm, and spent most of their day drinking vodka (how stereotypical).

He knew, as a 20-something year old college student, specialized skilled labor is needed for the modern farming methods required to produce large agriculture yields. Trying to use unskilled farming labor will inevitably lead Venezuelans to subsistence based farming at best, starvation at worst.

Zimbabwe is a great example of what happens when a country replaces skilled farmers who use modern farming methods with unskilled labor. In the early 2000's, the Government kicked out the skilled white farmers, and put their black unskilled supporters in charge of food production. Within a few years, Zimbabwe went from being called the "bread basket" of Africa, to being a food importer.

Let me say one more time: VIVA LA REVOLUTION!

On a side note, I found the correlations between the Soviet and Venezuelan food problems eerily similar. The Soviets had used hard foreign currency from exported oil revenues to pay for imported food from the West. Lack of hard currency from low oil prices in parts of the 1980's was one of the (many) reasons the Soviet economy collapsed.

Microwave at the Office

A personal experienced that reminded me of the fundamental problem with socialism involved a broken microwave in my workplace's kitchen.

One day, I walk into the kitchen to find my co-worker slamming the microwave close. I thought he was angry over something. When I asked what was wrong, he told me that he was not angry, it was just the latch on the microwave that keeps it closed was bent.

As an engineer, he told me it was easily fixable. Our office is filled with engineers, so I asked him if anyone was going to fix it. He told me someone would get around to it eventually.

The next day, I noticed other people slamming the microwave door close. No one was bothering to fix it - everyone was expecting someone else to do it. After all, it wasn't their microwave.

This went on for two or three weeks until the latch broke of completely. I remember asking my engineer friend if the microwave was still fixable. He told me yes, but it was a much harder fix. I asked him if anyone was going to take care of it, and he told me eventually someone would.

Two weeks later, I walk into the kitchen to find a new microwave sitting on the kitchen table. I ask my friend why we got a new one. He told me that since no one took care of the other microwave, it eventually broke completely. Our boss finally got fed up enough to just go out and buy a new microwave on company money.

The point of the story is that the microwave didn't belong to any single person. No one felt they had the responsibility or perhaps profited enough to fix the old microwave.

Talk about an inefficient way of doing business! Now imagine this on a massive scale.

Welcome to Socialism.