The tragic plight of Venezuela has become undeniable: its brand of socialist populism ruined its economy and society.
“Venezuela has become the world’s most visibly failing state,” Francisco Toro wrote in Vox. “It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Not so long ago, Venezuela’s socialist revolution attracted its share of fellow travelers — first-world idealists hungry for the next earthly utopia. Those folks are thin on the ground these days.”
Those first-world idealists have rarely admitted their mistakes. They run the gamut from economically illiterate journalists to Hollywood directors to the leader of the British Labour Party.
The fall came from the centralization of power, both economic and political. Regulations that made private businesses subject to extreme constraints from the government. Political decision-making flowed from the judicial and legislative branches into the grubby hands of Hugo Chavez, then Nicolás Maduro after Chavez’s death in 2012.
“To take one example out of a million possibilities, it is now illegal for a dairy company to move raw milk from a collection center it owns to a processing facility it also owns 2 kilometers away without an explicit permit signed and stamped by a slew of government officials,” Toro wrote.
A collectivist ideology has refused to tolerate economic logic, instead blaming American imperialism for its woes.
That threatens the stability of the government — Toro thinks it’s possible for “serious armed conflict” to break out. “It’s hard to overstate how volatile the social situation gets when you face critical shortages of food,” he wrote.
The pain verges on the intolerable. “’Yo no creo en nadie’ [I believe in no one] has stopped being funny. It’s become the credo of a people who no longer believe in the state as a guarantor of justice and security,” Emiliana Duarte wrote in The New York Times. The struggle to buy basic food staples, the out-of-control crime, and the refusal of the government to admit its failures have struck the heart of Venezuela.
The time for mockery of illogical policy in the name of “the people” and “anti-imperialism” passed long ago. Venezuela is a brutal reminder of national decay.
