Venezuela Follows the Classic Path of Radical Socialism

I taught mathematics at the Universidad Simon Bolivar (USB) near Caracas from 1973 to 1975 and returned to teach summer classes in 2005 and again in 2008. My wife and I honeymooned in Venezuela in 1977. That doesn’t make me an expert on Venezuelan politics, but it does make me care about what is happening in Venezuela today. 

In the mid-70s, Venezuela was an oil-rich country with the usual large gap between rich and poor. Our Lutheran church had an outreach facility in one of the poor hillside barrios surrounding Caracas which I visited frequently, so I am not unaware that, even then, there was poverty in Venezuela. But in the mid-70s, there was a large flow of Colombian immigrants moving to Venezuela where there were more jobs, and the economy was better. (READ MORE: A Sacred Peace: The Promise and Perils of Localism)

I arrived in Venezuela three months before the election in 1973 which saw Carlos Andres Perez replace Rafael Caldera as president. Both were members of relatively moderate political parties (AD and COPEI), but there were numerous radical socialist parties also competing for votes. Naturally, they all promised to usher in a utopia by simply erasing the large gap between rich and poor in Venezuela. One of these radical socialist parties, led by Hugo Chavez, finally won the presidency in 1998.

The Fruits of Socialism Are Always Poverty and Inflation

I did not notice too much difference when I returned in 2005 except that almost all (but not quite all) of the media were controlled by the “Chavistas.” By 2008, many of the professors at USB had left Venezuela for Colombian universities, and there was already a net immigration flow toward Colombia. On one of these visits, I asked a German/Venezuelan friend, whether Chavez won reelection or if it was thanks to voter fraud. He replied, that most of the fraud happened before election day. 

Hugo Chavez died in 2013, and his vice-president Nicolas Maduro took over and continued Chavez’ radical, repressive policies. In 2018, inflation was predicted to reach over one million percent per year.

By contrast, I believe the Venezuelan “Bolivar” was valued at a constant rate of 4.3 per dollar for the entire two years I lived there in the 70s. By the time Maduro was “re-elected” in July 2024 (this time certainly with massive election-day fraud), it is estimated that one-fifth of the Venezuelan population had fled, many to the United States, but most to neighboring countries like Colombia. The professor who invited me to USB in 2008 has fled to a university in Spain. (RELATED: The Venezuela Template Against Democracy)

I have not returned to Venezuela since 2008, but, the Atlas Society‘s article, “Venezuela’s Classic Socialist Path to Poverty and Dictatorship,” summarizes it well.

Did Chavez Love the Poor? It Doesn’t Matter For Venezuela.

The title of the article speaks of the “classic path” from socialism to poverty and dictatorship because such a trajectory is entirely predictable and inevitable. Where Venezuela has gone is where radical socialism always leads, because when a government’s main goal is equality it rewards unproductive activities and penalizes economically productive actions.

Since radical socialist governments have to impose things like price controls, rent controls, and income redistribution — which can only be imposed by force because they won’t happen naturally —  it always requires more and more government repression. Inflation always accompanies socialism as the government prints and spends more and more money to help the poor (or at least to win their support). (RELATED: Maduro Moves Christmas to October by Imperial Decree)

I spent the Fall 2019 semester at a university in Queretaro, Mexico, where foreign investments seem to be encouraged and multinational corporations (from Europe and Japan as well as the U.S. and Canada) are welcomed with open arms.

The contrast could not be greater between Caracas and Queretaro: While Caracas is dying in every sense, Queretaro is growing rapidly and seems to be following the “classic path” of capitalism to greater wealth and freedom. (The “center-left” Mexican president from 2018 to 2024, Manuel Lopez Obrador, is sometimes called a socialist but I would say he is a socialist in name only, certainly not a radical socialist like Chavez or Maduro.) 

Did Hugo Chavez care more about the poor in Venezuela than previous presidents, many of whom were at least as corrupt as he? I don’t know, but perhaps he really did believe that soaking the rich and redistributing the wealth would benefit the poor, and he did, in fact, do much for the poor in the early years of his presidency. But does it matter? His radical socialism led Venezuela down the classic path to extreme poverty and dictatorship, as it always does.

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