New York Times: Venezuela Drifts Into New Territory: Hunger, Blackouts and Government Shutdown
CARACAS, Venezuela — The courts? Closed most days. The bureau to start a business? Same thing. The public defender’s office? That’s been converted into a food bank for government employees.
Step by step, Venezuela has been shutting down.
This country has long been accustomed to painful shortages, even of basic foods. But Venezuela keeps drifting further into uncharted territory.
In recent weeks, the government has taken what may be one of the most desperate measures ever by a country to save electricity: A shutdown of many of its offices for all but two half-days each week.
But that is only the start of the country’s woes. Electricity and water are being rationed, and huge areas of the country have spent months with little of either.
Many people cannot make international calls from their phones because of a dispute between the government and phone companies over currency regulations and rates.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: Went back into the archives for this post on Venezuela .... I noticed that I started warning about Venezuela way back in 2008 .... The Slow Disintegration Of Venezuela (October 24, 2008). And as for Venezuela's electricity crisis .... this was regular news way-back in 2010 .... The Mess That Is Venezuela (February 9, 2010). In short .... over the years I posted dozens of articles and commentaries on what was happening in Venezuela, and why the country was not only falling apart but heading to the abyss. But even with this slow and painful disintegration ... which was obvious to me .... much of the left and the main stream media pushed a different narrative .... Hugo Chavez’s economic miracle (Slate, March 6, 2013). And the explanation on Venezuela was/are always the same .... I have heard it so many times from these Chavez/Maduro apologists that I can recite it by heart .... Chavez/Maduro/etc. .... they are helping the poor and making them better off by stopping the rich/oligarchs/capitalists/etc. from exploiting them and the country's resources.
Sighhhh ....
Why was the media wrong and I was right .... the answer is simple .... because I grew up in these systems/societies/governments and I learned an undeniable truth .... a country that adopts such a system will always fall apart after a few years (i.e. a decade or two). And why do they fall apart .... not because they stop the rich/oligarchs/capitalists/etc. from exploiting the country (actually these characters usually partner up with the new government) .... they fall apart because they destroy the "little people" who make things work by taking away their incentive to do what they want to do. In Venezuela .... over the past decade .... the people who make things work .... the entrepreneurs, the small business man or family, the professionals (doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, managers), the capitalists (i.e. those who have extra money and willing to invest in someone's idea or start-up) and their bankers, and down to a young person who dreams of a better and an independent life .... they have fled and/or are fleeing the country. And who would blame them .... because in today's Venezuela there is no future for them. And as for the poor .... the ugly truth is that many of them are now realizing that after 17 years of rule from the United Socialist Party of Venezuela the promise of a better life is not going to happen .... in fact .... it is going to get worse.
A few months ago I mentioned that the situation in Venezuela .... as bad as it was .... was going to get worse. I now see only two endings to this story .... strikes/riots/revolution .... or a Cuban style crack-down that will not be pretty but it will keep Venezuelan President Maduro and his cronies in power. What's my prediction .... my money is on the Cuban-style crackdown.
Update: Nothing is going to come out from this meeting .... they cannot even meet and face each other in their own country .... Venezuela government, opposition hold talks in Dominican Republic: local media (Reuters).
In a way, this guy is saying the same thing you are but about Brazil. Especially as regards the oligarchs, elites and partnering.
ReplyDeletehttp://petras.lahaine.org/?p=2081
And it's true, stifling the small to medium sized businesses is a road to failure. Thing is, it's happening in capitalist countries too through monopoly, ridiculous taxation, environmental degradation, horrendously expensive education,greed and corruption, among other things.
Human development, which was something Marx wrote about, has gone right out the window.
There is another group of people on the list who get the shitty end of the stick, workers, most especially those who are skilled. Without them modern society comes to a screeching halt, but to this day, they are treated as "less than" while constant attempts are made to depress their wages and working conditions.
And Maduro should be careful pushing for a crackdown lest he be hoisted by his own petard.
DeleteAn interesting post from James Petras. But his focus on the bourgeous media in influencing events is maybe a bit overblown. The biggest impact that is happening in these countries .... in all countries .... the U.S., Russia, Venezuela, China, and Brazil .... is social media. It has become the great communicator of our time .... both good and bad.
ReplyDeleteI know in Russia and Ukraine it is the main source of news and information .... not state run or private media. I can only assume that it is the same for places like Brazil and Venezuela.
Yep, and "they" want to crack down on or subvert that too.
DeleteIf the dust ever settles ie Venezuela, perhaps, just maybe, people will learn to treat each other better. I understand what you are sayinh about entreprenuers, professionals etc. but that is not the whole story in Venezuela or elsewhere. A very sizeable portion of the "professional", or let's call it petit bourgeois class, treated other Venezuealans, especially mestizos (the ethnic group Chavez hailed from) like garbage. Racism/classism is so heavily embedded in Venezuelan society (as it is in so many others) that it should be no surprise at all that the call of Chavez and the so-called revolution was heard by millions. of course the poor gravitated toward Chavismo! What was the alternative?! More poverty? Does anyone remember Venezuela BEFORE Chavez? Neither state (pre/post Chavez) is acceptable. (B)Millions of people are pissed off, angry, downright MAD for very legitmate reasons.
ReplyDeleteEditor, like you, I saw this coming, if from a different angle. It won't end in Venezuela.
It's a lesson for the world that treating people like shit creates shitty people.
Racism exists on all sides RRH. I know Venezuelans who worked at the UN in New York before and after Chavez came to power. They were career diplomats who were replaced because they were white ... not because they were incompetent in their job.
ReplyDeleteIn my own personal experience .... and it is my own personal experience .... the worst racists that I have ever met are native Americans. Case in point .... across the St. Lawrence River from from where I live .... http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/canada-says-it-not-kahnawake-gets-to-decide-on-band-membership-issues
And from the same reservation .... one of the chiefs (who is a golfing buddy, business partner, and a friend of mine) told me that the worst racists that he has ever met are the native leaders from Latin America ... especially the mestizos who have no love of the Spanish colonial descendents/citizens.
As I said .... bad history all around results (and fuels) racists/tribalism on all sides. I guess it is a part of the human condition.
No doubt or dispute about anything you said. I've lived, worked, and fought with racists of all kinds of hues/ethnicities. White supremacists were the worst. A close second goes to native racists.
ReplyDeleteThe shoe hurts regardless of the foot it's on. As you said though, it's the history. It's all the more reason to learn how to approach each other differently. There isno long term future foe us in a class society. No matter what it's called. It breeds enmity.
I wonder how the UN diplomat felt to be treated as they were based on the colour of their skin or class position (one, more often than not, in many places dictates the other)? I also wonder if it was their first experience of racism or if their colour was a (not the) reason they were able to attain the education and opportunity to get where they were in the first place?
As for your friend, I know what he means about the mestizos but, Christ, the Conquest and subsequent "order" was hard on them. It's cause and effect, the result of which can be seen unfolding in Venezuela today. Who was racist or hateful toward whom first?
It's not an excuse, but it is a reason.
When my kids were involved in a fight, I always asked "who started it?" This being said, "Who started it" doesn't always get to the bottom of why it started.
And that gets me to "the human condition" which includes a lot of behaviour that we have learned. How much of our "condition" is shaped by our socio-economic-cultural environment? I would say most of it.
Anyway,
we'll see how it shakes down.
The logical and predictable result of socialism
ReplyDeleteIf capitalism had been working for most people in Venezuela,so called Bolivarian revolution/socialism would never have gained traction. Just as if socialism had been working for the majority of Soviet citizens the USSR would not have collapsed.
ReplyDeleteVenezuela may just be the site of the first real revolution, in terms of the basic socio-economic order, this century.
"a country that adopts such a system will always fall apart after a few years (i.e. a decade or two)."
ReplyDeleteCounterpoint: the Soviet Union lasted much longer than that. Cuba is still working. So is North Korea. Agree the system is inefficient but it depends on what you want to do with it and how strong your political position is. Economy is secondary (until it asserts itself in the much longer run anyway).
Good points Daniel,
ReplyDeleteIt's like a certain prof said to me when I stated "it didn't work" in the USSR; He replied "but it did, for almost 70 years!"
Capitalism fails hundreds of millions every day and deserves the same level of criticism.
An alternative is needed.
Daniel .... RRH .... the Soviet Union was a country that was kept together by the imposition of a brutal police state. For all intents and purposes for the people who had to live under it .... yours truly included .... it was a failed state that was far worse than what Venezuela is going through today. It was only when the Soviet police and state security forces no longer had the will to impose what the Communists wanted that they were finally driven out of power ... fortunately with minimal bloodshed. I saw it all .... and I cannot tell you how overjoyed I was when I saw the hammer and sickle finally brought down over the Kremlin. But the unbelievable suffering that Communism caused .... and the decades that we had to live through it .... and the ignorance of many in the West on what was it really like to live under such conditions .... it is an issue that aggravates me to no end.
ReplyDelete"It worked for 70 years in the Soviet Union" .... RRH .... that prof .... if that idiot said anything like that in Russia today .... he would be beaten up for being stupid.
And a heads-up on all this talk about how brutal life was like before the Communists took over and proclaimed the Soviet Union. There is a revision of history going on in Russia today on this topic.... and the reason why is simple .... it is not true. The mantra of the Soviet Communist Party .... and one that I had to endure for years through the school system .... and one that many in the left in the West have been pushing for years .... is that life was unbelievably terrible/horrible/etc. before Communism. NO! NO! NO! Putin to his credit has pushed for a discussion and revision of this historical wrong .... and I am pleased to see that it is now finally starting in the Russian school system where this Communist dogma is finally being thrown out. How long will this education reach the West .... I do not know .... but many in the West do not want this discussion .... because it exposes their biases and dogma.
As to Cuba and Venezuela .... the Soviets and the FO never regarded Cuba as a Communist state .... they viewed it as a country where one dictator was kicked out by another, and the system that was then imposed was more feudal than communism. As for Castro .... Nikita Khrushchev thought he was insane .... especially when Castro was pushing for a nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis .... that is an opinion that is still held today in the Foreign Office.
Life was terrible in Cuba before the Castros came to power .... who is saying that .... surprise .... the Castros and their supporters in the West. Same as in the Soviet Union .... the gullibility of many in the West to believe in something even though the opinions of those who know what it is like to live in such a society .... or in the case of Cuba where there are literally millions of Cubans living in the the U.S. who remember a different (and better) life before the Castros. Nope .... they are people who ignored or worse.
As for Venezuela .... as I have said more than once .... they have seen nothing yet.
Capitalism fails hundreds of millions everyday. In that case Socialism, Statists, and Communism has failed billions.
My father was right .... a high ranking Soviet Communist who saw it all .... when he immigrated to Canada he told me .... there are more Communists in Canada than in the entire Soviet Union. As I grow older I so miss his wisdom.
Enough of my rant.