In 1970, Venezuelans were the wealthiest people in Latin America. With annual incomes comparable to those of the Finns and the Japanese, they earned two-and-a-half times what the typical Latin American earned. Their wealth bought them a longer life, lower infant mortality, and some measure of safety. Today, as the United Socialist Party’s Nicolás Maduro tries to steal another term as president, it is a different story.
The typical Venezuelan earns one-third of what the typical Latin American earns and one-seventh of what the Japanese and the Finns make. According to the United Nations, 90 percent of Venezuelan households are impoverished, and 7.7 million people have fled the country. The annual inflation rate is 160 percent, which sounds terrible until you hear it reached 130,000 percent a few years ago.
What happened?
Venezuela’s past prosperity was a product of good luck and decent policy. On the side of luck, the Earth’s largest known oil reserves were discovered in northwestern Venezuela in 1914. The gush of oil fueled a post-World War II boom, and Venezuela’s private sector thrived.
As for decent policy, the Venezuelan government of the mid-20th century knew enough not to kill the goose that laid the golden (black) egg. Its spending was restrained, and its taxes were low. It allowed most industries to remain in private hands. The Central Bank of Venezuela kept inflation below its 2 percent to 3 percent target for half a century. With some of the lowest tariffs and barriers to trade, Venezuelans were free to buy from whomever they wished, importing fancy cars and other luxuries while exporting about a million barrels of oil to the rest of the world daily.
It wasn’t perfect. The regulatory burden made it difficult for Venezuelans to start and run businesses, and the legal system didn’t always protect people and their property. But overall, Venezuelans could make most of their own economic choices without interference from others. According to the Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World report, theirs was the 14th-freest economy in the world in 1970.
The seeds of today’s disaster were already being sown. In 1976, the Venezuelan government nationalized the oil industry, creating the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). For decades, PDVSA was allowed to operate as if it were a private business, relatively free of state interference. However, when public and private interests are combined, the temptation for corruption is enormous, and this fateful decision eventually turned Venezuela into a petrostate.
In the meantime, the government increasingly curtailed the economic freedom of ordinary Venezuelans. By 2000, the country had slipped to 107 out of 127 countries in Fraser’s economic freedom ranking. Venezuelans were earning less than they had in the 1970s.
Then came Hugo Chávez. At first, the populist offered more of the same. With time, he grew more radical. Under the banner of “Socialism of the 21st Century,” he promised a new and better society by doubling down on the policies that had already begun to impoverish his people.
He tightened the government’s grip on PDVSA, inviting rampant corruption. He nationalized other industries, including iron, steel, cement, mining, farming, food distribution, grocery chains, banking, hotels and telecommunications. He increased spending and borrowing and turned to the printing press to finance growing deficits. Then, as inflation heated up, he attempted to mask it through price controls.
As the country plummeted to the bottom of the economic freedom rankings, more than a few Western intellectuals were taken in by the brash dictator and his radical policies. Oil prices were booming, so the country’s economy gave the appearance of muddling through. However, the results are bleak when economists compare Venezuela’s performance under Chávez with that of similar countries.
Ever the showman, Chávez exited the scene just before things came undone. He died in March 2013, and within months, price controls had yielded predictable shortages of household necessities. His successor, Nicolás Maduro, presided over the aftermath: hyperinflation, collapsing incomes, skyrocketing poverty, a refugee crisis, and today, a stolen election.
The only hope for Venezuela is a return to decent policy.
Matthew D. Mitchell is a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute, a senior research fellow with the Knee Center at West Virginia University and an affiliated senior scholar with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.
Reprinted with Permission from DC Journal – By Matthew D. Mitchell.
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
Unfortunately, after 25 years of socialist rule and the complete gutting of the wealth of both the nation and its people, the suggestion that Venezuela can recover via decent policies is pathetically naive on the part of the author. Almost as naive as Team Biden thinking they could trust the word of Maduro to hold an honest and fair election. Yet Team Biden wanted to hear what they wanted to hear, because they wanted to drop sanctions on Venezuelan oil so we could help fund yet another despot with U.S. dollars.
Since Chavez initially took power, every single government institution has either been shut down or completely corrupted to only support the ruling regime. When Chavez hand-picked his successor Maduro (used to be a bus driver, but was blindly loyal to Chavez and Marxism), it was with the understanding that the Cuban military would ensure Maduro stayed in power in exchange for oil from Venezuela as compensation. Today Venezuela is effectively a military dictatorship with the people of Venezuela completely powerless to overthrow their captures. Chavez disarmed the people shortly after taking power. The rest is history.
Every election since Chavez first gained power has been a sham. The outcomes fixed to ensure the ruling regime won handily. The last election in Venezuela a few weeks ago was just another in a long list of sham elections to pretend to the world that the country’s people still have a say in who rules the country.
This is what socialism , marxism and communism ism get you.
The shining path leads to a paradise in which Venezuelans now live. Unless wokes wake up they too will end up in the same promised land.
Other countries have nationalized some of the successful industries & have found out it did not work as well as before. Study history & furthermore do not allow foreign countries to own land and property in your country but to only lease or rent or something similar. But do not allow them to own our land.
It’s very unfortunate but if current policies stay in place we’ll become the next Venezuela. So my challenge is this wake up it’s to take back our country before we lose it or we won’t have one. We need get to government working for us the people not the people working for the government. All laws on the books should be reviewed annually those that still apply keep them those that don’t should be gone.
No huge package of bills with thousands of pages no one has time read through. All must bills must be reviewed separately. That would cut costs and make force our government have a balanced budget
The only hope for Venezuelans is the same as America’s. Grab your, pitch fork, machetes, Bats, rock’s, guns, explosives and rise up.All government workers and facilities need to be destroyed.