Socialism at work.

Came in here fully expecting that this was going to dissolve into a capitalism vs. socialism debate, and was not disappointed.

What does Nazi Germany got to do with socialism?

Can i frame that?

Maybe you can google it or something.

Nazi Party = "National Socialist" Party

But @ Nem, I thought it went more like "Communism is bad, and socialism is Communism Lite"

They weren't socialist LOL, they were as socialistic as China is communist union. They use the name socialist to gain support from the increasing communist movement within Germany.

I don't know maybe read a History book or two.

It's both. Communism for the cold war. Whatever sort of political inclination it's rivals had, americans got taught to hate, most don't even understand why and confuse those doctrines with dictatorship.

That is beyond the point isn't it? It's a different argument. You are talking inside germany not outside.

Let me remind you what the point was. Americans think socialism and communism are evil things, often confusing them with dictatorship. Like in the Venezuela case here. Nazi= nationalist socialism. That is what the americans fought against and that was what their propaganda machine aimed at. Were you expecting them to give the masses a political lesson? It doesn't work.

But, yes, that is why they are so unfamiliar with it and think it's an evil thing.

With that said, what you say is an interpretation. Hitler did preach some of the ideals of socialism. He believed in the ideal of the people doing their part for the state as a unified machine and the state giving back. Of course, practice is another thing.

Of state-socialism, yep. The two can't mix. The nation-state is fundamentally a capitalist institution designed to secure capitalist privilege. 

It depends on the socialism one talks about. Socialism is a broad tent of ideologies aiming to bolster the laborer's, renter's, borrower's, etc bargaining power to the point where they can choose not to be exploited. Some socialisms prescribe state controls, other's prescribe freedom and liberty. The latter category es muy bueno. 

Norway hasn't been all that socialist since the 70's, from what I know about its political history. Modern social democracy = |= socialism. 

Define "private sector", there is nothing about socialism which inherently precludes markets, money, or individually controlled property. Socialism is merely the bulk of ideologies which wish to solve various inequalities in bargaining power so that the laborer, borrower, and renter are not exploited by absolutist proprietors. There are plenty of socialisms that wish to eliminate all governmentalism and "public" sector entirely. The biggest difference between Norway and Venezuela is rhetoric and implementation. Venezuela's government was aiming for a socialist society, whereas Norway's has given up on that goal. Norway is of course the smarter of the two, as socialism and the modern nation-state are incompatible. The latter cannot achieve the prior through mandates. 

It is a bit more complex than that. The colloquial definition of socialism has shifted significantly for many different reasons, and it has come to encompass a subset of socialisms that are incompatible with other values held dear by Americans. In the late 19th century most American socialists were either Mutualists, syndicalists, or libertarian (Kropotkin-influenced) communists. They had relative popularity among the working class. Once the progressive movement started going though, Christian Socialists (who also promoted nationalism, ironically), and big "C" Communists/Marxist-Leninist dominated the movement and all of these are pretty authoritarian ideologies which put off Americans well before World War II. Right-socialism/state-socialism is just not interesting to Americans.  

Benjamin Tucker talked about these authoritarian socialists in State Socialism and Anarchism 

Ricardian socialism pushed under a different name would probably be very appealing to Americans. Likewise, certain reforms that would allow certain socialist goals to be achieved, like Georgism have been popular as well. 

Just wanted to point out how superficially we handle and discuss the sittuation. Obviously Norways is no a puely socialist country, but Venezuella is also far from it. But thinking that only one economical model can work for every political system usually leads to mass casualties on both sides.

Venezuella is a great example of socialism that went haywire while something like India or Pakistan proves that capitalism is nowhere near a perfect model for all societies. The obvious reson would be to ry and find a middle ground, but no, we rather put labels on systems and yell how poor the one that we do not support is.

Really? I think its fairly well documented how many regime changin actions the US had and stil has on that continnt. I do not see how this is a "hell of a reach". I am not saying that Maduro's govenrment has no fault, far from it, but its also naive to not consider outside meddling in this sittuation.