The Foundation of Economic Education is reporting that Venezuela’s socialist government is retreating from its hard core criminal socialist policies. In Bloomberg: Venezuela Turns to Privatization After Being Bankrupted by Socialism, FEE’s Jon Miltimore reports that “After much pain and suffering, Venezuelan socialist leaders have conceded they cannot effectively run an economy.”
According to Bloomberg News, Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro has quietly begun transferring state assets back into the hands of private owners in an effort to reverse the country's economic collapse.
“Saddled with hundreds of failed state companies in an economy barreling over a cliff, the Venezuelan government is abandoning socialist doctrine by offloading key enterprises to private investors, offering profit in exchange for a share of revenue or products,” write Caracas-based journalists Fabiola Zerpa and Nicolle Yapur.
The transfer, which was not announced publicly but was confirmed by “nine people with knowledge of the matter,” reportedly includes dozens of coffee processors, grain silos, and hotels that were confiscated as part of Venezuela's widespread nationalization that began under Chavez.
Maduro’s effort to quietly form private-public partnerships, a strategy that began in 2017, reveals the total failure of Venezuela’s command economy. Bloomberg points out, for example, that once-successful food processing plants have been “mostly idle” since being seized by the government, plants that could have been feeding a starving population.
This should lead to a modest economic improvement. But make no mistake. Venezuela's "privatization," a shift from total nationalization of private industries (theft) to public/private "partnerships," is NOT a shift from socialism to capitalism. It is a shift from one form of socialism to another. Venezuela is merely moving from communism to fascism. It's akin to replacing Stalin with Mussolini. As Miltimore correctly observes:
It seems that after much pain and suffering, even socialist leaders in Venezuela have conceded that they cannot run an economy with enough efficiency to avoid economic ruin. But while returning enterprises to private owners is a step in the right direction, it’s hardly accurate to call Maduro's strategy “capitalism.”
At best, Venezuela’s current economic system is a form of fascism, which Sheldon Richman once described as “socialism with a capitalist veneer.”
Related Reading:
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Socialism vs. Welfare Statism: Why These Terms Matter
Fascism: Back Door to Socialism that Obama and the Left Well Understand
We Need a Deeper Understanding of Socialism
A is A, and Socialism by any Other Name...
Elizabeth Warren’s ‘Accountable Capitalism Act’ Reprises Benito Mussolini
The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein
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