Meanwhile in Venezuela the left remind us of their weird priorities...

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So Venezuelan people don't have food in the shops, they have to queue for loo paper and the government is taking over businesses right, left and centre just in case they might actually be trying to make a living. It is an object lesson in the stupidity of the left's obsessing with fixing prices.

But you'll be pleased to know that the Venezuelan government is on the case and sorting out the problem:

Last year, Venezuela became an urban laboratory for architects and urban designers who believe in the implementation of participatory processes and collaborative design techniques in order to change communities who live under threat.

The Venezuelan firm PICO Estudio in hand with the National Government of Venezuela organised Espacios de Paz (EDP) (Spaces of Peace); an urban journey where professionals, students, local residents and public entities worked together to benefit their cities and people. This initiative activated urban processes of physical and social transformation through architecture, using self-building techniques in public spaces located in conflictive urban contexts.

The result of the project is some pretty funky and brightly coloured community spaces and buildings - you'll be familiar with these because they feature that slightly manic style of design beloved by community action groups.

These 5 projects were conceived as spaces of encounter, where a local community can gather together, developing different activities, meetings and workshops under beautifully designed, colourful roofs. Projects included basketball courts located on a rooftop; shadowed spaces built for promoting dialogue among residents; spaces for learning and debating; and orchards, playgrounds, amphitheatres, viewpoints, and so on.

It's all terribly sweet and lovely - introducing us to a world of happy, smiling faces as communities work with 'agencies' and 'professionals' to put lipstick on the abject poverty their government's policies have created. It is the finest example of how the left's approach to community development is typified by going into these communities, giving them a great big hug and saying 'there, there, it'll all be OK'.

The truth is very different - as even Venezuelan government figures tell us:

According to this measure, the number of Venezuelans classified as poor shot up in the last year by 1.8 million people. Roughly 6 percent of all Venezuela’s 30 million people became poor in the last year alone. The situation is even direr when one looks at extreme poverty, i.e., the number of people whose income cannot even buy a representative basket of food and drink. In the last year alone, the number of extremely poor Venezuelans rose by 730,000. They now reach close to three million people, or roughly 10 percent of the population. 

And of course the happy professionals will return to their achingly trendy offices in places where you don't have to deal with the reality of living in Venezuela's slums. It's not just the lack of basics but increasing levels of violence - 25,000 homicides in 2013 (this compares to 15,000 in trigger-happy USA with ten times the population) including over 200 police officers.

Still I guess that creating "...social dynamics which invite new ways of living in communities, modifying categories that rule the daily life, transforming vacant plots into powerful spaces for their inhabitants..." is absolutely the way to make Venezuela's economy and society better!

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Values? The one that really matters is freedom...

Queueing for bread - socialist values in action

This is a pretty typical framing of a left wing values statement - from Julian Dobson:

And that brings us back to values. Do we want a society that turns competitiveness into a totem, blames individuals for social problems and judges success on earnings and rates of return? Or are we looking for something more inclusive and creative, places that recognise the value generated by people’s imagination and relationships and passion for the common good? 

And the typical slightly green, middle-class leftie will feel a little shudder of affirmation through the bones at this statement. Absolutely, our lefty might say, this statement clearly separates the uncaring, individualist from the caring, sharing collectivist. They might add little mutterings about 'trickle down' or 'profits' before smiling again as the high plateau of collaborative, cooperative glory comes into view.

The problem with all this is that it is a delusion, a deliberate self-deception. All this enthusiasts for ending the dark and evil neo-liberal world and ignorant of its central truth - that far more than the state-directed, protectionist systems our caring lefties aspire to create, free market systems are absolutely about inclusion, creativity, passion value generation, imagination and mutual benefit. The secret lies in that magic word 'free' and it is all that freedom that gave us the wealth to ponder such matters as 'values'.

Once the matter of values was something for priests and philosophers. Most ordinary people - and this still stands for a great deal of today's world - were way too busy keeping body and soul together to bother about what it all meant. Then something happened. It wasn't a planned economy, it was a spark of liberty that set us free. And we became free because the trap of subsistence was removed, we could lift our head up from the daily drudge and think about those values, about what we thought the world should be like.

And the match that ignited those flames of freedom wasn't a law, it was capitalism, the liberal enlightenment that opened up trade and allowed business to innovate, to create and to transform - in just a few decades - the entire world.When the likes of Julian Dobson paint free markets in negative terms, when they demonise the idea of choice by talking about competition as a negative, and when they dismiss individual material success as somehow distasteful or exploitative, what these people do is build a mighty man of straw, a grand lie.

This lie is essential to socialism - without that mighty straw man representing capitalism's sins the logic of the left collapses into the terrible reality of a place where people queue for seven hours to buy some flour and some milk. This, rather than sunlit uplands, is the consequence of that focus on the "common good" - for there is no common good other than that determined by the interactions, transactions and exchanges of the people. And the best way to get those mutual benefits isn't through committees, co-operatives and regulations but through free exchanges in a free market. That is why the left must make a demon of liberty because they can't admit that free choice, free exchange and free speech is the best road to a good society, to a place where those values they prattle on about are met for everyone.

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Socialism in action...doing what it does best, making poor people poorer

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Venezuela is fast becoming today's example of socialism and of how it starts with excitement about liberty, crushing the Yankee Devil, taming big business and eliminating poverty. And soon turns to control, suppression, rationing and shortage:

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced Wednesday that the country will introduce a mandatory fingerprinting system in supermarkets. He asserted that the plan will keep people from buying too much of any single item. 

But, you ask, why would anyone want to buy 'too much of any one item'? When I go to the supermarket, I buy to suit my immediate requirements. Since capitalism has given me a fridge freezer, I'm able to buy good for the whole week but that's it. The reason for buying 'too much of one item' is simple - the buyer anticipates shortage. We see this occasionally when some tabloid newspaper creates a scare over a consumer product's availability. But for government to seek to stop such buying behaviour, shortages have to be the norm.

And this is the case with Venezuela - the country where a smart phone app locating supplies of loo paper was developed. The government, having condemned the businesses making and distributing food and other consumer goods decided that it should intervene - controlling supply, setting prices and generally throwing its weight around in the marketplace. Such activity is justified, the government says, so as to allow the nation's poor to live more dignified lives.

The problem is actually pretty simple - by fixing prices artificially low (to help the poor) Venezuela's government created shortages. Now they've blamed variously the CIA, the political opposition and business in general for the problem using these perceived attacks on the socialist revolution in Venezuela to justify first the introduction of ID systems (described in the Guardian as "a grocery loyalty card with extra muscle") and now the use of fingerprinting to prevent 'hoarding'.

"We are creating a biometric system … to function in all distribution and retail systems, public and private," Maduro said in a televised address on Wednesday. "This will be – like the fingerprint scan we use in our electoral system – a perfect anti-fraud system."

So what's the problem here? Essentially the problem is socialism and its adherents' belief that you can abolish the market. For what Venezuelans are doing is variously: buying cheap stuff in Venezuelan shops and taking it across the border for resale at the price it should have been or else simply reselling it to other Venezuelans. Either that or else not having bread, oil, flour or loo paper because there's none to buy in the shops.

We can laugh a little as we are reminded again that fixing the price and supply of basic goods - especially while indulging in an inflationary splurge of oil money on public infrastructure - really isn't a great way to manage the economy. We can make jokes about the stupidity of socialism and make fun of Venezuela's fans like sweet little Owen Jones. But we should not forget that the current leader of the UK's opposition supports price fixing - for energy prices, for train fares and probably for anything else that gets him the votes of the ignorant.

Socialism is lovely. It's adherents are often caring, sharing folk who want the world to be a better place. But, put into action, socialism results in poverty, unemployment, authoritarian government and shortages of life's essentials. The losers in all this are those without the connections or the wherewithal to survive - the very people that socialism claims to support - the poor. As one Venezuelan put it:

 "The rich people have things all hoarded away, and they pull the strings," said Juan Rodriguez, who waited two hours to enter the government-run Abastos Bicentenario supermarket near downtown Caracas on Monday, then waited three hours more to check out.

The terrible thing is that this man, having spent five hours getting basics at a supermarket, still believes the socialists when they blame the rich. It's good politics but, like those who want to blame immigrants, simply isn't true and those setting out the policies know that it isn't true. The fault here - and every time with socialism - rests with the government.

Every time socialism is tried - and Argentina is now having another go at it - it fails. Yet another generation of people who care about the poor, who hate America and believe business is exploitative will come along, get power and prove again that socialism doesn't work. The saddest thing here is that, as that man in the Caracas supermarket queue points out, the rich seldom lose out under socialism - it's the poor that lose out.

Socialists may often be lovely caring people. But socialism is evil.

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They've found a way to tax breathing!

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It could only be the ghastly dysfunctional socialist utopia of Venezuela:

We're used to a seemingly endless range of taxes and surcharges when we fly - passenger taxes, departure taxes, fuel levies. But Maiquetia International Airport in Caracas has taken this a step further - passengers flying out now have to pay 127 bolivars tax (£12; $20) for the air they breathe.

It seems the airport installed a new system to 'purify' the air-conditioning unit - the tax is to pay for it. Or so they say except, as one radio presenter observed:

 "Could you explain to me the ozone thing in Maiquetia? The toilets don't have water, the air-con is broken, there are stray dogs inside the airport, but there's ozone?"

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Leaving Venezuela

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Seems to be a popular pastime:

Sometimes the lines are 200 deep, drawing complaints from passing office workers and forcing a rotating cadre of self-appointed leaders to maintain a 24-hour vigil so that nobody jumps the line when the consulate, which operates out of a law office, opens between 10am and noon.

And those are just the students heading for Ireland!

We also get the champion quote on this socialist paradise:

“If the government is suspicious then they should present proof,” said Rodriguez, who says that a third of her close friends have already left Venezuela. “It’s not our fault the country isn’t progressing.”

Ha! Not progressing! A real triumph for progressive politics there!

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On the stupidity of socialism...and price fixing

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I gather Ed Miliband wishes to fix energy prices "while the oligopoly is sort out" or some such. And reintroduce socialism. Here's why this is stupid:

Flights out of Venezuela to anywhere are 100% sold out, months in advance. Yet many planes are flying half-empty. Why? The official exchange rate is 6.3 bolivars per dollar but the black market rate is more like 42 bolivars to the dollar. Few people are allowed to convert bolivars to dollars at the official rate but there is an exception for people with a valid airline ticket. As a result people with an airline ticket can convert bolivars to dollars at the official rate and then sell the dollars at the much higher black market rate.

Socialism was stupid when the Russians did it. Stupid when the Cubans did it. Stupid when Labour tried in in the 1970s. Oh, and always corrupt - the elite do fine (look at that Venezuelan story - the latest from the country where toilet paper is impounded, its production nationalised because the boss can't wipe his arse). It's the poor that suffer - they get the queues, the black outs, the rationing.

That is socialism. It is evil. And stupid.

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A reminder that socialism doesn't work...

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We should all have worked this out by now but, it seems, some places still have to learn that socialism really doesn't work, not even a little bit:

The new programme, launched last week, uses crowdsourcing technology to enable users to let each other know which supermarkets still have stocks of the tissue.

Called Abasteceme – "Supply Me" in English – the free Android app has already been downloaded more than 12,000 times.

Creator Jose Augusto Montiel said most downloads have been made by residents from the capital Caracas.

He said: "Lots of things are in short supply, but what people are most worried about is finding toilet paper. People never knew how much they needed it until it started running out." 

According to the government it is wicked anti-government forces that are buying up the loo paper so as to "destabilize" the country.  Yes folks, socialism is both useless and stupid!

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