Venezuela Tries the Old, Tired, Socialist Paradigm

The WaPo is reporting on Venezuela's attempts to build socialism. Here is my favorite part:

Workers are tutored on socialist values, and officials frequently call for the creation of a selfless and patriotic "New Man."

Don't you just love it? Socialism will work if you can just get some suckers to be converted to selfless slaves of the government. All you have to do is put the economy under government control, suppress civil liberties so that some reactionary like me won't put the wrong ideas into peoples' heads, and educate them properly to turn them into unthinking socialist bots.

This is why capitalism works and socialism doesn't. Capitalism doesn't require people to change. They can go ahead and be greedy and doing so will usually help the economy. Capitalism doesn't require suppression of free speech and free press.