# What's the matter with Venezuela? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 28, 2016, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789 "2016-12-28T19:15:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![igor\_frankensteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/839c29/32.png) [@igor\_frankensteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/igor_frankensteen)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/81 "2016-12-31T15:36:49Z")
The number one problem that causes confusions and manipulations like this in our society, is that almost no one is taught to think, particularly to understand how to think about the “big picture” and how the “big picture” actually related to the functional details. That vague sounding phrase refers in this case, to the fact that too many politically motivated people and groups, either actually believe, or ingenuously want to have everyone else believe, that “isms” are magic spells. Those who want to manipulate us in to blindly opposing socialism (and just as blindly letting them declare what is and isn’t socialist), as well as those who want us to blindly oppose capitalism, tend to write and speak as though the “ism” itself, directly causes whatever good or bad things that we see happening somewhere, and does so inherently. When ever anyone tells you to believe that one thing causes another, without showing you the detailed mechanics of how it does so, they are trying to get you to believe in magic. What most of these liars then do, once they get you to buy into the self-blindness required to support magic, is to construct false _linkages_ in your mind, between what has been declared to be magically good or bad, and whatever OTHER items they want you to buy in to, sight unseen. This is how much of the worst kind of sales trickery works. They start by establishing a general “magic” idea, such as that you are a bad parent if you don’t buy your child the “best” things you can, and then they proceed to demand that you accept their claims as to what “the best things” are. In the case of capitalism versus socialism, or more specifically, ANTIcapitalists versus ANTIsocialists, the way the game is played, is to cite particular details about one or the other, then pretend that the “ism” in question, MAGICALLY causes that particular detail. Many such tricks, are followed by pretending further magical linkages exist, such that pretty much anything the politician wants, is also necessary to accept. That’s how we arrive at anti-socialists, persuading many people that attending to ANY of the personal needs of workers, will “cause” the same problems that some other nominally socialist government has suffered. Bottom line, as several smart people have hinted at in detail, is to look to the exact MECHANISMS that a society constructs, and how competently they are designed and managed. What happens overall, is due to the collective results of those detailed mechanisms. NOT to the vague political label that someone decides to attach to it all. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/82 "2016-12-31T15:59:49Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Yup, sure is. Conservative and libertarian economics predicts that when a country turns strongly to centralized control, seizing industries and imposing strict price and labor controls and so forth, the result will be disaster. Poverty will soar. Hyperinflation will set in. There will be shortages of food and other necessities. > > Under Chavez, Venezuela turned strongly to centralized control. seizing industries and imposing strict price and labor controls and so forth. [Poverty](http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/2015/0325/Venezuela-Does-an-increase-in-poverty-signal-threat-to-government) soared. [Hyperinflation](http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/13/inflation-in-venezuela-seen-hitting-1500-in-2017-as-crisis-goes-from-bad-to-worse.html) set in. There were [shortages](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortages_in_Venezuela) of food and other necessities. People are indeed [eating](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/19/hungry-venezuelans-break-into-caracas-zoo-and-butcher-a-horse/) zoo animals. > > Conservative and libertarian economics has predictive power. [Liberal economics, on the other hand…](http://www.salon.com/2013/03/06/hugo_chavezs_economic_miracle/) > > Socialism is horrible, never works, and causes immense harm. It is, of course, tragic that so many people have to suffer in the process of proving that this is true. There is a little bit of good news from Venezuela however. [Some Venezuelans are turning their money into bitcoins and buying food from Amazon.com](http://reason.com/blog/2016/11/30/rodrigo-souza-bitcoin-venezuela-brazil). Yay for capitalism! “Conservative and libertarian economics” is wrong then, for the reasons **Ramira** correctly points out. I am more sympathetic to command economies than she (or most Americans) is and don’t think that their record was as terrible as is sometimes claimed, but leaving that aside, the question you have to answer is why Venezuela’s economy is doing terrible _even by the standard of command economies_. The Soviet Union after 1956, for example, had many problems, but it shifted from high economic growth to 0.5% economic growth in its latest years: it didn’t have, even at its worst, either the massive economic contraction or the “people eating zoo animals” misery that Venezuela is having now. (Those things happened, but not till the system started falling apart). East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, etc., also had plenty of problems, but they far outperformed Venezuela as well. And when you do that you’ll quickly see that, whatever their other problems, which were many, the more successful command economies (Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union- China and Cuba were much less successful) _did not make the same mistakes that Venezuela did_ (prioritizing consumer goods over capital investment). Taking some of your claims in detail, it’s very misleading (while technically true) to claim that “shortages started shortly after Chavez started moving towards socialism”. Shortages mean an excess of demand relative to supply, and while it’s true that there were shortages of many consumer goods includeing meat, fruit, vegetables, etc., this conceals the fact that _people were actually consuming more of these things_. Supply of high quality foodstuffs and other consumer goods actually increased over Chavez’ tenure, it’s just that (because of expanded purchasing power among the working class and poor, due to redistributive policies) demand went up even more. That has changed in the last few years, and I’ll certainly agree that long term effects of Chavez’ policies contributed to some of that, but it simply isn’t true, as you imply, that people were going hungry throughout the Chavez terms: they weren’t. They are going hungry now, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/83 "2016-12-31T16:03:49Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > That analysis is completely incorrect. > > Before Chavez, Venezuela had its issues but was a functioning economy - including before the huge oil run-up. Traditionally, the government ran up expenses during flush times and then regretted it later, so it wasn’t that shocking that Chavez did so as well (even if it wasn’t a good idea). What was a bad idea is that he used the growing oil market to buy votes with no long-term investment, turned workplaces into revolutionary cells that didn’t actually produce anything, and outright closed or expropriated any business that didn’t meet his political goals. The result is that Venezuela, despite having a domestic economy with a major focus on agriculture, can no longer even feed itself, let alone provide basic consumer goods. > > This isn’t just an oil-price problem. This is what happens when you take a modern and growing nation and impose a mix of Cuban and Zimbabwean socialism. The level of disaster here takes real work to achieve. When has Venezuela ever had a “major focus on agriculture”? I would agree they _ought_ to, and Chavez made half hearted moves in that direction (without much follow through), but Venezuela has been one of the most urbanized populations in the world for a long time. Anyway, not being able to feed yourself clearly isn’t an _inevitable_ result of a nationalized agriculture. Hungary and Czechoslovakia were net food exporters in spite of having a socialized agricultural sector. And as pointed out above, Venezuela’s oil industry has been state run since 1976, and was doing fine until Chavez started his policies of redirecting a larger share of PDVSA profits to social spending. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/84 "2016-12-31T19:28:12Z")
**igor frankensteen** made the point I wish I had been cogent enough to make. Thank you. I’m not defending Chavism. I just think that its major flaw was that it was built on petrostate arrogance, rather than that it was properly “socialist.” The comparison to Zimbabwe is interesting, **smiling bandit**. I hadn’t thought of that, but I can see some similarities. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/85 "2016-12-31T19:49:47Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > It’s not really a problem of _socialism_ per se, it’s a more specific problem than that. Socialism was a necessary but not sufficient condition here (that’s to say, a non-socialist economy probably wouldn’t have failed in the specific way that Venezuela did, but there have been planned socialist economies that, whatever their other problems, didn’t have massive inflation, food shortages, collapses in production, etc. either). > > In any kind of economy, you (as the government) can do three things with your budget. You can A) spend it on investment in capital goods to ensure economic growth (or at the very least, to ensure your ability to continue to produce goods and services in the future). You can B) spend it on consumer goods for elites, and you can C) spend it on consumer goods for the common people. One of the arguments made by socialists in the past was that by not having an owning class, you could eliminate B) and redirect that money to both A) and C) instead. > > Chavez, on the contrary, promised to provide cheap consumer goods (subsidized grocerys, refrigerators, housing, medical care etc.) to the bulk of the population, and he largely lived up to that. Unfortunately, he did so by systematically underinvesting in the oil industry (which was Venezuela’s biggest single export) and redirecting that money to subsidizing imported consumer goods, and also by failing to properly invest in alternative sectors of the economy either. The result of that was that not only did Venezuela not diversify their economy, but they produce less oil than they used to, by a large margin. (The drop in the price of oil doesn’t help either). > > This doesn’t _have_ to happen in a socialist economy (eastern European countries invested a very high proportion of their GDP in capital goods, partly because they didn’t have to keep people happy and win elections), but Venezuela ended up trying to implement ‘socialism’ in a very shortsighted way, with predictable results. OK, this explains it well. If you want first causes, this is arguably a failure of democracy (at least of _presidential democracy),_ as much as of socialism specifically. Chavez may have been a fool, but his folly was geared to win elections. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2016, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/86 "2016-12-31T20:17:39Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I can’t believe I have to explain this to you, of all people, but the problem with your father’s theory is that it ignores property rights. > > People in democracies have rights that people in dictatorships do not have. One of these is property rights. In a dictatorship, you never know if the regime is going to confiscate your property. In fact, the more valuable your property is, the greater the likelihood it will be taken from you. Such a system minimizes the incentives to invest resources in creating wealth. You’re better off hiding your resources. Uh, I don’t know what your point is, but China actually has very strong real property rights. They don’t have the eminent domain system the USA has, so it can take a long time to buy out small landholders. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2017, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/87 "2017-01-01T02:01:29Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > When has Venezuela ever had a “major focus on agriculture”? I would agree they _ought_ to, and Chavez made half hearted moves in that direction (without much follow through), but Venezuela has been one of the most urbanized populations in the world for a long time. Urbanization has very little to do with the overall importance of agriculture, which is one of Venezuela’s few export commodities, and thus, assumes an out-sized importance. Far from being “half-hearted,” Chavez did run some major land-redistribution plans, although they have been counterproductive, if anything. IN any case, almost all the land is still owned by a few small groups. > [@](#): > > Anyway, not being able to feed yourself clearly isn’t an _inevitable_ result of a nationalized agriculture. Hungary and Czechoslovakia were net food exporters in spite of having a socialized agricultural sector. And as pointed out above, Venezuela’s oil industry has been state run since 1976, and was doing fine until Chavez started his policies of redirecting a larger share of PDVSA profits to social spending. Hungary famously did relatively well on Ghoulash Communism, but are you sure about Czechoslovakia? They may not have starved, but they weren’t doing that well, either. > **[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czechoslovak_Socialist_Republic#Economy)** > > History > Politics > Economy > Industry > Agriculture > Foreign trade > Transport > Education > Demographics > Government structure > Health and social welfare > Mass media > Resource base > Religion > Society > The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic,\[a\] known from 1948 to 1960 as the Czechoslovak Republic,\[b\] Fourth Czechoslovak Republic, or simply Czechoslovakia, was the Czechoslovak state from 1948 until 1989, when the country was under communist rule, and was regarded as a satellite state in the Soviet sphere of interest.... ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2017, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/88 "2017-01-06T21:12:28Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > “Conservative and libertarian economics” is wrong then, for the reasons **Ramira** correctly points out. I am more sympathetic to command economies than she (or most Americans) is and don’t think that their record was as terrible as is sometimes claimed, but leaving that aside, the question you have to answer is why Venezuela’s economy is doing terrible _even by the standard of command economies_. The Soviet Union after 1956, for example, had many problems, but it shifted from high economic growth to 0.5% economic growth in its latest years: it didn’t have, even at its worst, either the massive economic contraction or the “people eating zoo animals” misery that Venezuela is having now. (Those things happened, but not till the system started falling apart). Of course focusing on the Soviet Union after 1956 manages to ignore what happened in the Soviet Union before 1956, when tens of millions of people starved to death. Focusing on percentage growth can make things look good. If a beggar has one dollar and then finds a dollar bill in the trash, his wealth has increased by 100%. If a middle-class guy has a million dollars in the bank and inherits $10,000, his wealth has increased by only 1%. Understand this and the “high economic growth” of the Soviet Union makes sense. At the end of Stalin’s reign, much of the Soviet Union is stuck with medieval technology, and Stalin’s policy of trying to seize everything and shutting down all business has ruined the economy and killed millions. Switch from Stalin to the slightly improved policies of Kruschchev and then the slightly more improved policies of Brezhnev, and obviously growth will occur. Farmers are now allowed to grow some crops for their own profit, so they start growing more crops. Businesses are allowed to keep some profit, so they start doing business again. A few roads get paved and a few electric grids are set up and a few people outside government/military now have cars and trucks. There’s economic growth, _compared to the Stalin years_. But nonetheless, throughout the Soviet Bloc there’s still massive human misery. My mother, who grew up in East Germany, can testify to that, as can numerous other people I know. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2017, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/89 "2017-01-06T22:47:40Z")
[QUOTE=Fotheringay-Phipps] Because it’s the most well-known and convenient number, and the real number is not substantively different for purposes of this discussion. [/QUOTE] Yeah…I can see how a 7 or 8% increase as claimed by the government is ‘not substantively different for the purposes of this discussion’ to a maybe 4-5% (or maybe less) that are generally thought to be more realistic than the well known Chinese government exaggerated claims would be. > [@](#): > > Well, er, yes. It’s like, about 4%-5% higher. Not the same at all. I can see how this would be confusing…I guess. I guess it’s hard to understand that 4-5% of $7-9 trillion would only be a very slight difference than a 2% increase on $17 trillion, especially when you look at per capita…you know, $380 billion increase over 1.4 billion people verse $320 billion increase over 360 million people. Very confusing, I’m sure… > [@](#): > > I read what you wrote. You wrote “China HAS to have huge annual growth rates over decades to bring up their overall standards of living…and it hasn’t been happening, which has caused huge issues for them and for the CCP in particular.” (emphasis added). Sure seems to me like a guy claiming the overall standard of living was not being brought up. Yes…I can see how context isn’t your thing. In the context of the actual discuss and perhaps after you have a chance to look over the above paragraph and grasp that 4-5%, while it SOUNDS like a lot more than 2% isn’t really when you have over a billion people verse a couple hundred million. Or, maybe to you the big numbers of 4-5% sounds like the standard of living is leaping up instead of crawling and all that context stuff is just too complex… > [@](#): > > You are repeated what I’ve already said. Which is odd, since you’re purporting to disagree with me. It sounds like we both agree that China was way way behind the US and has been gaining ground of late to the point where they’re now only way behind. If you indeed agree with that and are trying to make some sort of point with it in context of this discussion, please let me know what that might be. I don’t think I’m repeating it with the same context stuff you are, because I’m not convinced you are grasping the differences in what we are saying. I think you DO get it, but personally I think you are being pendantic on this for some reason, so I’m treating your post that way in the hopes you will, you know, stop doing it. Or maybe you really don’t get it. I honestly can’t tell. > [@](#): > > I could have sworn I said “I don’t know if this is true”, so I’m not sure why you’re asking me this. What I also said was that if it’s true, it would also be consistent with China’s SOL rising, which it has been doing. Then you go on, after that comma thingy, to say ’ but if it is it doesn’t follow that they’ve been failing at bringing up the standard of living. The opposite is very frequently the case. Civil unrest is sometimes the greatest in times of rising expectations, which are triggered by improved living conditions. (The race riots of the late 60s following civil rights laws and Great Society reforms being one of many many examples.)'. See? See what my own post was about? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2017, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/90 "2017-01-07T01:48:39Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Uh, I don’t know what your point is, but China actually has very strong real property rights. They don’t have the eminent domain system the USA has, so it can take a long time to buy out small landholders. Sorry for not responding earlier. I missed your post. China doesn’t have to have an eminent domain system because the government already owns all the land. Individual people aren’t allowed to buy a piece of land and own it. They instead have contracts with the government that allows them to use a piece of land for a set period of time for a given purpose. ---
**Author:** ![Ramira](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ramira/32/344_2.png) [@Ramira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramira)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2017, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/91 "2017-01-07T13:14:49Z")
while I have no sympathy for Hector st claire’s apoligetics for the Soviet union or the Soviet system of command economies, as he takes at the face value the very doubtful economic data produced, this response constains much that is incorrect. > [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Of course focusing on the Soviet Union after 1956 manages to ignore what happened in the Soviet Union before 1956, when tens of millions of people starved to death. It is specifically to be accurate, ignoring the 1930s and indeed the worst excesses of the Stalin economy. > [@](#): > > At the end of Stalin’s reign, much of the Soviet Union is stuck with medieval technology, This an incorrect and gross exaggeration. The forced industrialization in the war period was not of course medieval technology, indeed it in fact was stealing and copying from the American methods. But the command economy structure created very severe inefficiencies. > [@](#): > > Switch from Stalin to the slightly improved policies of Kruschchev and then the slightly more improved policies of Brezhnev, and obviously growth will occur. ??? The period of Brezhnev is the period of the stagnation and not a period of improvement in the policies or the growth. One can not have more than a little idea of the economic history or the policy history to write this. The growth period of the Soviet union where the figures are more sensible is in the period where the basic industrialization and the “new lands” of the central asia are brought in production. The comments you make on the economics do not give any confidence. ---
**Author:** ![sweat209](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9fc348/32.png) [@sweat209](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweat209)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/92 "2017-01-15T22:13:24Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > The conservative line is that socialism (as is its habit) wrecked Venezuela. Is this true? Is something else to blame? Or have I bought into #FakeNews and Venezuela is actually doing great? > > [This Boston Globe article](http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2016/12/25/socialism-shattered-venezuela-useful-idiots-applauded/ZoQnAX5WksuCTauiAjCx4M/story.html) outlines things pretty well, but I’ll share a personal anecdote as well. Over Christmas, I was having a conversation with my in-law’s cousin, whose family is moving from Valencia to Peru because “everything’s so bad there” [in Venezuela]. She said people are killing zoo animals for food. It is mostly fall of oil price. Where in Venezuela there economy was base on Venezuela. And the Venezuela food shortage. The Venezuela’s reliance on imports and its lack of having dollars to pay for such imports caused major food shortages. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2017, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/93 "2017-01-15T23:26:24Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > I don’t think prefacing your remarks with “I can’t believe I have to explain this to you …” adds anything substantive. It looks like just a cheap way to pretend that you’re saying something well known and obvious, in an effort to relieve yourself of having to actually substantiate your position. > > ISTM that a lot of people in dictatorships have amassed great wealth. Some have lost it, as has also occurred in democracies. It’s possible that there’s a smidgeon of truth in what you’re saying, but it doesn’t seem to be a significant factor. Another post I missed earlier. Normally, I’d let it go at this point but it’s directed at me. I’d like to be clear that didn’t intend my post to be “cheap” or disingenuous. My preface was because I feel you are an economic conservative based on past posts you’ve made so I felt I didn’t need to explain the reasons why private property rights are important in the same way I would to somebody who was a socialist. My point was basically intended to remind you of something I figured you already knew. For the same reason, I didn’t feel I needed to go to great lengths to substantiate what I was saying. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/94 "2017-01-16T00:35:48Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Sorry for not responding earlier. I missed your post. > > China doesn’t have to have an eminent domain system because the government already owns all the land. Individual people aren’t allowed to buy a piece of land and own it. They instead have contracts with the government that allows them to use a piece of land for a set period of time for a given purpose. And a modern example of this is the 1.3 million people displaced for the 3 rivers gorge dam. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2017, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/95 "2017-01-16T00:50:26Z")
I don’t understand the confusion over the Venezuelan economy. Government overreach into the private sector destroyed their economy. It’s not economical to risk investing in the country and that applies internally as well as externally. They privatized the only consistent large scale taxable base and that accelerated the collapse. Call it whatever you like. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2017, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/96 "2017-01-17T14:52:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > My preface was because I feel you are an economic conservative based on past posts you’ve made so I felt I didn’t need to explain the reasons why private property rights are important in the same way I would to somebody who was a socialist. My point was basically intended to remind you of something I figured you already knew. For the same reason, I didn’t feel I needed to go to great lengths to substantiate what I was saying. The point of your post was not that property rights were important. The point of your post was that people in dictatorships had a significantly higher likelihood of losing their property, to the point that this made them less likely to invest. This is a very tenuous claim and is based on zero evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2017, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/97 "2017-01-17T15:45:39Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > The point of your post was not that property rights were important. The point of your post was that people in dictatorships had a significantly higher likelihood of losing their property, to the point that this made them less likely to invest. This is a very tenuous claim and is based on zero evidence. There’s nothing tenuous about it and Venezuela is a prime example. If their currency is worthless then it should be easy for oil companies to invest and grow within the country. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2017, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/98 "2017-01-17T15:51:59Z")
LN was making a general point about dictatorships. You can’t generalize from Venezuela to dictatorships (even to the extent that you consider Venezuela a dictatorship). There’s a lot else going on in Venezuela. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2017, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/99 "2017-01-19T00:16:43Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > LN was making a general point about dictatorships. You can’t generalize from Venezuela to dictatorships (even to the extent that you consider Venezuela a dictatorship). There’s a lot else going on in Venezuela. I’ll say. It’s like watching the Marx Brothers attempting to start the Russian Revolution instead of Karl Marx. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2017, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789/100 "2017-02-21T22:03:18Z")
[Here is an update](http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2017/02/21/venezuela_is_a_ticking_time_bomb_112224.html) on the situation in Venezuela: 2nd worse index of economic freedom score (beating out North Korea) estimated 1660% inflation for 2017 “The capital city of Caracas is now the most dangerous non-war zone in the world, with 120 murders for every 100,000 residents.” “Venezuela is now the leading country for U.S. asylum requests, ahead of even war-torn countries.” What, if anything, can be done to fix Venezuela? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-matter-with-venezuela/775789.md?page=6)