Despite all Hugo Chavez’s power-to-the-people shtick his efforts haven’t reduced Venezuela’s income inequality. What it has done is secure his place as a top-notch authoritarian.
“Economic Divide” [via Marginal Revolution]
So much hate for someone who has done more than many former Vz presidents. Sure, Hugo Chavez is rude, and takes from the rich. What does he give them? Free medical care, food, literacy. That last one’s a bitch. That’s the starting point for learning. Venezuela is so damn rich… but only a few ever got to use the oil wealth, the other 3/4 were just stuck out. Why? Who likes to share, especially money. talk to me.
If closing the income divide is the benchmark for any administration’s sucess or failure I’d like to point to a miserable failure somewhat closer to home.
Chavez has claimed to be a champion of the poor; someone who will strike back at the rich who are “exploiting” the underclass. If income inequality is a legitimate measure Chavez hasn’t accomplished that.
He’s also trying to abolish term limits now, right? I think i read that somewhere.
Right.
And lets also applaud his success at imprisoning opposition figures, rewriting the Venny constitution to his benefit, muzzling the press with ever-expanding censorhship laws (one against insulting him), and instituting daily politcal indoctrination as a condition of working.
Yes. Hugo Chavez, winner of Iran’s highest state medal of honor, friend and bankroller of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, Mr. “Let’s save the human race, let’s finish off the U.S. empire”.
Wonderful fella, he.
“If closing the income divide is the benchmark for any administration’s success or failure I’d like to point to a miserable failure somewhat closer to home.”
This is an absurd straw-man argument: No one has ever claimed that the goal of capitalism is an equal sharing of economic blessings, but the touted virtue of socialism certainly is economic equality. So much so that its very worth is based upon its ability to accomplish an economically egalitarian result.
When someone implements socialism to do away with the economic inequities inherent in capitalism and then produces something no better in terms of equality than what existed before, they must be viewed as an abject failure.
It’s absurd to take an idea as diametrically opposed to socialism as is capitalism and then attempt to judge its merits based upon a purely socialistic standard.
What is happening in Venezuela is sad beyond description. I fear for it’s people. In a blink of an eye their (faked/imagined) utopia will turn into the next Cambodia. The only difference is that Hugo Pol Pot will be vastly, vastly richer.