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Even as Venezuelas collapse accelerates, some are dismissing the implications of that collapse with the predictable, thats not real socialism. But Venezuelas people cant argue the finer points of socialist theory - theyre too busy trying to survive.

Venezuelas intensifying economic and political crisis has brought thousands of anti-government protesters into the streets over the past three months, and at least 75 people have died in the unrest, the Washington Post reports. A large number of Venezuelans are spending everything they earn to avoid starving.

With inflation at an estimated 700 percent (and thats a low estimate - the country could slip into hyperinflation at any moment), minimum wage is enough to buy one-quarter of the food needed by a family of five, economists say.

Since 2014, the proportion of Venezuelan families in poverty has soared from 48 percent to 82 percent, according to a study published this year by the countrys leading universities, the Post explains. Fifty-two percent of families live in extreme poverty, according to the survey, and about 31 percent survive on two meals per day at most.

So what happened to this country, which once had the worlds largest oil reserves and South Americas strongest economy? In a word, socialism.

Lets start with the centrally controlled economy. Venezuelans welcomed price controls, at first. In 2002, the late Hugo Chavez instituted a program of price controls and even seizures of entire industries.

But the results were predictable. If farmers cant produce eggs at a profit, for example, then theyre not going to produce eggs.

Those price controls have led to shortages in every sector, including toilet paper.

First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short, USA Today reported last year. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities - toilet paper.

As Johns Hopkins University economist Steve Hanke explained, State-controlled prices - prices that are set below market-clearing price - always result in shortages. The shortage problem will only get worse, as it did over the years in the Soviet Union.

Of course, many on the left will defend socialism by declaring that Venezuela isnt real socialism. But thats a classic fallacy.

That this is an evasion, a form of willful denial, can be seen in the fact that countries tend to slide pretty quickly from being real socialism to suddenly not being real socialism the moment they do something that is embarrassing to the cause, writes Robert Tracinski in The Federalist. A few years ago, a lot of people, from (Sen. Bernie) Sanders on down, were hailing Venezuela as a great example of the achievements of socialism. Now that the Maduro regime is shooting protesters, suddenly its not real socialism.

Socialism is always an empty promise, he says.

Socialism declares that its goals are freedom, prosperity, and total equality. If, in practice, it actually results in oppression, poverty, and special privileges for the party elites, then it must not be real socialism, Tracinski writes. By that standard, socialism can never fail, because if it fails, it is by definition not really socialism.

Lets ask the Venezuelans.

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Editorial: Venezuela is what real socialism looks like - Tyler Morning Telegraph