With Hugo Chavez Dead, Will Chavismo Also Die?
Cancer is a terrible way to die, even for someone as unattractive as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Still, one wonders at those who rushed to offer their condolences. Such as the profoundly naïve Jimmy Carter—who decades ago expressed his surprise at being lied to by his Soviet counterpart, Leonid Brezhnev—lauding Chavez’s “commitment to improving the lives of millions of his fellow countrymen.”
Venezuela is better off with Chavez gone. However, the country will prosper only if Chavismo disappears as well. Which requires the opposition to offer a vision of opportunity and prosperity for Venezuela’s dispossessed.
Chavez was elected in 1998, a populist who challenged the country’s profoundly corrupt political establishment. In Venezuela the class structure essentially was determined by access to state privilege. If your friends were in power, you could get rich. Ideology wasn’t important.
Thus, the electoral surge for Chavez, though unfortunate, was not surprising. People desperate for change voted for change.
And he brought it. But not a positive variety. Roger Noriega of the American Enterprise Institute assessed “Chavez’s destructive legacy: deep political polarization, authoritarian manipulation, hateful rhetoric, disastrous economic policies, and the devastation of Venezuela’s petroleum industry.”
Chavez failed even on his own terms. Venezuelans remain profoundly poor and dependent on the state. Poverty has fallen because of lavish social spending, but the country’s oil revenue provides only a temporary palliative. In fact, the Chavez government has mismanaged even this asset, and has done nothing to encourage Venezuelans to become independent wealth producers.
Rather, an otherwise productive people suffer from an economy which doesn’t work. Food shortages emerged earlier this year which the government, naturally, blamed on private hoarding. Chavez was dedicated to the sort of socialist state which has failed all over the world. Indeed, Venezuela ranked 144 in last year’s Economic Freedom of the World index, after war-torn Congo, bankrupt Zimbabwe, and long-isolated Burma.
Rather, an otherwise productive people suffer from an economy which doesn’t work. Food shortages emerged earlier this year which the government, naturally, blamed on private hoarding. Chavez was dedicated to the sort of socialist state which has failed all over the world. Indeed, Venezuela ranked 144 in last year’s Economic Freedom of the World index, after war-torn Congo, bankrupt Zimbabwe, and long-isolated Burma.
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