As we thrill to the excitements of US politics, let us not forget Venezuela as Hugo Chávez flushes
it down the toilet.
As Carlos Alberto Montaner
writes: “The raid on private property in Venezuela has begun.”
Chávez and his thugs are moving in “factories and large land tracts that are supposedly unproductive.”
That is Spanish for pouring oil money in and fat salaries and wages out—for Chávez supporters.
Anyone who knows a lick of economics knows where that leads. It leads to economic stagnation or worse.
And above all, it leads to dependency. When the government runs everything, then everyone is dependent
on the political process to put bread on the table. How is it possible, we might ask, that
leaders that advocate government control of everything are so often praised as noble souls that
care for the people?
Political leaders like government control because it makes them very powerful. It
allows them to reward their supporters and punish their enemies. Just ask Lenin and Mao and Castro. But it
slowly strangles the well-being of its people. That’s what happened to the Soviet Union. That’s what
happened to the Peoples Republic of China under Mao. That’s what has happened to the unfortunate
Cuban people. Now Chávez wants to try it out on the Venezuelans.
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