In an attempt to rebrand an ideology responsible for the starvation of millions of people in Eastern Europe in the 20th century, the Left in both the US and UK have been keen to place a great deal of emphasis on the term 'democratic socialism'. One prominent campaign in which the term proved itself to be popular with activists as a refutation was the now-defunct Bernie Sanders campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination.
However, an even more interesting tenet of this new, 'public-friendly' rebranding campaign is its attempt to appeal to those who find themselves inclined to neither the Right nor the Left. Often you will find this done through such means as insisting that a system of 'democratic socialism' does not entail an economy completely controlled by the State. In fact, some adherents to socialist ideology even go as far as trying to persuade the indifferent and skeptical of the virtues of socialism by pointing to such services as the army, police force and fire service as products of 'democratic socialism'.
Such arguments are easily refutable. The very notion that taxation is indicative of a socialist society is nonsensical. Taxes have quite literally existed for thousands of years but the very idea of socialism was not articulated, never mind put into practice until the late 18th century. Similarly, for how long have armies been funded by State appropriations in the form of tax revenue? Why, for as long as armies have clashed.
However socialists may attempt to dress up their ideology, the case of Venezuela, where the shelves remiain empty and the capital, Caracas, continues to be rocked by civil unrest, has done a fine job of tearing away the friendly, moral and philanthropic facade of this 'new socialism' and exposed it for the lie it is. In fact, it was only the other week that President Nicolas Maduro's government passed a forced labour law which allows the state to force Venezuelans to work in the fields of the country in order to combat the food shortage in the country.
Yet if you scan across forums, social media posts and left wing media outlets such as Salon then one will be astonished to find socialists in their droves denying the failure of socialism in Venezuela and instead putting down the societal collapse seen there to the problems arising from a socialist system trying to operate on a capitalistic system.
The end goal of socialists remains the same as it was last century. And judging by the empty stomachs and chained labour of Venezuela, so is the end result.