Quote:
|
Originally Posted by guyy
I'm having a hard time connecting this post to the situation in Venezuela. What is the communist regime we are talking about? Paris in 1870? Something else? And what is the connection between different levels of human ability and Chavez's position as elected leader of Venezuela? I'm not making the connection.
|
In Venezuela 2007, Chavez has made centralized government based authoritarianism fashionable once again - yet another in a long-running saga of power hungry Latin American military dictators posing as populist redeemers. Although this time, he's particularly fabulous and fashionable with the leftinistas, what with his anti-American, anti-capitalist ranting (leaving out the part where America is his biggest export market). He's not addressing the long-term implications of poverty, he's perpetuating them. He's not generating real solutions and opportunities for poor people in Venezuela, he's soothing them into tranquility and obedience. He's exploiting the poor, not helping them. He's overturned legislation in favor of perpetuating his presidency indefinitely. He controls the Legislature, the Supreme Court, 2 Armed Forces, the only relevant source of state revenue (oil), and the institution that monitors electoral rules.
Rather than mending the country's catastrophic healthcare system, he opens a few military hospitals for selected patients and brings in Cuban doctors to run ad hoc clinics. Rather than addressing the economy's lack of competitiveness, he offers subsidies and protection to economic agents in trouble. Rather than killing inflation, which is crucial to alleviating poverty, Chavez sets price controls and creates local grocery stores with subsidized prices. Rather than promoting stable property rights to boost investment and employment, he expands state employment.
This is nothing new in the historical narrative of real-world socialism/communism, and it always ends badly.