/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

no, it was another comprador state like all lat am after operation condor. it was better if you were rich and owned oil.

>>2557162
>it was better if you were rich and owned oil.
Many such cases.

Bump

Oil price go up. Oil price go down.

Chavez was flawed and corrupt but still 10000x better than what came before

"before Hugo Chavez" can be used to refer to many periods in Venezuelan history

People stopped giving a shit about democracy so much that they abstained from voting, and those who voted, voted mostly for a military lieutenant colonel who, 6 years before, led one coup d'etat and had his guys do another while he was in prison. Things weren't good at the time Chavez came to power.

It was a neolib shithole and still is

>>2557155
Yes it was a paradise for the bourgeoisie and western companies until evil communist took over.

>>2557155
It is true but only pedantically. It is true that Venezuela was rich before Chavez, but that was in the 1970s. A global oil crisis is a very good time to be a petrostate. Even then, their oil minister famously dubbed oil "the devil's excrement" and predicted that it would ruin Venezuela.
When the oil glut arrived in the 1980s and the bills for the orgy of spending in the 1970s came due, things went into freefall. They had a president elected on the promise of rejecting the IMF, who immediately betrayed that promise and did as the IMF said, leading to >>2557157

Chavez rose to prominence precisely because he attempted a military coup in response to how bad things were in the early 1990s. The president in question was impeached and arrested for massive corruption. Venezuela didn't exactly sleepwalk into electing Chavez, he won a decisive victory in 1998 precisely because things had gotten so bad.

The 2002 coup attempt is what ultimately doomed Venezuela to a choice between an insanely right-wing opposition and a total blunderer in Maduro, but that's another story.

>>2558938
>The 2002 coup attempt is what ultimately doomed Venezuela to a choice between an insanely right-wing opposition and a total blunderer in Maduro, but that's another story.
explain

>>2558910
Crazy how they still haven't diversified.

>>2558929
The heckin wholesome Venezuelan government kills communists but they're brown commies so western MLs don't care

>>2558958
Very interesting spin on
>as a true leftist, I endorse US attacks

>>2558966
non sequitur

>>2558954
How do you diversify when you don't have any resources except oil, and all your economy is built on exporting something and importing something else?

>>2559000
they have many other resources, they just only focused on oil due to chavez being an idiot and falling for dutch disease https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/environmental-sciences/venezuelas-natural-resources

>>2558938
There's an alternate timeline where they decided to simply kill Chavez during the coup
Another one where Maduro lost the 2013 presidential elections instead of winning by 1.5%

>>2558942
USA couldn't carry out a coup, so they've thrown every punishment they could think of short of military intervention and bombing for defying American demands. All American outlets, like ICU/Panama Papers, started fabricating shit on Chavez and Maduro, every lib was calling for blood and intervention, there were sanctions, Venezuelan gold was seized just because, etc etc. Given that Venezuelan oil was refined in USA, and USA were the main buyers, Venezuelan export revenues were screwed

>>2559002
Pfft, oh please. Not every resource is extractable or marketable. South America's main problem is that they didn't advance past resource colonies. Out of all of them only Mexico can achieve any kind of success because they have industry and a diversified economy

But also yeah, socdems are bad at economics. Chavez was reconcillatory with the West, as much as it was possible, but the West, just like with Russia, doesn't want that, they only accept full submission, no compromise is possible

>>2559005
>Panama Papers was fake
>chavez was socdem
retard

>>2557155
>Is that true that Venezuela was way more free and richer before Hugo Chavez?
so what if it was? all this would reflect is that the americans will sabotage your economy if someone they don't like comes to power. People who make such arguments are esentially saying "if socialism works, how come we sabotage you when self described socialists come to power?"

>>2559000
Export oil to raise capital, invest the capital in other industries. This is what the USSR did in the 30s with its own oil, grain, mineral, etc.

>>2559021
Being incapable of responding to sabotage would still be a black mark against a socialist government. Cuba has had it far worse than Venezuela, yet their economy is basically functional.

It's not difficult to assemble the case that the PSUV have completely fucked things up. In many areas they've taken the obviously stupid approach of having the state try to direct private capital to sell imported goods below cost. You don't have to be Milton Friedman to realize that's not going to work, that it will lead to shortages and total economic collapse.
You don't even have to go beyond the most vulgar suggestions to come up with a better plan: Expropriate them! The crudest form of central planning might not be perfect, but in terms of the basic distribution of essential goods it's obviously superior to telling people who're in the business of making money and hating you that they've got to spend money they don't have on products they're going to lose money selling, then crying when the stores are empty and there are black markets everywhere.

>>2559030
USSR had ALL resources known to man, except for exotic stuff like rubber and little else. USSR was destined for autarky, lol

>>2559034
You are telling socdems that their dream of moral capitalism is impossible?

>>2559034
>Being incapable of responding to sabotage would still be a black mark against a socialist government
I wish you well. May you never have your entire life sabotaged in secret by a person with way more power than you and then blamed for your inability to defend yourself as your life collapses all around you.

South American countries go back and forth between authoritarianism and democracy every other week.

>>2559642
Maybe those are two largely meaningless labels

>>2559034
why is cuba still experiencing fuel shortages? the wiki page isn't very clear on the latest ones