On behalf of the world: Thank you, Venezuela!
The political and economic situation in Venezuela is terrible. But at least it gives the world a warning about what NOT to do.
There are two ways of teaching. Either you show what to do, or you show what NOT to do. Venezuela has done the latter.
In 1999, when the socialist experiment began, Venezuela was the richest country in South America. Now, it is the poorest. This is especially impressive considering the massive advantages the country has in natural resources like oil, gold, coal, good soil and pristine rainforests.
Today, a quarter of the population (some 7 million) have fled in one of the greatest peace-time refugee crises in history. The socialists under President Nicolás Maduro cling to power with fraud, bullying and murder. Venezuela is the country with the greatest oil reserves in the world, but it struggles to keep the lights on and at times it has had to import oil. In the worst years of 2017-2019, the country was put on the “Maduro diet”, with widespread hunger as people could no longer get basic foodstuffs.
While there are many failed states in the world, few have fallen so far and so publicly as Venezuela. For years, before the unsustainability and corruption of socialism became impossible to ignore, left-wing politicians and Hollywood celebrities praised the Venezuelan regime. Now they are silent. Or more precisely, they have moved on to new fashionable causes.
Venezuela has become a byword for the failures of socialism, and stands as a warning beacon for the world. It is certain that this warning has been seen by millions of people, which must have avoided or ameliorated many political mistakes across the world. Sadly, avoided mistakes are hard to study, for the simple reason they are avoided.
This is one of the great advantages of pluralism and diversity, of living in a world divided into many countries. We can learn not only from each other’s successes, but even more from each other’s failures. Every independent country is an experiment, free to choose its own path through history, to triumph or disaster. Even disasters can be good if we learn something from them. For instance, I do not think that Javier Milei’s reforms in Argentina would have been possible without decades of Venezuelan horror stories.
Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket. Spread your risks. If the entire world was united into a global empire, there could only be one experiment at a time. Also, there wouldn’t be anything to compare the result of the experiment with. Today, there are about 200 countries in the world, and because of that there are at least 200 lessons mankind can learn.
Throughout most of history, and in all too many parts of the modern world, people have lived under terrible governments. Many of these would make Venezuela appear utopian. Despite that, these governments have been accepted and sometimes even popular. Why? Because people didn’t see any other option. Today, such options are easy to see thanks to television, telephones and the internet. Humans will accept slavery and poverty as long as they can’t see their neighbors enjoying freedom and prosperity. (It is no coincidence that today’s least free and least prosperous state, North Korea, is also the most isolated).
But freedom and prosperity must be defended. The chief threat to them is people taking them for granted, thinking that they couldn’t possibly go away. But in Venezuela they did.
Venezuelans have destroyed their country. But in doing so they have done the world a real favor by providing an example of what not to do. Thank you for your sacrifice!
Jakob Sjölander
Bullsh..
¡Gracias!