Socialism

In this series we will publish weekly cutouts from the book by Kristian Niemietz

Fifteen thousand Cuban intelligence operatives and ‘military advisers’ bar the path to democracy in Venezuela. Luis Amalgro, Secretary-General of the organisation of American States, has described them as “an occupation army that teaches to torture, to repress, to do intelligence tasks, civil documentation, migration.”

The first time I couldn’t buy food at the grocery store, I was 15 years old. It was 2014 in Caracas, Venezuela, and I had spent more than an hour in line waiting. When I got to the register I noticed I’d forgotten my ID that day. Without the ID, the government rationing system would let the supermarket sell my family the full quota of food we needed.

Last month, when the Venezuelan opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, was briefly detained by Maduro’s intelligence agents less than 48 hours after proclaiming himself the new interim President of the country, many saw on that a

There are two Venezuelas: the Venezuela of yesterday, prosperous and thriving, and the Venezuela of today: poor, corrupt and in the dark.

In almost every article about Venezuela, we're told that the economy collapsed because the oil price did.

Here is the price of crude oil adjusted for inflation.

Today, the price is almost three times higher than when Chavez took power.

And another chart for those who think US sanctions destroyed Venezuela.

Before recent sanctions on oil, it was mostly just on individuals close to Maduro. 

by Johan Norberg

In this series we will publish weekly cutouts from the book by Kristian Niemietz

The straw men that were once alive

"Compra velitas, no hay luz," a Venezuelan man says to me at the border between Colombia and Venezuela, "Buy candles, there is no electricity". A few days ago, the Venezuelan military started allowing pedestrians to cross the Simon Bolivar bridge after closing the border completely in February.

In Venezuela, not only the main industries have been taken or highly regulated by the State, education has also been the victim of a totalitarian project that aims to manufacture a mass of serfs, while pursuing any individual with critical thinking.