Submitted by Caleb McMillan via Mises Canada, [4]
If anarcho-capitalists should move to Somalia, then socialists – especially, “social democrats” — should move to Venezuela. The country is a complete disaster. But don’t take my word for it, read what a Caracas homemaker said [5] after she tried to buy three cans of sardines and was ordered to put one back due to food rationing: “This is a disaster.”
Food shortages, rising prices, inflation, corrupted incentives, and rampant crime are all symptoms of a primordial problem: socialism. Just because the Socialist Party was democratically elected does not mean that the economic calculation problem has been solved. It’s as if the gods needed one more example to shove down the throats of Western leftists. Economic chaos, food rationing and a complete break down of the social order aren’t lessons of a misguided dictatorship of the proletariat, but a fundamental reality of socialism, whether democratic or not.
Democracy is just an insidious form of communism and the Venezuelan December 6th legislative elections won’t likely loosen the power the Socialists hold over the judiciary and government watchdog agencies. But since street protests led to more state violence, the Venezuelan people have retreated to a electoral solution.
Like Canada, where government workers prefer to vote for the party that offers more tax-funded goods, it’s assumed that in Venezuela, the government-controlled TV and radio stations will convince enough people to vote for the Socialists.
Pollster Luis Vicente Leon said that over 16 years in power, first Chavez and now [President Nicolas] Maduro have mastered the electoral arts.
“They fiercely control the institutions and the money which allow them to become stronger through electoral engineering even when their support is flagging,” Leon wrote in the Caracas daily El Universal.
And like Cubans who blame their economic plight on the US Embargo, Maduro and the Socialists are blaming their economic woes on smugglers who take cheap food, gas and other items across the border to sell for profit. Never-mind that “smugglers” have always existed, and that all these problems (and more) can be traced to a statist grip on power and an undermining of price signals and rules of law. Maduro seems quite serious about his cross-border smuggling accusation, so serious that he closed Venezuela’s border with Columbia and declared a state of emergency. Meanwhile, a Venezuelan Governor [6]is telling the people to eat “fried rocks.”
Indeed, what a disaster.
