
Venezuela Is in Crisis. So How Did Maduro Secure a Second Term? - artur_makly
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/10/world/americas/venezuela-maduro-inauguration.html
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legitster
I know it gets lots of accolades already, but "Why Nations Fail" can really
help understand why these sorts of things happen.

A lot of people want to look at Venezuela as a place that used to be a
progressive country with a strong welfare state, and now it's a broke regime.
But it's easier to understand that they never were a progressive country -
they never actually had a pluralistic division of power. For a solid decade
they could divvy out the benefits of a high oil price. But when times got
tough, citizens were not actually given a lot of rights or individual
liberties.

To butcher a quote by Friedman (so take it with as many grain of salt as you
want), "Countries that put equality before freedom often end up without much
of either."

~~~
geezerjay
> A lot of people want to look at Venezuela as a place that used to be a
> progressive country with a strong welfare state, and now it's a broke
> regime. But it's easier to understand that they never were a progressive
> country

Don't you mean they never were a true scotsman?

~~~
ivraatiems
It's not enough to just point out a possible fallacy. What's your contention
as to why the statement "Venezuela was never actually a progressive country"
is inaccurate?

The parent comment asserts 1) that progressive countries must have a
pluralistic division of power, 2) that Venezuela didn't, 3) therefore,
Venezuela was not actually a progressive country, even if it appears to be.

Which of those assertions are you challenging?

~~~
geezerjay
> It's not enough to just point out a possible fallacy. What's your contention
> as to why the statement "Venezuela was never actually a progressive country"
> is inaccurate?

My contention is that the original argument is absurd and is just a blatant
attempt to whitewash yet another humanitarian disaster caused by a socialist
dictatorship.

Any argument on how Chavez/Maduro's dictatorship is not a true
scotsman/socialist regime is entirely irrelevant as the dictator of Venezuela,
who is also the president of Venezuela's Socialist Party, is very open to any
of the many socialist reforms and revolutions that he himself announces
repeatedly in his struggle to advance socialism in Venezuela.

And faced with all those indisputable facts, you're trying to argue whether he
is a true scotsman.

~~~
ivraatiems
> Any argument on how Chavez/Maduro's dictatorship is not a true
> scotsman/socialist regime is entirely irrelevant as the dictator of
> Venezuela, who is also the president of Venezuela's Socialist Party, is very
> open to any of the many socialist reforms and revolutions that he himself
> announces repeatedly in his struggle to advance socialism in Venezuela.

I'm not sure I follow this sentence at all. Yes, Chavez calls himself a
socialist and has in the past advocated socialist programs (though not so much
currently). That doesn't have any effect on whether Venezuela is actually a
"progressive country," "progressive" and "socialist" not being synonymous
terms. And, again, you ignore the grandparent's contention that in order for a
country to truly be considered progressive, it has to have features Venezuela
doesn't have. It _does_ matter, because that's the core of the original post's
argument as I understand it.

That is, Venezuela might be somewhat socialist insofar as it has - or has had
in the past - some socialist policies, but representing it as an example of a
socialist country is incorrect in the same way that representing the US as a
socialist country because we have Medicare is inaccurate. (I'd define
"socialist" countries which are also "progressive" as being places like
Canada, the UK, Norway, France, Japan etc.)

> My contention is that the original argument is absurd and is just a blatant
> attempt to whitewash yet another humanitarian disaster caused by a socialist
> dictatorship.

What's being whitewashed? Nobody is arguing that Venezuela is not a
dictatorship, or that there is no disaster going on. What I'm arguing is that
categorizing a country as something just because the leaders of that country
would like us to do so doesn't make much sense. Venezuela appeared
progressive, and it had many actual socialist policies (again, non-synonymous
terms), but most of those policies backslid and whatever it appeared as or
wants to be considered now, we can all see it for what it is.

It's not "no true scotsman" to point out that something actually doesn't meet
the criteria of a certain definition.

------
bliblah
I see a lot of ignorant comments here placing the blame solely on the US
(despite the fact that sanctions didn't take place until 2015 and things were
already really bad considering Chavez died in 2013 and Maduro is still
struggling to get a grip on the country since then.

I visited Venezuela and my wife is from there and the truth is that the
country relied on Oil to create a wonderful society where the was incredible
poverty and excess wealth with many people in the Urban areas being "alright"
in the middle but unaware of the plight that many people suffered. Chavez was
a charismatic former military man that had _already_ failed to perform a coup
when he rose to power. He appealed to the poor and the soldiers unlike the
ruling government and used this to rise to the top. Afterwards he just played
his cards right making sure the poor and the military got their (tiny) share
while he and his cronies became millionaires. The complete devastation of the
economy lies squarely in the fact that they ran their national oil company to
the ground and have nothing of value since every wealthy business owner fled
or shut down during the last decade.

The fact that Maduro is still in power is a complete mystery to me but I am
guessing he is still greasing the right palms but another Coup is coming soon,
I can only hope that things improve

------
un-devmox
For the past week, a Venezuelan house painter has been working at my house. He
immigrated to the U.S. 3 years ago. He was a police officer that refused to do
the governments bidding, so he fled. As did ~500/700 that were in his police
academy.

We just spent the past 2 hours talking about the past and present situations
in his home country. I'm beside my self and ashamed that I've been so ignorant
to what has been happening.

I don't even know what to say here or even where to begin.

------
Simulacra
Corruption and totalitarian brutality. From China to Venezuela, it keeps
dictators in power.

~~~
un-devmox
Especially in Venezuela where China and Russia help maintain that corruption
and brutality.

------
duxup
This is what scares me. Venezuela was doing "alright" (relatively of course,
their economy was too dependent on oil) but chose a path of totalitarianism /
Chávez's without apparent fraud ... some people chose this path. And no matter
how much deeper a hole they dig, the folks in power manage to dig deeper...
still supported by a good chunk of people.

~~~
smacktoward
_> Venezuela was doing "alright" (relatively of course, their economy was too
dependent on oil)_

That bit about oil is a pretty significant caveat. Economists have spent many
decades studying concepts like the "resource curse"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse))
-- the way that countries whose prosperity is disproportionately driven by the
sale of natural resources (like, say, oil) tend to end up mired in poverty and
autocracy -- and "Dutch disease"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease))
-- the way that a booming resource-extraction sector tends to crowd out
development of other economic sectors, like manufacturing and services. The
Venezuelan economy under Chávez was virtually a case study on these ideas, as
he rebuilt the entire economy on top of an upward surge in oil prices. When
those prices collapsed, the whole system came down with it.

------
tabtab
Why people vote for dodgy leaders is a big question these days.

~~~
candiodari
In this case, not really:

1) economy destroyed to the point of famines. They promised food if they won
the election and blocking of everything if they lost.

2) they attacked (including with machine guns) the opposition. Tortured
opposition candidates. Forced others out of the country, ...

3) They attacked voters at polling stations.

4) They attacked the parliament, a number of parlementarians, and several
judges, before, during and after counting the ballots.

I mean it's no mystery how these people got "elected": they didn't.

Nothing shows socialism like these people do:
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/26/chavez-
daughte...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jan/26/chavez-daughter-
instagram-picture-dollars)

~~~
mrguyorama
>Nothing shows socialism like these people do:

Are you suggesting there's never been a non-socialist dictatorship?

~~~
JPKab
Obviously, he's not suggesting that.

The idea is that fascism and socialism are both dependent on a common thread,
the elevation of group/collective/state identity over the identity and values
of the individual.

Socialism tends to play into a groups (arbitrarily defined, but generally
based on wealth, class) with often legitimate grievances, but degenerates into
attacks on groups based on envy.......... The Ukrainian experience under the
Soviet farm collectivization is an excellent example of this. A great book, by
a Russian WW2 veteran who was sent to the gulags by Stalin called "Gulag
Archipelago" is a phenomenal insight into this pathology.

Fascist regimes tend to lean towards elevation of a collective
ethnic/religious identity over other groups within a nation or other nations
which turns the government into an all powerful protector and destroyer of the
"other"..

Once the individual is subjugated to the collective in these types of nations,
the logical conclusion is that any individual protesting the state is a
nuisance to be eliminated, and a traitor to the dominant collective group.

------
DeonPenny
Basically he replaced the old congress with a puppet congress, gained control
of the military, then cheated his way to it.

