Venezuela's Corrupt Socialist Regime in the Death-Spiral?

So speculates Meghan McArdle.

Venezuela's cities are convulsed with riots. A local beauty queen was shot in the head during protests over . . . well, everything: chronic shortages of basic goods, increasing repression of free speech by a government that clearly feels it cannot tolerate any dissent. She is not the only person to have been killed in recent days. The government is cracking down -- hard -- on any and all opposition.

...

As the economy has deteriorated, the government has resorted to dubious stopgaps such as price controls. The price controls have produced more shortages, leading to more stopgaps . . . and more political repression to control complaints about the shortages and stopgaps. People made much of the fact that Chavez won elections -- but less of the fact that he won them in the context of government policies that required television stations to broadcast hours of his speeches every week. And that he silenced stations that opposed him.

She notes that the people, no longer having any means of legal dissent with the government, are now resorting to the illegal ones.

More: According to Ronald Radosh, the Nation is too busy defending Putin's attack on Ukraine to address Venezuela at all.

posted by Ace at 06:28 PM

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