A pressured revolutionary government

[Karl Marx's Camel]

I have lately been thinking of what pressured governments like the state in Venezuela can do. Venezuela, as we all know, has not yet experienced socialism, and the bourgeois still exists in the said country. A widescale nationalization of the means of production could be met by rebellion or U.S. bombing of Venezuela to stop the progression towards a socialist society.
So I thought... What if the goverment in Venezuela would create public shops etc. alongside with the private ones, selling goods lower than that of the private companies? Outcompeting them, and when the companies get bankrupt, the government would take them over?

The bourgeois need profit in order to survive, and as such, the government is able to adjust the prices lower than that of the bourgeois. People will stop shopping at privately owned companies, and capitalism will naturally die itself out.

What do you think?

[Lord Testicles]

it could always go wrong. As we all know Venezuela isnt the strongest economic power so if say America wanted to retaliate to the nationalization they could set up shop in Venezuela and sell goods for even less.

[Clarksist]

Hmm... the only problem I have with that theory, is that the government would still need to make some sort of profit if its working under capitalism. In the end, Venezuela must nationalize all its means of production either the old fashion way (good old armed revolution) or through Hugo Chavez putting a little initiative into the nationalization.

By working through capitalism, Venezuela has the chance of actually strengthening capitalism. So you never know.

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24 2005, 04:20 PM
it could always go wrong. As we all know Venezuela isnt the strongest economic power so if say America wanted to retaliate to the nationalization they could set up shop in Venezuela and sell goods for even less.
Even if Venezuela didn't just outlaw that or impose price controls, the US is running up a huge debt due mainly to the wars in Afghanistan & Iraq and wouldn't be able to afford it. The country is going to go bankrupt if it stays the course.

[Fidelbrand]

But a very common problem exists here:

Those capitalists may use a "better-quality" approach to outcompete the gov't regulated stores.

This is a historical problem that exists in all socialist movements.

It is a very important problem we have to bear in mind if we were to set up a effective and efficient socialist society.

[Severian]

The big immediate problem with this is: it ignores the problem of political power.

It's not just capitalist businesses which still exist; so does the capitalist state machine. The army, the cops, the courts, the bureaucracy. Some of these have been reformed, but not smashed and replaced.

That's why there's such a danger of rebellion, of a Pinochet-like coup. It also increases the danger of imperialist intervention: can you count on the army to resist one? The whole army? Does imperialism think you can - is it deterred as much as it could be?

It's necessary to arm the workers and peasants, organize them into a force capable of using those arms....more thoroughly reorganize the armed forces or disband those parts which resist reorganization. In short, take state power into working people's hands.

***

The other problem is, how do you outcompete the capitalists unless you out-capitalist them? Competing in the market is what they do.

The stores could be subsidized, of course, but if this is going to be done on a really large scale that would take a LOT of revenue.

It might be done on a small scale as one measure among others.