by Tesseract
Over the past few years, Venezuelan society has been rapidly deteriorating. Civil unrest has heightened to the point of rioting, looting, violent crime and a government opposition group that is keen on overthrowing Maduro’s government.
Many have blamed Venezuela’s chaos on its socialist government. There are many socialist nations that aren’t in complete shambles, and many that have had some success. While I don’t agree with socialism as an ideology, I don’t believe Venezuela’s problems can be solely blamed on socialism.
Something that intensely pushed Venezuela into destabilization was the oil crash of 2014. Because the price of oil dropped so severely, and has remained low, pressure has been put on countries that rely on oil sales for most of their income. Countries with more diverse and expansive economies were better prepared to weather the storm.
Venezuela’s fragile, socialist economy was in no condition to handle a 60% drop in oil prices. At second glance, one may be able to conclude that the chaos was caused by an unlucky crash in oil markets. At third glance however, one may conclude that the oil crash may have been deliberate and strategic.
The most significant reason behind the crash was the US and Saudi’s excessive overproduction of petroleum. Supply flooded the market, demand remained stagnant and oil prices plummeted. Neither the US nor Saudi Arabia will ease back much on production because both seem willing to accept short-term losses to protect market share over the long-term.
What the United States and Saudi Arabia won’t tell you is that they both seem to be benefiting in not so obvious ways from the oil crash. The US and Saudi Arabia have both remained stable in the face of the crash while many of their enemies have suffered. Both have had financial loss due to lower oil prices, but both nations will gain a lot more market share if they can conquer their enemy’s supply.
Some of the countries that were most deeply affected by the oil crash include Iran, Russia, China, and yes, Venezuela. These countries have butted heads with the US/Saudi alliance in recent history.
The US’s feud with Venezuela goes back to 2007 when Hugo Chavez decided to re-nationalize the nation’s oil. This decision angered the US because ExxonMobil was doing business there long before Chavez’s decision. Exxon won a settlement in which Venezuela was ordered to pay $1.6 billion. But just recently, the Order for Venezuela to pay Exxon was overturned, probably further angering the US.
Oh, and by the way, the CEO of ExxonMobil during the time they were kicked out of Venezuela is now the current Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. It is reasonable to assume that Tillerson will use his authority to further pressure the Venezuela into submitting to the demands of Exxon. Pressure can be applied multiple ways, but the most effective way to gain control may be to install a US friendly president with a coup.
Yes, socialism is a bad ideology and probably contributed to their downfall. However, it is far from the only factor. The oil crash was a significant fan to the flame of chaos, but it doesn’t appear to be an accident. The US and Saudi Arabia most likely crashed the oil market to weaken enemies, and Venezuela is indeed an enemy of the US. It is most likely that a large amount of the chaos in Venezuela can be attributed to the US empire and their need to concur resource rich areas.
You can make many arguments against ‘socialism’, whatever that means, but it turns out that Chavez was right, the Venezuelan people are right and the western planted government will not stand. The people will only elect another Chavez.
This government, as do many in the western world, collect enough taxes to fund subsidies for their own energy until that energy can stand on its own. They also ‘collect’ enough money for everyone to be covered for health care and so on… All that remains is the will to put the money toward the people. Chavez did that. Even a ‘good king’ is better than a politboro…
I think the chickens are coming home to roost on an American-caused travesty that will eventually turn out good. Don’t count out the Venezuelan people…
The next Venezuelan President needs to increase the world price of oil. That will no doubt fix the problem.
Socialism failed because it ran out of profits. If prices were fixed the problem would be fixed.
Venezuela nationalized the oil industry because they said they could run a better, more economic, and more green. It didn’t work just as nationalizing the oil industry in America would not work. Government can’t run anything well except maybe wars. Venezuela also nationalized the food industry, and other people are starving. Venezuela could be one of the richest countries in the Americas the per capita income above that of the USA. Now you tell me that healthcare, but no toilet paper. I like to know the names of the socialist countries that are prospered.
Funny, Venezuelans pay one of the lowest FIXED prices for gas in the world.
Forget cake. Let them eat oil!
Lower prices(deflation) for consumers are bad? lmao
Venezuelans will enjoy 700% Inflation this year(IMF), good news!
Maduro
should wave his kingly wand and fix the price for Venezuelans at
$100/Liter, not 25 cents, that should help pay for his worker utopia.
Hugo hollowed out the economy before he conveniently “died”. This is something the communists do……drain their treasuries before they disappear with all the loot……
My first trip to Venezuela was over 20 years ago. I saw what happened over time. Its government became a socialist fascist state over a decade ago by nationalizing industries and confiscating property. It not only took away incentives for people to produce, it punished producers.
The low price of oil hurts, but the downward socialistic spiral began long ago.
BS. Chavez bankrupted the country by nationalizing industries, stealing (Hi daughter supposedly has billions), paying off his cronies and the poor and making it impossible to maintain the infrastructure or allowing business to flourish. Venezuela once had the highest per capita income in Latin America. Marxism and its Latin American variant of socialism has failed every time it has been tried and just one step short on the path to full blown communism. “The problem with socialism is that pretty soon you run out of other peoples money”
This is what happens when the government runs out of other peoples money, they start to steal other peoples money, those with some money left flee, finally the government take the industries that they stole from, then there is no one left to run the industries efficiently, they get turned over to people that only know how to steal and it all grinds to a halt! This is what happen under Stalin and in the USSR, in the end the people die and the people starve until they rise up and kill the thieves, such is the nature of the world, has been forever and will not change! It’s the question answered ‘is poverty the result of crime or the product of crime’? Poverty is the product of crime, you can not steal your way to prosperity, those who produce will stop in the face of overwhelming corruption!
Socialism actually produces a superclass of elites and a form of socio-economic apartheid, rather than egalitarian nirvana.
Don’t take it from me, take it from a former socialist economist who grew up with a picture of Karl Marx in his classroom and textbooks, and defected to the United States in the 1980s from a totalitarian police state formerly known as the USSR.
Audio: Yuri Maltsev: Why Socialism Endures
https://mises.org/library/yuri-maltsev-why-socialism-endures