The reasons I've been studying Venezuela are varied. It is in the news a lot recently and along with its heart-breaking tragedy, the story of Venezuela includes a lot of lessons that can be applied to other countries. It is of great interest to me for the sheer extremities of riches to rags that have few equals in history. Hyperinflation is fascinating! Today a banana costs what a house would have cost 15 years ago! People don't count money any more, they weigh it! What once was the richest nation in the continent, as recently as the 80's, is now a nation in economic and political upheaval so great it is causing a mass exodus of people into neighbouring countries. What the frig happened in Venezuela and how did it happen so fast?!?!
I guess a secondary reason for my efforts has been the ever vigilant fearmongers who wish to blame Venezuela's downfall on socialism in order to convince voters in their respective countries that people like Bernie Sanders and Alex Ocasio Cortez or any other people who voluntarily associate themselves with the evils of socialism will just do to their countries what Chavez and Maduro did to Venezuela. Saying socialism was the main problem with these guys, as you will hopefully see, is a bit like saying Donald Trump's Christianity is HIS main problem. If either of these two dudes knew any more about socialism than Trump knows about Christianity, they didn't show evidence of it. It was a means to an end, nothing more. Bernie Sanders and A.O.C. are not Castro or Mao or Hugo Chavez. Get over your shameless selves! The comparison is hilarious! Can you see Sanders in a military uniform or AOC smoking a cigar? Well... maybe the second one... Actually scratch that, I CAN see that and it's an oddly sexy image in a political Clintonian sort of way. Oh yeah... ANYwhozits….
For those who don't have the time or inclination to read all the details, here's a vid that covers most of the recent stuff.
80% of the country hates its current president. Well, there's even debate about that. Should he really even be called the president? He only got elected in 2013 after Hugo Chavez's death by a slim 1.6% margin. And soon after the economy went into a freefall caused primarily by (some say strategically) reduced oil prices, but not helped by Nicolas Maduro's policies whatsoever. Conversely, Chavez became president in 1998, right before oil prices spiked from $25-$160 per barrel between '99 and '08. No wonder he was so beloved! At any rate, in 2018 Maduro got re-elected for 6 more years in a sham election in which many opposition candidates were barred from running. Others were jailed or fled for fear of jail or worse. Many consider the leader of the National Assembly during the time of the unfair election to be the legitimate prez. That's Juan Guaido. Many countries including the U.S. and Canada support Guaido's claim. China and Russia still like Maduro. None would even give half a crap if Venezuela didn't have the largest oil reserves in the world.
In 2015, Maduro felt threatened by a 2/3 majority against him in the Supreme Court and a fairly elected National Assembly. So he stocked the supreme court with his cronies. Sounds familiar doesn't it? Then he stripped the national assembly of its powers in 2016. This resulted in massive protests so in 2017 he just replaced the national assembly with the National Constituent Assembly. Again stock it with cronies, allow them to re-write laws and kiss his ass. You can see why the NC Ass is not recognized and why so many people hate this dude.
In 2004 while oil prices were still high, Chavez used oil money to provide food subsidies and improve education and health care. Since 82% of the population of Venezuela were poor, they loved him for this. THIS is the socialism people equate with him. But he didn't do it because he loved the people of his country. If he really loved them, he wouldn't be keeping all their county's bounty for the other 18%. Which, of course, included him. He did it to get re-elected. And it worked like a charm.
Maduro hasn't even tried to pretend like he cares about the people. He just fixes the elections. Again, sound familiar? Of the 18% privileged class, who are the only ones with access to real money/business, the military, who he needs to protect him, are in charge of the food. They make huge money by gauging citizens on this buying it cheaply and selling it at hyperinflated prices. Thus keeping most of the country hungry and broke. By 2018 inflation was such that prices were doubling every 19 days. The N.C. Ass will make up the rest of the 18% given all the plum positions of power and wealth. But it won't last long and the world knows it.
Basing a country on populist government and oil is known as an unsustainable model. It has been speculated that some countries may be lurking in the weeds waiting for Venezuela's collapse in order to apply vulture capitalism to the country in shambles and suck up all its oil. Here's a description of why oil prices fell so drastically in 2014 and the countries you'd expect, U.S. Saudi, China, Russia, Canada, might all be in on this. Much like Syria, a proxy war for natural gas and oil which Russia seems to have won, Venezuela is shaping up to be much the same.
Originally, Hugo Chavez marketed his military takeover of Venezuela as a people's revolt against the corrupt elite: the 18% or whatever it was at the time. Obviously most people wanted the money to be spread around more evenly since they were poor. In this way it was a brand of socialism he was offering. His military and political moves purging government officials who probably WERE corrupt, again, it looked like socialism but wasn't. It was less about helping the people and more about removing potential checks on his authority. They were presented to the public as fighting for freedom with predictable success. This article gives some examples of how instead of getting rid of corruption and greed and sharing the wealth, Chavez just turned the country of Venezuela into a corrupt capitalist corporation. "After running on smashing the corrupt elite, Chavez had merely established his own."
Now, when you read an article such as this, written by a guy from China, comparing the socialism of countries like China, Cuba, and Venezuela, to what Bernie Sanders and Alexandra Ocasio Cortez are offering, can we agree? Apples and bowling balls? But there will be people who fall for this propaganda! Smart people!
The definition of socialism he bases the article on may be the rub. I think the word "control" meaning government checks and balances and other regulatory responsibilities to govern business, as opposed to absolute and total control where the government IS business, seems to be the disconnect. When means of production are kept under control by government, socialism works. When the government has carte blanche, it fails. Presuming Bernie Sanders and AOC are advocating socialist carte blanche shows a clear ignorance of their platforms. But it's a great way to rustle up fear of socialism and/or drum up support for any non-socialist organization. Because people fall for shit like this. They don't want to do their research, they would rather find someone like the writer, who shows some knowledge, and trust that they've done stellar research for them.
Aaron Tao, the author, is an entrepreneur and a wannabe businessman. This could be his capitalist manifesto written with the hopes of joining a firm that will operate exactly like the corporation of Venezuela, screwing poor people to make a few rich. No matter what banner it's done under, it's just as despicable. That's my main point.
His strong hyperbole ventures off into just pure inaccuracy when he says socialism has failed everywhere it's been attempted. Even people like Gloria Alvarez who rails against the same models of socialism, at least admits there are successful models in Scandinavia.
They're talking about two different things and acting like they're agreeing. She's from Guatemala and talks about Venezuela among other countries and the danger of this style of socialism in the world. The dipshit interviewer (who doesn't speak fluent Spanish) desperately tries to bring it back to America again and again. Saying a bureaucrat doesn't know as much about business as a businessman. She separates the two models AGAIN saying if the bureaucrats have absolute power, it's dangerous. Then he talks about how childish it is for people to believe they don't have to earn shit. The people in Gloria's model who are relaxing and not working for their shit are the rich scumbags like Chavez and Castro who she says live like kings. Then taxes. He's talking about raising taxes on business punishing "hard" working Americans and she's talking about how despots and dictators use the people's money to put their cronies in positions of power and wealth.
I like the idea of nothing is free, but it's not the poor, but the rich who have this childish idea. Entitlement it can be called. There are no businessmen left who believe they are good businessmen if they work for everything they get. Sanders/Cortez want to cut into the vast amount of corporate welfare we give to the rich and share it with the hard working regular people who can't make ends meet despite their labours. At the very least make them PAY the taxes they don't pay.
Alvarez says in another video that in Scandinavia, where they have the model Sanders/Cortez want, the reason they're succeeding there is the FREE market. If she'd only follow her own advice: NOTHING IS FREE. This is a phrase people use for their own purposes and that has never been precisely defined. Presumably it involves more privatization and less government involvement in business. You cannot get a situation of less government interference in business than when the government IS the business. That's the dangerous model Alvarez describes in all the countries she mentions. It's not the model in Scandinavia nor is it the model Sanders/Cortez are promoting. Markets NEED rules and they need people to enforce those rules. Otherwise things like the 2008 stock market crash or the 1930's depression happen.
Let's not forget that what FDR did with his New Deal to drag America out of the depression into a few decades of what were the glory days of the U.S. was socialism. Those were the days in Canada too. What both countries have deteriorated into through corporate greed and government lobbying to set up big business as the Hugo Chavezes and the Nicolas Maduros of North America is just as dangerous. What we need is another good shot of socialism to save capitalism once again. Or we could just keep it and enjoy some longer term prosperity.
And if you really believe in the economic miracle in America right now, first of all I'm surprised you've read this far and second of all, it's all a mirage. Trumped up one might say. It's largely based on two things: jobs and the stock market. Jobs are up and unemployment is down. But job quality is down. I've read this about the U.S., I've experienced it personally in Canada. I don't want to hear another person tell me there are plenty of jobs for a guy who wants to work. I KNOW that but I'm looking for the jobs for guys who want to survive, thank you.
And the stock market is something I don't know much about. Never owned stocks. I know it's great right now for people who own stocks. The rich. So goodie for them. But it's not an indication of prosperity for the vast majority of us. And IT seems to be all smoke and mirrors too. It's falsely bolstered stock values as a result of tax cuts and stock buybacks. Wealthy corporations COULD use tax cuts to increase wages to their workers. They just don't. Like Walmart. The Roosevelt Institute in May released a report estimating that Walmart, for example, could boost hourly wages to more than $15 an hour with the $20 billion it was using for a buyback. A separate study from the Roosevelt Institute released in July found that companies spent nearly 60 percent of net profits on buybacks from 2015 to 2017. It estimated that with the money allocated to buybacks, companies such as Lowes, CVS, and Home Depot could give each of their workers a raise of at least $18,000 a year.
The SEC or any regulatory entity has practically no power to do anything about this kind of thing either. Which brings us back to Gloria Alvarez. It seems to me the dangerous socialism she is describing resembles the capitalism at work right now in America and Canada FAR more than the kind of socialism being practiced in Scandinavia. If she looked closely, I think she'd see that it isn't the "free" market that allows these countries to prosper under socialism, it's the proper and strict regulation of it. I'd LOVE to see a round of corrupt bankers thrown in the clink like they did in Iceland. I'd LOVE an education system like Finland! I'd LOVE to see Canada tax America (who gets 99% of our oil) like Norway and contribute it to Canada's pension fund. I'd LOVE to see a day fine system implemented like in Sweden.
Having said all of this, most of these countries don't really consider themselves socialist. They all still like to own things and they do. They have thriving markets, which the capitalists worry about losing along with socialism.
So... now that you know all this, maybe the popularity of the Sanders/Cortez type of socialism isn't based in ignorance. Maybe the opposition to it is.
Just a thought. What do you reckon?
