The current situation in Venezuela is as complex as the words of Moses Naim are clear and strong to analyze it. His unmistakable style has always remained clear during his long career in the area of international political economy. On this occasion, he wishes to talk about the consequences of the policies implemented in the country, rather than recommendations for their solution because he is convinced that the President will further deepen his devastating policies. “Chavez will not hear anything different from what he believes, even though the reality will send strong signals that he is wrong.”
- What is the economic diagnosis of the country? -
The same that all Venezuelans have. What more need be said of a country that has simultaneously extraordinary oil revenues and the highest inflation in the world? Not even African countries without governments and devastated by war have higher inflation than Venezuela. What can we say about the management of a country with the largest energy resources in the hemisphere, but that forces its inhabitants to live in a constant nightmare of blackouts and energy rationing? A country whose policies have the effect of driving away massive amounts of capital overseas and the best of its human skills, and whose government gives to other countries and without the permission of anyone the nation’s wealth while the vast majority live in misery? The cruelest irony of all this is that the President who says he understands the situation and suffering of the poor is the one that has imposed the most devastating policies for those same poor. There is no “mision“, grants, gifts, subsidies or other handouts to be given to the people, that can offset the impact on the poor of the combination of inflation, unemployment and murders in which it has been condemned to live.
- Capitalism or socialism, market or state? -
I believe in a strong state and that it executes well the things that the market and the private sector can not do or should not do. Police, justice, defense.
The market will not solve education, health, or the insecurity of people in the neighborhoods. That has to be done primarily by the state. But to be effective, the State must be selective. You can not do everything. The Manichean debate between state and market, between capitalism and socialism is a waste of time and serves only to deceive the unwary. It is obvious that it takes both. It is not one or the other, but how to cleverly combine government and market.
- What do you think is the most serious problem in the economic sphere? -
There are many and well known. But perhaps one of the main mistakes President Chávez has made is to fall in love with an economic model that depends for its success on what this country has the least: efficient public officials. When the President nationalizes companies right and left, they are handed over to officials who don’t have the faintest idea of how to efficiently manage such activities. And what we’ve seen is that despite the efforts and good will, or sometimes simply because of laziness or corruption soon these nationalized companies collapse. And if the staff are efficient, why distract them, forcing them to produce sardines or operate cement industries? Top officials should be put in public activities which are a priority for the country, those that if not done by the state are done by no one else. If the state does not produce sardines, rice and cement, others can do it. But if it does not ensure that no one is kidnapped or killed when returning from work, then who will? Protection and personal safety is a service that the rich can buy from the private sector. But the overwhelming majority of Venezuelans depends on the government to protect them and their family.
For Venezuelans it matters less who is the owner of this or that company, that the fact that they are killing their children while the President does not seemed to be too concerned.
- What will be the result of all these policies? -
When a credible accounting of what happened in Venezuela these last ten years is carried out, we will discover that we live in one of the most important episodes in the economic history of the world in terms of wealth destruction, loss of productivity and waste of resources that the country desperately needed to lift people out of poverty. There are many wars that have produced less damage than the economic policies of these times. Today there are more murders in one weekend in Caracas than in Kabul.
-If you had the power for deciding measures an taking decisions on economic matters, what would you do?
One of the paradoxes of the situation we find ourselves in is that it is not even worth talking about what should be done on economic matters. What good is it to talk about the devastating effects which has the fact that the Government steps with one foot on the accelerator of consumption , while at the same time pushes strongly on the break of supply. It maintains an aggressive monetary policy and of public spending which stimulates consumption , while at the same time announces every day a decision which puts the breaks on providing the supply for that consumption. We see constantly how the President thunders against speculation and and the corrupt and following that announces measures that everyone knows will stimulate speculation and will provide even more ample and lucrative opportunities for corruption. He suffers for the poor while his Government is once again the most efficient machinery for the production of poverty.
-Do you think the Government will abolish the capitalist system and replace it with a socialist system? Do you think it will be able to achieve it?
I only know what the President of the Republic says. And Chavez is sincere, repetitive and emphatic with that. Why should I not believe him when he says he hates capitalism and adores socialism? It is one thing for us not to like it, but it is something else to refuse to listen to what a leader says, who has up to now maintained all of his promises on matters of public policy, even if they don’t work and lead him not to fulfill his promises about the results.
-Why do you think the President is so committed to policies that have not worked?
Because he suffers from ideological necrophilia. He is in love with dead ideas. I don’t know what are the psychological motives that lead him to be in love with a vision that he has proof have not worked anywhere. And he does not need to read history. It is sufficient for him to see what is happening to him and the country. At the beginning, the socialist promises and the rhetoric of resentment, racism and taking revenge gave him political dividends, but the bet on fundamentalist socialism has not been won by anyone in the world and at the end those attempts have always created suffering and the political failure of the fundamentalists that promote them. I don’t know if the love for those dead ideologies that the President has are chronic and addictive. Perhaps he will fall out of love with those bad ideas that he is infatuated with once he sees at last that nothing works for him. But for now that love has blinded him. It is a pity that millions of Venezuelans have to pay the immense human cost that Chavez’ passion have had.
-How do you judge the performance of the Venezuelan opposition?
With frustration, understanding and hope. Frustration, because it is difficult to see how it makes mistakes over and over again. Understanding, because the opposition to strong regimes is always fragmented, clumsy, easily sabotaged by the regime and prone to score goals against itself. And hope, because there is no doubt it has matured and learned from its errors. It is admirable to see the persistence and disposition of many to continue their fight despite the risks that implies. How dangerous and costly is to be part of the opposition and how easy and lucrative it is to be Chavista! And it is quite revealing that despite this there is opposition everywhere: in the universities, the high schools, the workers movement, the businessmen, the farmers and cattle ranchers, in the world of culture and science. From the statements of some military that we have read recently even in the Armed Forces. And even within Chavismo. Even the Cubans that come here end up being anti-Chavez.
-What are your projections for the parliamentary elections?
That the opposition will have more representatives in the Assembly that at any time during the Chavez era. It will be interesting to see how he will adapt to a situation in which he no longer controls everything and everyone, all of the time. In a decade the muscles you don’t use can easily become atrophied. And the President has spent too much time without exercising the muscles that allow you to compromise with those that do not share your ideas, the negotiation with opposition politicians and the search for agreement with other social forces. All od this is known in other countries and in the old Venezuela, as democracy…
