How did a movement started by a one-time hero of the American left end up becoming a dictatorship? Before Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela was led by Hugo Chavez, a close friend of Danny Glover and Sean Penn. Chavez Had lunch In New York with Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz, who also traveled to Venezuela commend Chávez’s economic policies. He’s Oliver Stone’s guest At Venice Film Festival, he flirted with photographers on the red carpet and stayed up late share Had a bottle and a half of tequila with Michael Moore.
Human Rights Watch said attention Chavez’s authoritarian tendencies were a concern as early as 2008, but many left-wing intellectuals were so drawn to his willingness to turn Venezuela into a laboratory for their most radical ideas that they turned a blind eye. “What’s so exciting about my last visit to Venezuela?” [is that] I can see how to create a better world. explain 2009 Public event with Chavez.
When Chavez died of cancer in 2013, Pulitzer Prize Winner Yale University historian Greg Grandin writes Worship Obituaries exist nation, ponders that perhaps the Venezuelan leader’s greatest failure is that he is not “authoritarian” enough in pursuing his agenda. After Maduro came to power, Grandin’s desire to strengthen authoritarianism was realized.
But did Chavez’s policies lead to Maduro’s dictatorship?
this New York TimesAndes Bureau Director Julie Turkewitz recently published an article titled “What happened to democracy in Venezuela?” This provides a confusing explanation for the disintegration of the state. And it studiously avoids calling Chavez what he is: a socialist.
Turkowitz described Chávez (quoting multiple observers) as bent on bringing “democracy closer to the people,” as a populist, “a hegemon,” engaged in “a scam,” and caught up in a “competition sexual authoritarianism”. Turkwitz explained that when Maduro took office, he was bent on finding a way to “consolidate power.” She acknowledged that Chavez called himself a socialist but suggested that he misused the term. another recent era Article (co-authored by Turkewitz) lukewarm describe Chávez’s movement is “inspired by socialism.”
Acknowledging that Chávez was a socialist is crucial to understanding the root causes of the Venezuelan tragedy, because, as FA Hayek warned in 1944, this ideology often leads to authoritarianism.
Venezuela’s socialist transformation can be traced back to the 1973 election of President Carlos Andres Perez. In 1970, Venezuela was one of the 20 richest countries in the world, measured by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita; as Venezuelan journalist Carlos Ball wrote in a 1992 article, Perez turned the country “into a socialist nightmare of price controls, import substitution and protectionism.” analyze Difficulties encountered by the country reason.
Perez nationalized the oil industry, which would fund a dramatic expansion of state control over the economy. His government spent more in five years than in the 143 years before independence. Power observed that Perez “made the central bank a cash cow for the Treasury, decreed nationwide wage increases, and enforced central planning. His policies created widespread corruption, as every private activity suddenly became Multiple permits and licenses were required from an emerging bureaucratic state.
By the end of the 1980s, the economy was shrinking, inflation was soaring, and a country that was once “vibrant and full of entrepreneurial talent” was completely “derailed”[ed],” ball Write. The political and economic crisis provided fertile ground for Chávez, who first emerged on the public stage in 1992 after leading a failed coup.
Turkwitz describes Chavez as a “messianic leader” (quoting analyst Phil Gunson), but he was also a cold warrior and the heir apparent to Fidel Castro. Cuba’s communist dictator saw in Chavez a way to realize his long-held desire to use Venezuela’s oil wealth to prop up his regime and expand his revolutionary plans to the South American continent. Chavez, for his part, was determined to prove that the world had learned the wrong lessons from the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe. Chávez believed that Castro, whom he called a father figure, had succeeded in creating a socialist “new man.” He set out to prove that Castro’s revolution in Cuba had worked.
Chavez blamed Cuba’s abject poverty solely on the U.S. embargo. He was therefore a textbook socialist, which is best described in the 1986 book, Third World Ideology and Western RealityVenezuelan journalist and commentator Carlos Rangel.
As Rangel explains, by the beginning of the 20th century, Karl Marx’s theory that the proletariat would overthrow the bourgeoisie and there would be a communist revolution failed to materialize; as Rangel put it, “Third World ideologies” came to “Rescue”. In this new framework, outlined in a 1916 pamphlet by Vladimir Lenin, the bourgeoisie was replaced by the imperialist states, and the proletariat was replaced by the oppressed peoples of the world. Class conflict was left behind and Marxism transformed into an ideology that liberated people from the oppression of American imperialism.
This was Chavez’s creed as he set out to transform Venezuela into a command-and-control economy to help liberate humanity from the capitalist values of the U.S. empire.
Chavez transformed Venezuelan government-run trade schools into ideological re-education programs to study the works of Che Guevara and other socialist thinkers. He took ownership of large corporations from private hands and handed control over to rank-and-file workers so that work would no longer erode their humanity. He nationalized banks, food processors, oil drillers, telephone companies, vacation homes, gold mining companies, millions of acres of farmland, supermarkets, stores and industrial manufacturers. He discussed Marxist theory for hours on television.
Chavez required the companies he commandeered to implement worker controls on factory floors so rank-and-file workers no longer felt alienated from the fruits of their labor. The result was that capable managers and technicians were replaced by political operatives who rose through the ranks for attending government rallies and wearing the movement’s signature red T-shirts. Production plants turned to mob rule. A gunfight breaks out on the factory floor. Production collapsed.
After Chavez’s death, Maduro continued to pay lip service to socialism and blame the United States for all of Venezuela’s problems, but he had no real ideological fervor. “The final stage of communism is the mafia”, and as Martin Gurri recently observed about post-Castro Cuba, the same insight fully applies to Venezuela.
But did Chavez’s policies contribute to Maduro’s crimes? Turkvez responded to the question by meekly observing that Chavez had turned authoritarian while Maduro continued down the same path.
This connection can be found in Hayek’s 1944 book, road to slavery, a classic analysis of how even well-intentioned socialism can lead to totalitarianism. Hayek pointed out that to build a socialist state, you need to force people to do disgusting things. “Socialism can only be practiced through methods that are disapproved of by most socialists.” “Being prepared to do bad things becomes the path to promotion and power.” Under collectivism, “one must be prepared to break all moral rules.” .
During his 14-year term, Chavez became increasingly authoritarian as plans to turn Venezuela into a socialist paradise did not go according to his plans. Over time, Rangel writes, Marxism “became increasingly virulent as its adherents tended to attribute the previous failures of their pseudo-religion to a lack of passion, devotion and human sacrifice.”
After Chávez was nearly ousted from power in a 2002 military rebellion, he accepted Cuban help to train a covert military counterintelligence force that has become the most ruthless enforcer of Maduro’s will. He destroyed press freedom because it cast doubt on the effectiveness of his policies and undermined his ability to liberate people from capitalist values. He chose an independent judiciary because it held him back.
It takes a special kind of courage to expropriate property and impose price controls. Once in 2007 episode In his television show, Chavez described how his government dealt with farmers who refused to sell their cattle. “Well, we’re going to come in with the National Guard, load the cattle onto trucks and personally take them to the slaughterhouse,” Chavez told the audience. “That’s what we’re going to do the first time…if If this happens again,… we will commandeer the farm!” The audience cheered. “We’re going to give it to the community councils – to the people – so they can produce their own food!”
The most famous victim of Chávez’s expropriations was a farmer named Franklin Brito, who refused compensation for his land and went on a hunger strike, prompting Chávez’s Communications Minister Andrés Andrés Izarra tweet: “Franklin Brito smells like formaldehyde.”
For her in ” eraTurkwitz interviewed Izala, now one of the most outspoken members of an organization. Community of former Chavez officials Opponents of Maduro. Turkwitz cited his prosaic observation that Chávez’s goal was to “bring ‘democracy closer to the people.'” thrived under his leadership because of his own autocratic tendencies.
2007, star Backing Chávez’s decision to close Radio Caracas, the country’s most important television network, told era The station’s demise at the time represented “the final collapse of the oligarchy that once controlled Venezuela”. The goal, he said in another interview, was “to allow socialist ideas, collectivist values and solidarity to prevail over capitalist values.” In 2008, he defend Chavez’s decision expel Human Rights Watch from the country accused the group of being a front for planned U.S. intervention.
As Yale’s Greg Grandin understood when writing Chavez’s obituary nation, if you are a phaseless dictator, it is much easier to reshape society when farmers are willing to die to defend their property. (Franklin Brito starved to death in 2010.) Nicolás Maduro was a rising star under Chávez because he was a ruthless follower. He does whatever the boss wants him to do, and then he becomes the boss when the boss dies.
Bland statements that Chavez is just a “savior” or a “populist” are a disgrace to the victims of the Venezuelan tragedy. At the very least, we can learn something useful from their country’s destruction.
