In a lecture given over the book Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World, the author discusses socialism and how people define socialism. Some people discuss how they think that socialism is great and would fix some problems of capitalism without realizing the downfalls and failings of socialism itself. I think it's interesting especially because the common saying of how "the grass is always greener on the other side". The author also discusses how people think that socialism is common in other countries and one of the most common examples is Sweden, which isn't as socialist as people think. The author discusses how Sweden is actually more capitalist, but he also mentions this idea of how Sweden isn't "perfectly capitalist" or "perfectly socialist". I think that this idea is very interesting, as I feel that no matter what particular ideal a country seems to follow, I feel that mostly there is a combination of ideologies and political/economical beliefs and not just one dominant overbearing one. I think that the solution to the ideal situation would be a combination of the ideologies so that one is not simply overpowering the other and there is room for disagreement between peoples beliefs and I feel that this would be the fairest situation. The speaker continues on then to discuss how in Cuba, his experience with state-owned hotels vs. privately owned houses/apartments. The hotels were seen as lower quality while the houses and apartments were higher, and he discusses how this is due to incentives. I feel that this is one benefit to capitalism, as there is a higher motivation to build your own business and accomplish things yourself because you benefit from doing these things and working towards your own goals. One of the other issues in Cuba that he discussed was how little diversity is seen in the products and food. This is something that as natural-born US citizens we have never had to deal with or see, and it is very interesting to learn that other countries who are following this socialism ideal don't have this variety of products that we see. In the rest of this seminar, the author discusses many other examples of different types of socialism seen in may different countries (North Korea, China, etc.) and shows how although they are following the same overall ideal, they are very different and also do not all look the same. The lecture switches over to discuss the growth and expansion of capitalism and how the environment seen in the capitalist country of Georgia is far nicer and more diverse with their products (also higher quality).
Venezuela