Beware the big spenders

One hallmark of people’s democratic governments is the difficulty the people have in getting rid of them. The Communist party has been in power in China for 68 years, without interruption. The Kim family has presided over North Korea since 1948. Canada has had 11 prime ministers since Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries seized Cuba, where the leadership has changed just once, shifting to Fidel’s younger brotherm, Raul.

The people of Venezuela are discovering a similar predicament, to their dismay. After 14 years under Hugo Chavez — who survived a coup attempt, massive antigovernment marches and a recall referendum before his death in 2013 — they find themselves struggling to free themselves from his successor, the far less popular President Nicolas Maduro.

Despite the world’s biggest oil reserves, Venezuela is confronted by a collapsed economy, soaring inflation, mass unemployment, widespread hunger, and chronic shortages of food, medicine and basic necessities. Thanks to the concentration of power that took place under Chavez, Maduro has been able to hang on, despite every effort to oust him. When a recall referendum appeared likely to force a new general election, he scuttled it. He is now engaged in Vatican-backed talks with opposition parties, which want a vote to go ahead.

Ironically, the opposition parties are demanding the sort of release from repression that Chavez was supposed to deliver. A coalition opposed to Maduro’s socialists is seeking freedom for political prisoners, “an end to the repression and persecution of democrats” and humanitarian assistance to offset the pain of the economic collapse brought on by the government’s crushingly wrongheaded policies. “We are here to defend the Venezuelan people, to defend the people’s right to escape this crisis through peaceful means,” one of the coalition members said after a session that stretched through the night Sunday.

There is little mystery as to how Venezuela reached the state it is in. Determined to buy popularity through expensive programs, Chavez poured billions into welfare schemes that brought temporary relief to the needy, but failed to invest in maintaining the oil infrastructure that produced the revenue. When the industry went into decline, he sought to bully it into compliance with impossible demands, going to war with industry leaders despite the fact that oil accounted for half the country’s budget revenue and more than 90 per cent of export income.

Production and exports have plummeted steadily. When oil workers demanded elections in 2002, Chavez fired 40 per cent of the workforce and replaced them with less- experienced loyalists. Workers now complain they are paid so little they can’t afford food and are in danger of fainting on the job.

The oil price collapse two years ago pushed the struggling economy into a full crisis. This year, Caracas was forced into the humbling position of importing oil from the U. S., after years of denouncing America as a blight on humanity. The country is plagued by shortages of almost every important commodity, from corn and rice, to antibiotics and toilet paper. Food shipments are attacked by mobs. On the occasions when borders are opened, Venezuelans flood into neighbouring countries to buy essentials. Short of cash, the government ships gold to Switzerland to pay its debts.

Still, Maduro clings to office. An alliance of opposition parties won control of the National Assembly in a 2015 election, but lacks the authority to oust the president. Maduro has done his best to bypass the legislature, passing his 2017 budget without its approval after the Supreme Court, stacked with regime allies, approved the move. In response, legislators have begun impeachment proceedings and demanded Maduro appear before them to be put on trial.

Although it lacks the legal authority to follow through on impeachment, the Assembly hopes public pressure will eventually force the hand of the government. The Vatican’s representative urged both sides to make concessions for the good of the country, but legislators insist they want Venezuelans to have the opportunity to vote on whether Maduro can stay in office.

It’s the usual problem with left-wing governments. Devotion to “the people” persists only as long as “the people” keep it in power. Once popular sentiment turns against it, retaining office takes precedent over all else. Generous policies survive as long as the treasury complies, but eventually the money runs out, due to programs that are based on ideological bromides, rather than commercial realities and economic sense. Faced with failure, the people’s government finds itself having to deploy the military to keep the people in line.

It’s a lesson to be heeded. Governments don’t produce wealth, the people do. And people inevitably get the bill when government spending gets out of hand.