In Anna Funder’s excellent Stasiland, is narrated a
powerful scene. A young East German woman falls in love with an Italian man in
a fare in Hungary (which, in the Soviet era, used to be one of the less
repressive Communist states). Unbeknown to the woman, the Stasi are following
her every move. One day the woman is summoned to see the local Stasi Satrap.
She is given an offer. She is to carry on with her relationship with the
Italian man, but as an agent of the Communist state. She is to ferret out information
from her boyfriend (who, the Stasi knows, holds no governmental position) about
the decadent Western culture and pass it on to the Stasi. The woman refuses.
She is asked to leave the Stasi office. Her visa to travel outside the GDR is
revoked immediately. She can no longer carry on with her clandestine
relationship with the Italian. She also finds it near impossible to find any
work. The woman has no choice but to register as unemployed and fall on the
state help. She is standing in the queue in the local centre of the town in
which she lives for the registration, and remarks to the person standing next
to her that she has tried hard but is simply unable to find work. A Stasi
minion, a woman, is passing by and overhears the remark of the young woman. The
Stasi woman is outraged, and screams at the young woman, “There is no
unemployment in the German Democratic Republic. If you are hardworking you will
find a job. It is because you are lazy you can’t find a job.” Unemployment and
unproductivity existed only in the West, not in the Socialist Utopia that was
the German Democratic Republic.
I have known no state in the world where Socialism has
delivered. As the joke goes, the Socialists always run out of other people’s
money to spend. And when that happens, the Socialist saviour invariably turns
into a despotic dictator: all dissent is suppressed; political opponents are
jailed; elections are rigged to centralise power into the hands of the
increasingly unpopular dictator.
That’s what is happening in Venezuela. The current Socialist
president, Nicolas Madura, has become a dictator. Madura might have come to power
democratically in 2013 (after Hugo Chávez, an inspiration for Saint Jeremy of
the UK, having started the economic meltdown of the country by reckless
spending of money the country was not going have forever, on extravagant social
projects, succumbed to cancer), but he has lost all moral right to govern.
To describe the situation in Venezuela as dire would be an
understatement. Madura’s Socialist regime has presided over the worst economic
crisis in Venezuela’s history. The inflation is running at 500%, and the
exchange rate is more volatile than a stroppy toddler’s mood swings. The
country is facing unprecedented food crisis. The hospitals are running out of
medicines.
It can’t be, because it could never be, the major said, when
he saw the giraffe. But it could be, and it is. How did this happen? What we do
know is: this happened under the watch of the Socialists who have run that
country for the best part of past two decades.
Venezuela is an oil-rich country. It is said to have the
highest reserves of oil in the world, more than the Saudis (though perhaps not
as accessible). Therein also lies the problem. Other than oil the country has
not invested in anything over decades.
During the presidency of Hugo Chávez, the oil prices were
astronomical ($ 100 per barrel). Venezuela cashed in on the boom, and dollars
flowed in. This engendered in Hugo Chávez delusions of grandeur. The man believed
he was the Socialist Messiah who was brought on this earth to free the world
from the Capitalist yoke. Chávez not just took a moral high-ground, he took a hot-air
balloon ride. Chávez, however, did not have the foresight to save for the rainy
day (remind you of someone? Here is a clue: he was the Chancellor of the
Exchequer for the UK for years and also (an ineffective) prime-minister: his
name starts with ‘G’ and surname with ‘B’), and spent money extravagantly on food
subsidies, and other social projects of questionable benefits. Then, to the
horror of the Venezuelans, the oil prices tanked. Chávez was, of course, gone
by then. His successor, Nicolas Madura, possessing the charisma of a boiled
potato, does not have Chávez’s ability to unite the country behind him and his
looney ideas.
Once the economy, dependent almost exclusively on oil
export, started going down the toilet and the government revenues began
dwindling, the Utopian projects started by Chávez became impossible to sustain.
This is the other problem with Socialist Utopias. It is impossible take issues
with them; and it is impossible to sustain them indefinitely.
During Chávez’s presidency, the prices of food and medicines
were dramatically reduced—no doubt to the delight of many in Venezuela at that
time (I know of no one who will push away free lunch)—to the point (and this is
where the Socialist madness comes in) where the price at which these items were
sold was less than the cost of producing them. Chávez, the Socialist Santa
Claus, said, “Don’t fear; I am here. I shall subsidise all the basic items. The
oil bonanza will go on forever, and we are all going to roll in wealth till the
end of times.” Chávez requisitioned all the private companies in Venezuela (an
obsession with all Socialist and Communist nut-jobs, a variant of which is
nationalisation of industries—Socialists are very keen on it). Finally, Chávez
restricted access of American dollar into Venezuelan economy to stop people
converting bolivar, the Venezuelan currency, into dollars. Like all the
Socialist dictators Chávez hated the Great Satan, and was incensed that many
Venezuelans still had what he obviously considered was a pathological need for
financial security, which they sought in the American currency.
There came a point, as it was ineluctably going to come,
when the Venezuelan companies could no longer afford to produce goods. The
Venezuelan government started importing all the commodities from abroad. How
was it planning to pay for it? From oil money, of course. You don’t need to be
a Harvard economist to figure out what happened next. The price of oil is lower
than crocodile’s piss (a barrel of oil currently costs less than $ 40). The
Socialist government can no longer sustain its outlandish (and unwarranted) subsidies
and other profligate programmes, and the bolivar (which is about as much worth
as the dollar—the Zimbabwean, not American—so worth nothing) can’t pay for the
required imports. So, on to the next step—as inevitable as the yearly floods in
the Bangla Desh basin—the rationing of food and other basic commodities, which
are disappearing from the shops, and are ending up in the black market at
prices reaching the current national economy of the beleaguered country. People, who still have jobs and are earning
wages in bolivar, which has lost its value, are barely able to keep themselves away
from starvation. The rest are roaming the streets searching for foods in rubbish
bins, before they start frying their children.
Some Socialist Utopia.
In April 2017 Madura announced a 35% rise in the salaries of
Venezuelans—the 15th such increase he has announced since he came to
power four years ago. Seeing as Venezuela can no longer produce anything (other
than oil, for which there is little demand) and the current exchange rate is
more than 700 bolivars for a US dollar (five-six times more than that in the black
market, which probably reflects the true state of affairs), the increase in the
people’s salaries will probably enable them to buy one extra grape.
Here is the situation, then. According to International
Monetary Fund (IMF), in 2016, Venezuela, after years of Socialist rule, had a
negative growth of 8%; the inflation was touching 500%; and one fifth of
the country’s population had no jobs. The government has not made any economic
data available in the last three years (no doubt for good reasons) but the
Central Bank of Venezuela has announced that the country has less than $ 11 billion
in foreign reserves left, and is leaden with debt of $ 7.4 billion. And, if one
is inclined to blame the current unfolding disaster on America and Capitalists
(I don’t know how this will be done, but I am sure it will be done; the
Socialists have special talent for blaming America for all of their mis-deeds
and incompetence), let me advise you that during the Chávez years, when the
money was flowing into the country, Venezuela was the worst performer in the
Americas with GDP growth per capita.
On 30th July Madura held rigged elections, which
returned him to power. He is attempting to destroy the power of the parliament,
which is controlled by the opposition. In the December 2015 general elections
the opposition won a landslide victory. All of the parliament’s decisions, since then, have been
overturned by the puppet supreme court, filled with Madura’s cronies. In March 2017
the Supreme Court stripped the national parliament of all its power, which it
redirected to itself. Madura is now in the process of forming a constituent
assembly, which is his latest ploy to supress the will of Venezuelan people and subvert democracy. This assembly, which will have absolute
power, will aim to sustain Madura’s Socialist regime, which is discredited and
has lost all moral authority to govern. Madura, like his mentor, Chávez, is
peddling the tired (and tiresome) argument that the assembly is the only way to
achieve peace, even though there have been daily protests on the streets
against his regime and hundreds have died so far, and—here you have it—to fight
the “economic war” launched against Venezuela by America— the last recourse of
all Socialist dictators, whose relationship with truth is roughly the same as
that between Russia and Ukraine.
In the age-old tradition of dictators (Socialist or otherwise)
Madura has jailed the opposition leaders under trumped up charges. After the
fraudulent election in July 2017, which returned Madura to power, the two top
opposition leaders, who were already under house arrests on charges of—wait for
this—attempting a coup against Madura, were taken to undisclosed military
prisons.
Madura is managing to survive because so far he has the
support of Venezuela’s army. How has he managed it? The Socialist regime has
inducted top army brass into its corrupt regime. Venezuelan army now boasts of 2000
generals (whereas in the past there used to be about 200). Madura has bought the
loyalty of the generals by giving them the rights to control food imports, as
well as control over banks and mining industry. While the ordinary Venezuelans
are paying thousands of bolivars to buy a scrawny chicken (it is
either that or eating candle-wax and imagining it is a cake), the generals are
gobbling wealth like a stadium-full of Indians coming off hunger strike.
After the fraudulent elections and the arrests of the
opposition leaders, America, alarmed, has announced individual sanctions
against dozens of officials of Madura’s corrupt, and increasingly despotic,
regime. President Trump has announced that Madura will be held personally
responsible for the safety and well-being of Venezuela’s opposition leaders,
who have disappeared. This is a promising start, although a little late in the
day—a bit like trying to hire a window-cleaner when the building is on
fire. America, really, should have used more of its diplomatic muscle to kick
Venezuela out of the Organization of American States (OAS). As it happened,
Venezuela managed to hold on to the membership of the organization by the skin
of its teeth, with the support of its ideological allies and some Caribbean
islands to which Venezuela offers cheap oil. What needs to happen next is what
President Trump is supposed to be considering: broad and sweeping sanctions
against Venezuela; banning import of oil from Venezuela into America and
prohibiting American companies from doing business in Venezuela.
There is a Hindu saying: misfortunes and disasters have no
roots. Everything is brought upon by yourself. The mess that is Venezuela today is the result
of years of inept Socialism (this probably is a tautology), which has, as it
invariably does, morphed into dictatorship.
Therein lies a salutary lesson, not least to the people of
the UK, mesmerised by an aging left-winger, who has spent all his political
life embracing terrorist organizations and Communist despots.
Beware of the Pied Piper who sells impossible dreams. There is no such thing as free lunch. Someone somewhere always pays.
Beware of the Pied Piper who sells impossible dreams. There is no such thing as free lunch. Someone somewhere always pays.
