What people forget is that Socialism/Marxism was not a blueprint but a prediction of the future when both the factories and farms became automated to the point where a small fraction of the population could do all the work needed to give people more basic necessities than they could possibly use. Marx believed at this point, the workers would take over, a few people do all the work (and receive !more! goods in return), and everyone else would be free to do whatever they wanted such as art, research, etc. But this required that the society was incredibly industrialized and automated to the point where a tiny fraction of the population could indeed do all the work. The Communists of the world, including Maduro and Chavez as well as Lenin and Mao, ignored the whole critical piece about being industrialized and just tried to skip ahead to the hypothetical utopia. It... didn't work.
Also, it's not what happened. Instead, governments of the world added all sorts of bureaucratic bullshit to provide jobs for accountants and attorneys and other intelligent but essentially worthless middle men. Why they decided to make things needlessly complicated instead of levying taxes and employing these brilliant minds as scientists? Honestly, I'm really not sure.
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@Edhellas
What people forget is that Socialism/Marxism was not a blueprint but a prediction of the future when both the factories and farms became automated to the point where a small fraction of the population could do all the work needed to give people more basic necessities than they could possibly use. Marx believed at this point, the workers would take over, a few people do all the work (and receive !more! goods in return), and everyone else would be free to do whatever they wanted such as art, research, etc. But this required that the society was incredibly industrialized and automated to the point where a tiny fraction of the population could indeed do all the work. The Communists of the world, including Maduro and Chavez as well as Lenin and Mao, ignored the whole critical piece about being industrialized and just tried to skip ahead to the hypothetical utopia. It... didn't work.
Also, it's not what happened. Instead, governments of the world added all sorts of bureaucratic bullshit to provide jobs for accountants and attorneys and other intelligent but essentially worthless middle men. Why they decided to make things needlessly complicated instead of levying taxes and employing these brilliant minds as scientists? Honestly, I'm really not sure.