tl;dr for context – Venezuelan economy is a complete shitshow atm. Commenter uses this example to talk shit about “western intellectuals” who support this sort of socialist state. This isn't the bad politics - it's pretty fair to observe that most socialist states aren't/haven't been in great shape, and a disagreement over what this means for socialism overall basically comes down to A) whether or not you're a socialist and/or B) what alternative models of socialist-inspired societies you think are viable.

^{Disclaimer: Not that this means anything emanating from, touching, or adjacent to Marx is inherently bankrupt. Inb4 “REAL socialism has never been tried!” That’s rad, and also not the point of this thread.}

Immediately, a bunch of people show they don’t know what socialism means in an attempt to defend socialism.

There are many nations out there doing great at socialism; Venezuela has rampant cronyism, among many things.

Socialism embraces giving their citizens the tools to succeed. This means livable wages and a great education for citizens, which should be a no brainer for any 21st century nations unless you love ignorance.

When I asked, user pointed to

Den, fin, net, can, swe, etc.

As examples of socialist states. So, not just Nordic model, I guess, but anything vaguely “to the left” of what we do in the US. R2: Socialism embraces transferring the means of production out of private control. Living wages and public education are not socialism. It’s weird rhetorically to call someone out for constructing a strawman of socialism by constructing a strawman of everything other than socialism.

Or can they wake up and admit the utter failure of socialism?

So, how many failed states are there in Europe? Is the US a failed state?

I hate to be the one to tell you this but the entire Western world has socialist programs.

The US is also not a socialist state.

His argument was all socialism is failure and Venezuela is regularly trotted out to attack politicians that support socialist programs.

When someone is arguing that states like Venezuela are failures, they are not arguing that any and all forms of government assistance, intervention, or action in general are bad. Learn to nuance. Also, programs that are often supported by more moderate and reformist socialists, or the various groups in the fuzzy area around social democrats, are not automatically “socialist programs” in any meaningful sense (there are ofc exceptions).

Bonus good politics:

What makes you think that what happened in Venezuela can be generalized? Seems more like the paradox of plentyand a military kleptocracy coming to a head. Maybe socialism as envisioned by Marx, which requires a thoroughly developed and industrialized society before it is created shouldn't be compared to this Leninist BS trying to create a new Utopian Society with nothing but mineral wealth and an agrarian focused infrastructure.

I’m sure someone in badecon would like to argue against any sort of socialist society but this is at least an example of defending anti-capitalist thought without A) completely misunderstanding what socialism is, B) completely misunderstanding what’s going down in Venezuela, or C) just hand-waving away criticism w/ “but GoodSocialism^TM hasn’t been tried yet!”