Venezuela’s Maduro Throws the Cargo Overboard After Taking a Poisonous Lesson From the Shah

Some analysts have compared Mr. Maduro’s use of such techniques to Robert Mugabe’s catastrophic 2007 anti-profiteering push in Zimbabwe. And yet the tactics actually have a far older provenance, Iran under the Shah in 1975. There too, the autocratic ruler of an oil-rich nation, consistently undermined by hyperinflation, turned the power of the state upon the Bazaar. While this resulted in the creation of many new enemies for the regime, it did nothing to curb inflation. More...