Abstract
Most people believe that Socialism is a nice idea that will never find its place in practical reality. Returning to Marx, I sought the basis of socialism. I found that was contained in his theory of estrangement, or rather that socialism is the elimination of estrangement. By looking at the causes of estrangement I was able to create a method of evaluation for countries that claim to be socialist. Venezuela, the country of my most intensive study, offers hope in their attempts to transform their society through social policies that in effect seek to eliminate estrangement, most importantly, human development.
