Venezuela Illuminates the Path to Our Socialist Future

If we really are all socialists now, we had better brace ourselves for an America that looks increasingly like Venezuela, a nation extravagantly wealthy in resources where people have been reduced by authoritarian collectivist economic policies to smuggling milk.

It has been said that if the federal government took over the Sahara Desert, within 5 years there would be a shortage of sand. Case in point Venezuela is floating on oil, so you might think energy would not be an issue — and yet:

In addition to the rationing of food, medicine, residential electricity, and water, the Nicolás Maduro administration is now limiting power consumption in the country’s shops.

Effective February 10, the government will roll out planned outages in shopping malls from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., and from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., Monday through Friday.

This means that facilities with loads greater than 100 Kva will have to acquire a generator if they wish to keep operating normally.

According to El Universal,

Shopping mall representatives argued that interrupting electricity twice a day would distort the operation of banks, health centers, pharmacies, supermarkets, and restaurants which need power constantly to chill their products.

These are only minor inconveniences on the glorious road to socialism. However, before reaching utopia, that road invariably dissolves into bankruptcy. Venezuela has taken on over $100 billion in foreign debt…

Venezuela will have to default. The only question is when.

A Venezuela meltdown could rock financial markets, and people around the world will lose a lot of money. But we should all save our collective sympathy — both the government in Caracas and the investors who enabled it had it coming.

In the last few years, the Venezuelan government has been steadfast about staying in good graces with its lenders. …

But it has neglected to implement the reforms Venezuela would need to improve the fundamentals of its economy. Its commitment to socialist “populism” and the complicated internal dynamics within the governing coalition have paralyzed the government. It has repeatedly postponed important reforms like eliminating its absurd exchange rate controls (the country has at least four exchange rates) or raising the domestic price of gasoline (the cheapest in the world by far). Instead, the government has “adjusted” by shutting off imports, leaving store shelves all over the country barren.

This strategy now seems unsustainable.

You might even conclude that socialist populism itself is unsustainable. Yet Tuesday in New Hampshire primary voters in both parties eagerly endorsed it, turning their backs on the free market economics that made America rich.

There is only one hope for Venezuela. Unfortunately,

For years, analysts have been warning that the Venezuelan government would rather chew nails that allow the private sector to grow.

People must prefer poverty and tyranny to wealth and freedom. Otherwise they would never choose Big Government progressives over free market conservatives.

dennis-prager-socialism
Even more true in 2016.

On tips from Torcer. Cross-posted at Moonbattery.

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