You have to wonder. After a century of socialism, thug dictators are still extolling its virtues. As reported by Theresa Bradley and Alex Kennedy, socialism is going to be the salvation of the country.
"Building Venezuela's way to socialism, that's the only way to redemption and salvation of our country," Chavez, 52, said in his inaugural address to the National Assembly this morning in Caracas.
Oh yeah? reported by Juan Forero the financial markets had other ideas.
Financial markets from Buenos Aires to Caracas reeled on Tuesday following Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's announcement that he plans to nationalize some private companies
Well, we know what is going on. Chavez is a populist. He appeals to voters in Venezuela who think that they are poor because others are rich. Whatever Chavez really thinks about the path to prosperity, he isn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If he can get away with assembling all the power in Venezuela into his own hands, why not? It didn't do Fidel Castro any harm, after all.
Or maybe the ideas of Douglas North, the rational expectations guru, apply. Reported by Arnold Kling, North and his collaborators claim that the natural order of political power is a "limited access" order.
Limited-access orders are societies that provide meaningful political and economic rights only to narrow elites... [North] argue[s] that limited-access orders are the "natural state:" they are stable, they resist economic progress, and they only rarely make the transition to open-access orders.
Maybe a limited-access order is better than disorder. But in the twentieth century many of these limited-access orders went straight down the toilet.
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