RE: Venezuela crisis: Protesters set fire to supreme court building 66 die during the ongoing escalations.

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Venezuela crisis: Protesters set fire to supreme court building 66 die during the ongoing escalations.

in venezuela •  8 years ago 

Venezuela has a lot to teach us about socialist political parties, but Venezuela's failings are not because they "ran out of other people's money". That is a US conservative platitude, and 99% of the time it is wrong.

Venezuela is instead suffering from numerous harmful conditions, including

  1. Dutch disease. Venezuela has fallen into a classic resources trap, where an abundance of oil has stifled investment in a diverse manufacturing base. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease

  2. The political powers that be, the PSUV, have tied social mobility and privilege to party loyalty. This has created a political class resistant to rule of law, and unresponsive to pressure from the population.

  3. The Venezuelan military, the kingmakers, make vast profits from drug and smuggling industries. They will stifle any political opposition that threatens this revenue stream. The PSUV price controls fuelling the smuggling directly benefit the military, to the detriment of the population.

Etc. etc.

Other countries regularly "spend other people's money" and fare consistently well in quality of life indices.

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