How long until Syria gets some fancy new oil wells / USA military bases?
this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2025
63 points (95.7% liked)
World News
39912 readers
2420 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News [email protected]
Politics [email protected]
World Politics [email protected]
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Ba'athism is not the socialism you have in mind.
It goes without saying Hexbear and Lemmygrad and .ml have funny ideas about what their simp nations are like, though.
Are they actually defending Assad's regime, torture and all?
Shock therapy incoming in 3...2...1...
But even that is better than war, I guess, what state were the social services in?
Assad already enacted neoliberal reforms in the 2000s.
Bashar abolished any resemblance of social security in Syria before the war, it's one of the main reasons why the regime destabilised. At first people thought "new guy, hopefully less torture and more flexible and vibrant economy", what they got was just as much if not more torture, and economical conditions where you could go without roof and food. He broke the social contract.
I very much doubt the current government is thinking about abolishing state food and housing programmes, more like the opposite: Both because of popular demand and because Islam talks at length about taking care of the poor. This is about privatising soap factories.
An unfortunate decision, but I suppose they have no choice if they want to attract foreign investment. I just hope this doesn't result in Syrians being serfs to foreign interests as we see in subsaharan Africa.
I seriously doubt Syria would have no one interested in investing in them if they kept the socialist programs in place but got rid of things like torture and extrajudicial killings.
Somehow the world has no issue investing in China, Vietnam, Venezuela and other such countries. Sometimes the U.S. doesn't trade with them, but that's not the same thing.
Let's accept this for what this is: another gift to the world's oligarchs.
China and Vietnam have large private sectors with plenty of companies that attract foreign investment.
Venezuela does not. It had less than $1b in foreign direct investment in 2023. By comparison, Costa Rica had over $4b despite a smaller GDP and far smaller population than Venezuela.
Venezuela does not. It had less than $1b in foreign direct investment in 2023.
In 1991 Venezuela allowed many utilities to be privatized. This included their telephone and TV company, electrical grid, and many petroleum operations. In 2007, after billions of foreign direct investment was done, Venezuela appropriated and nationalized these industries again.
That's a sure fire way to repel future foreign direct investment. The additional sanctions placed on Venezuela haven't helped either.
The socialism they're talking about here is a USSR-style central planned economy, just to make that clear. That sort of environment is absolutely hostile to foreign investment for many reasons, not the least of which is the corruption that will take decades to fully erase, if such a thing is even possible. For a demonstration of what that means today look at Egypt, which isn't socialist but has many of the same problems due to the military's encroachment on the market. The problem is that it's impossible to compete with a state that doesn't want to let you compete, so you're at the mercy of the government in a way that tends to repel foreign investment.
Bashar already went on to a neoliberal course and privatized many businesses and removed many social securities that his father Hafiz granted.
The social contract in Syria under Hafiz was working on the basis of "If you keep your mouth shut, the government will ensure your everyday needs." Under Bashar it was "We will fuck you economically and you keep your mouth shut, because we torture and kill you otherwise." So there was only negatives, and a lack of things for people to lose, which is the basis of revolutions.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Syria#1990s%E2%80%932000s:_Liberalization_and_privatization
For an demonstration of what that means today look at Egypt, which isn't socialist but has many of the same problems due to the military's encroachment on the market
being stuck in the same country as sisi is purgatory
Thankfully I managed to get away (sort of) but yeah, that was not a fun time.
Well, if I were in Syrian leadership I don't think I'd hold up those countries as examples to emulate... I'd maybe have picked Norway instead, or even 70s-era Portugal.
Edit: or Tanzania, which may be a better fit.