April 13, 2007
From the desk of Jane Galt:Success has one father . . .
We are all far too ready to attribute success to our sterling personal qualities, rather than environment. (Failure, of course, just couldn't be helped.) Alexandra Starr writes that political figures are not immune:
Chávez embarked on this ambitious, risky agenda even as oil prices began to dip, a sign, perhaps, of how much he believes his authority derives from his charisma and vision rather than from high global demand for petroleum. But he may want to heed the experience of Carlos Andrés Pérez, the other modern Venezuelan leader who had the good fortune to serve during an extended oil boom. Pérez, who first served as president from 1974 to 1979 and won a subsequent term in 1988, also enjoyed periods of wild popularity. When oil money coursed into the country in the 1970s, Pérez nationalized Venezuela’s iron ore and petroleum industries. Pérez relished international power politics as much as Chávez does: he meddled in Nicaraguan affairs, championed Bolivia’s bid to win access to the sea, and served as vice president of Socialist International, an organization that promotes labor rights and democracy. There are, of course, salient differences between the two men. Pérez had an uneasy relationship with the United States, but it was nothing like the virulent hatred Chávez harbors for the country he calls “the evil empire.” (The animosity stems in part from the Bush administration’s jubilant reaction when Chávez was briefly forced from office in 2002.) And Pérez respected the basic norms of Venezuela’s democracy. He didn’t rewrite the constitution, clamp down on the media, or intimidate nongovernmental organizations opposed to his rule. Those are all legacies of Chávez’s tenure. Still, there are striking similarities between the two presidents’ agendas, and Pérez’s eventual fate should give Chávez pause. When voters returned Pérez to the presidency in the late 1980s, he led them to believe they were in for a reprise of the go-go years. But years of low oil prices had left government coffers bare. Instead of dispensing goodies to businesses and jacking up spending on social programs as he did during his first term, Pérez was obligated to inflict harsh economic measures, including raising the price of gasoline. Stunned Venezuelans took to the streets; bloody riots left as many as 1,000 people dead. It was an inauspicious debut for the administration, and an ambitious Hugo Chávez spotted an opportunity. Three years later he led a coup d’état, and while the effort failed, it politically wounded Pérez, and he was ousted from power in 1993. Pérez’s successor commuted Chávez’s prison sentence, and the ex-military officer immediately began campaigning for the presidency. With the support of Venezuela’s poor, he won the 1998 election in a landslide.Posted by Jane Galt at April 13, 2007 10:54 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links
Either this entry, or the one on the Free Exchange has the author's last name spelled incorrectly.
I feel we're nearing the stages of Cuba circa 1959; Chavez is going to fall hard and I can't wait. Is it wrong to revel in his foolishness?
The upper class already have their bags packed, ready to flee. From what I understand from my Venezuelan coworkers, the rich have been moving their money away from Bolivars for a good amount of time now. Probably to Euros.
Unfortunately, when he does come crashing down, Chavez will be cushioned by the poor he has claimed to be acting for this whole time.
Currently inflation is around 30 percent and only continuing to rise as Venezuelans increasingly rush to market to buy goods they know will be more expensive in the future- this only speeds up the inflationary effect. (Ironically, American goods are selling like hot cakes; particularly Ford SUVs.)
When I asked one colleague what he thought about the trouble brewing, his response was simply, "I want Chavez to bleed."
What's really going to kill Venezuela's oil industry is failing infrastructure and brain drain. Picking cronies to be in charge of tricky engineering bits and maintenance is generally a bad idea, especially when the good engineers get the hell out of the country. A company that does petroleum work flew a plane down there, completely filled it with as many qualified oil field guys as they could get to leave on short notice, then took back off for the US. That's a pretty good clue about how few decent workers are willing to stay. Once existing machinery starts to fail, there is no-one to repair it. Oil income disappears, leaving the population quite unhappy with their fearless leader.
Cuba may be one guide to Venezuela's future, but another is Zimbabwe, which was prosperous until relatively recently. A corrupt leader implementing "land reform" and various other extreme combinations of socialism and cronyism has destroyed it, all in the name of helping the poor (presumably by increasing the size of their majority).
This is an odd sentence: "Pérez respected the basic norms of Venezuela’s democracy. He didn’t rewrite the constitution, clamp down on the media, or intimidate nongovernmental organizations opposed to his rule." Perez is mainly known for stealing money from Venezuela - he and his mistress got away with quite a lot, and he was sentence to jail for it. His mistress, for a while, was given the territory in which the Yanomamo, the famous Amazonian tribe, have their home, and she used the power to try to divvy it up to gold miners. Somehow, an article that fails to mention that Perez was impeached by the Venezuelan congress in 1993 and put under house arrest seems, oh, I don't know, not to faithfully reflect the background out of which Chavez comes.
Ann-
The problem with using Mugabe's brilliant example for the analogy is that at least Mugabe had white imperialism to blame for the troubles of his subjects.
In Hugo's case, he doesn't have someone so conveniently placed to take the fall. The Gringos and Bush? Puhlease- no one really buys that crap. If they did, American goods wouldn't be so tough to keep on the shelves in a high inflation period.
Just like Cuba, Venezuela's been a cyclical disaster. Take away their beloved scotch and it's damn near fightin' time.
djconnor -
Thanks for your comment, since I'd like to hear your opinion. Do you mean that Chavez won't try to use US imperialism as his excuse, or that it won't work as well for him? My friends from Venezuela say that most people aren't really anti-US, in spite of Chavez.
But I think Chavez's main excuse will be class warfare, which was a big part of Mugabe's claims also, wasn't it? Granted, the obvious racial elements in Zimbabwe aren't as clear in Venezuela, but there's still the idea that if we steal from the rich, the poor will have it easy.
Chavez is pursuing 'land reform' and nationalization of various industries, as well as shutting down other forms of government and the press. Inflation is long out of control in Zimbabwe and getting bad in Venezuela, from what you said. It looks like pretty much the same plan, with more or less the same outcome, to me. But I hope not, for Venezuela's sake.
DJ said: "The upper class already have their bags packed, ready to flee."
People with money have been leaving the country for years. I have friends who owned a business in Venezuela and they fled the country five years ago, losing most of what they owned in the process.
They are doing fine now after getting a fresh start in the U.S., but they fear for their nation's future.
Nationalizing industries and the chilling effect it will have on foreign investment is a death sentence for Venezuela's economy.
Here's hoping that little blood will be shed in the coming regime change
This is an odd sentence: "Pérez respected the basic norms of Venezuela’s democracy. He didn’t rewrite the constitution, clamp down on the media, or intimidate nongovernmental organizations opposed to his rule." Perez is mainly known for stealing money from Venezuela - he and his mistress got away with quite a lot, and he was sentence to jail for it.
Perhaps the author thinks that using an official position to steal from the government is a basic norm in Venezuela.
Ann-
Chavez will definitely continue to play the US card, but I think that is more for the international audience, than his own local problems. I doubt he will be going with the Imperialist American angle; aside from Iraq, Chavez’s biggest criticism of Bush is his apparent neglect for Latin America. You can’t be imperialist AND stingy. Who knows- perhaps you can.
Mugabe hasn’t just broken his own people, but his neighbor nations as well, lessening the chances of international mediation. Change in Zimbabwe won’t come until Mugabe takes his last well kept breath. IMO, Mugabe’s already played his hand and is waiting to die. He’s happy to take his nation with him.
At the same time, Chavez thinks he’s sitting on a great hand at the high stakes table- where they break your legs if you can’t cover your bets. With tempting high gas prices, the global oil industry has tremendously expanded its production capacity. But probably even more important is the worldwide upgrade work done to existing refinery facilities. Before most refineries could process only sour or sweet crude, but not both. Now they will be able to switch out their feed, based on market factors.
Really, this was a long-winded way of saying that Chavez and his low-grade sour crude are up the creek.
dogwood-
Indeed. Unfortunately, when tyrants live by the sword, it’s not difficult to guess how their story will end.
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