The legacy of Hugo Chávez: Low growth, high inflation, intimidation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/25/hugo-chavez-venezuela-legacyVenezuelan leader Hugo Chávez is a master at holding onto power, but it has cost his country and people dearly
How can electoral success be achieved under such weak foundations? It is not easy. It helps if the price of oil increases fivefold. That way, consumption can increase even if domestic production does not. The government can distribute its increased oil rent to alleviate poverty, garner support and win favors. But previous governments in Venezuela and elsewhere that have benefited from oil price hikes have not had the same electoral success.
How did Chávez do it? ... First, undermine checks and balances. You can use it to eliminate any separation between party and state, so as to make government social programs a privilege of the loyal, not a right of all deserving citizens. Create a very large civilian army of political activists that are handsomely compensated by the state for their party work. Limit individual rights, expand controls on everything, including prices and access to foreign currency, and give yourself the power to nationalize any business you choose. That way, people will not want to get on your bad side. "Judicialize" politics by using the courts to put your enemies in jail or threaten them with prosecution. Make it really costly for people to oppose you. Let your collaborators steal generously, and make sure that they know you know about it. That way, they will never dare to betray you.
Second, dominate the airwaves. Limit the airing of critical views with carrots, such as government spending on ads, or by threats of fines, jail or expropriation. Act on these threats with some regularity to refresh people's memory. Leave some room to your adversaries but make sure you achieve a 30-to-1 balance of airtime. That way you can create your own narrative and prevent them from creating theirs....
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... that Hugo is also responsible for hitting my dog with his car.
Granted, due to PDVSA management ignoring OPEC quotas and making as much oil as possible. When oil prices fall below a certain threshold the oil company itself must pay itself to keep its employees and its operations in order. Not only that, PDVSA was overstaffed in that time, as well. (Never mind that it currently is one of the largest employeers of anyone in Venezuela).
I'll grant you that Chavez implementing quotas and slowing the flow of oil allowed prices to go up internationally and did have an effect. It still remains a fact that the oil profits that PDVSA enjoyed throughout Chavez' tenure is the only way anything could get done. And it still remains a fact that Fonden is unaccountable and PDVSA is the apex of corruption throughout Venezuela (don't believe me, PDVSA has had many shakeups over the years).
That said, it remains a fact that had Venezuela implemented Chile-like or Brazil-like policies poverty would've been reduced, and without the massive increase in crime:
On the basis of our econometric analysis and our comparison of governance and other characteristics, we conclude that in the social democratic regimes at least (but not in the populist regimes), the inequality decline is the outcome of what might be called a structural change. In contrast, in the populist regimes our evidence indicates that the declines in inequality have been due more to good luck than to good policy; that in Argentina and Venezuela inequality levels fell from levels higher than they had been historically is consistent with the good luck explanation.
http://www.cgdev.org/files/1425092_file_Birdsall_Lustig_McLeod_FINAL.pdf
Earlier paper with similar conclusions: http://econ.tulane.edu/RePEc/pdf/tul1117.pdf
You can even see the rise of the Boligarchs in the 4th Q:
Don't they have good medical care in Caracas? At least as good as in Cuba?
that the Guardian (the Guardian!) has published over the last decade slamming, and lying about, the South American Left. (Rory Carroll is one of the other lying liars they publish).
That Venezuelan voters have consistently voted for Chavez and other socialists--including the recent presidential election and the socialist near sweep of the gubernatorial elections--because those voters have been "bought," is a damn lie of the twisted 'Tea Party' variety (upside down, inside out & backwards, like "Alice in Wonderland"
.
You might as well say that U.S. voters were "bought" when they gave FDR four terms in office!
When leaders OBEY THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE, by insuring FAIR distribution of wealth, by strongly regulating the greedy and the conscienceless rich, by turning massive poverty around into upward mobility, by alleviating mass suffering inflicted by the malfeasance of the rich, by preventing speculation and crashed economies, by FAIR taxation, by political inclusiveness, and all the other things that most people want, the rightwing way to look at it is that those voters have been "bought," but the rightwing way to look at it is WRONG. Egregiously wrong! What you are looking at, when leaders OBEY THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE, is DEMOCRACY.
Facts:
Jimmy Carter recently said that Venezuela's election system is "the best in the world." Jimmy Carter and the Carter Center know what they are talking about. They closely monitor hundreds of election systems around the world. It is their special mission.
The UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean recently designated Venezuela "THE most equal country in Latin America." Needless to say, huge income discrepancies--the rich few getting richer, the poor majority getting poorer--is one of the biggest threats to democracy, as well as violating human rights and justice. It is a major problem in Latin America, and here. Venezuela has made the most progress in Latin America at reducing this income discrepancy. It is now "THE most equal country" in the region--identified as such by an outside, international, economic commission.
The Millennium Project (in which the U.S. State Department has a hand, as well as private entities) said the same. Venezuela has met ALL of its Millennium goals (which include poverty reduction, access to education and other indicators)--an unusual achievement.
A private, independent pollster (Gallup) recently established that Venezuela's citizens rate their own country among the highest in the world (5th, of all countries) on their own sense of well-being and future prospects.
And Venezuela's elections have proven, time and again, that, with all the exposure of the Chavez government over the last decade, and despite the vicious antagonism toward that government by the corporate press, Venezuelans OVERWHELMINGLY approve of the Chavez government. No government on earth has received the scrutiny that the Chavez government has. Everything that goes wrong in Venezuela is headlined by the corporate press around the world, and none of the Chavez government's considerable achievements are EVER MENTIONED. The corporate press has FAILED to defeat that government, despite its most strenuous efforts. Venezuelans make up their OWN minds about what is important and what is not, and what is a damned lie and what is not, and vote accordingly, in "THE best election system in the world."
This, more than anything, to me, verifies the excellence of Venezuela's democracy. In the teeth of the corporate press, Venezuelans make up their own minds and vote accordingly. But don't take my word for it. Consider this comment by the former president of Brazil, Lula da Silva: "They can invent all kinds of things to criticize Chavez but not on democracy."
The Chavez government has, in fact, empowered the poor majority--or, to put it more accurately, the poor majority has empowered the Chavez government to act on its behalf. They even rescued Chavez from the 2002 U.S. supported, rightwing coup d'etat, and rallied to their government's side during the oil bosses' lockout, the USAID-funded recall election and dozens of other efforts to crash the economy and/or destroy the country's government.
It is simply NOT THE CASE that the Chavez government has "bought" the voters. The Chavez government has RESPONDED TO THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE, and that will includes ending rule by the rich and the corporate, and FAIR distribution of wealth and opportunity. THAT is democracy at its best. But, to the conscienceless rich and the rightwing, and their corporate media lapdogs--which, very unfortunately, now includes the Guardian--democracy is an abomination. They are compelled to call it tyrannical and corrupt, just as those same forces did to FDR and the "New Deal."
No government is perfect. But government "of, by and for" the people is the best ever devised by humankind. And the more "of, by and for" the people that government is, the better it is for the entire society.
The truth: The Chavez government--despite every effort to destroy it--achieved a 10% economic growth rate for five straight years, 2003-2008, and furthermore recovered quickly from the Bush Junta-instigated, worldwide depression, to a growth rate of over 5% (current). And they did this with NO CUTS TO SOCIAL PROGRAMS. In fact, their protection of social programs contributed to their quick recovery. (Hear that, President Obama?!) Inflation has been high but the government has now cut inflation by about a third. Inflation is decreasing and, what is perhaps more important, wages are stable or going up, and unemployment is low. Most of those people who have been lifted out of poverty (poverty cut in half, and extreme poverty by more than 70%) are now in school or in jobs with decent wages. Many of the visitors to the many new community health clinics are seeing a doctor for the first time in their lives. The society is on the uptick and has been for some time. New schools and universities being built; new housing for the poor being built and coming on line; all sorts of new projects and new infrastructure in progress, including, for instance, a new funicular into the hillside barrios, new community TV/radio stations, a new public news service and great expansion of existing projects, such as the wonderful Venezuela Children's Orchestra; and a feeling of happiness and sense of well-being and hope in the future that is so prevalent that it created that remarkable result in the Gallup "wellbeing" poll (5th in the world!)
One other crapass lie, in this lying liar's crapass article: Venezuela's oil production is determined by OPEC, of which it is a member. It has nothing whatever to do with how Venezuela's state oil company is run. It is pre-determined by the members of OPEC.
This article might as well have been written by Venezuela's rightwing opposition (or Exxon Mobil's p.r. wing). It is THAT bad. And the hell of it is that we really have to write off the Guardian as a progressive publication, at least on Latin America. Who's left? We lost the BBCons a while ago. As for the New York Slimes, they are worse than the Guardian. There is, quite literally, NO reliable news and opinion source on Latin America in the entirety of the established press.
Worse than reading this contrived, twisted, lying tripe, is the realization that the Guardian has been corporatized and now speaks for the interests of the U.K. and U.S. 1% and their traditional rapacious, murderous treatment of Latin America.
Oh, yeah, one more point: the perennial rightwing "talking point," the murder rate. The murder rate is extremely high ALL OVER Latin America. Venezuela is not unique in this respect, and, of course, the writer doesn't mention the efforts of the Chavez government to reduce it. Venezuela's problem is "street crime," not political assassination--like the U.S. client state, next door, Colombia, where labor leaders and other advocates of the poor are routinely murdered by rightwing death squads closely tied to the U.S. funded/trained military. The writer tries to imply that "street crime" in Venezuela is political, by using the word "assassination." It is not. It is "street crime" and it is gun-driven. (Venezuelans love guns.) The Chavez government has created a new police academy, to instill professionalism (and also respect for human rights) and to address police corruption. It has also, recently, started to curtail gun ownership.
No government is perfect. No government can solve all problems. I'd say that making Venezuela "THE most equal country in Latin America," achieving all of its Millennium goals, creating "THE best election system in the world," and giving its citizens a sense of wellbeing and faith in the future, are HUGE accomplishments of the people and its chosen leaders, and, whatever other problems there are will at the least be seriously addressed, and maybe even solved, "of, by and for" the people when that population decides to do so.
I can't say the same for my own country. We have massive problems here that our people are being PREVENTED from solving, by the transglobal corporate monsters, war profiteers and banksters who are calling all the shots and even got hold of the vote counting with corporate-run 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines in every state. We want better distribution of income. We can't have it. We want better schools and attention to "the commons" (our public infrastructure). We can't have it. We want medical marijuana and, indeed, an end to the corrupt, murderous, failed "war on drugs." We can't have it. We want single payer health care. We can't have it. We want good wages. We can't have them. We want jobs--and they get outsourced to China and other slave labor markets. We want local businesses and strong community centers, and they get destroyed. We want to ban assault weapons and clips that can tear into our five years old's at SIX BULLETS PER SECOND, and we can't have even that. Nothing we want can we have. And it looks like we may lose even more of our agreed upon, mutually paid for, social protections--Social Security and Medicare, for instance--before this Corporate Junta is over.
You gotta wonder at the corporate media and these bloggers going to so much trouble to revile and lie about the Chavez government in Venezuela--which at least is making serious efforts at responding to the will of the people--when the "developed" world is in so much trouble, in so many ways, including grave loss of democratic and human rights principles, with the United States in the lead as to troubled places--a country where not even kindergarten classes are safe from mass murder and where the government has forgotten all about international law. The "developed" countries are like a house of cards--economically and politically--very fragile, indeed--while the Latin American Left tries to build a firm foundation for their societies, where in everyone has a chance, the weak are cared for and the government is on the side of the people against the looters, the liars and the war profiteers. The Venezuelan people were, indeed, the pioneers of that historic leftist democracy movement--which has spread to Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay and other countries--and they do not deserve to be called stupid peasants whose votes can be "bought." That is an undeserved slander of a people who have taught the rest of us what democracy is all about. We should be so lucky as to have a government, such as they have created, which threw Exxon Mobil out of their country!
Enjoy!
but that's not what all the international election observer organizations tell us! Far from it.
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