The Truth About Venezuela’s Economic War

Since Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1976, world oil production has skyrocketed. Saudi Arabia’s oil production rose 25 percent, Kuwait’s 30 percent, the United Arab Emirates’ 100 percent, Canada’s 133 percent, and China’s 220 percent. Even war-torn Iraq’s oil production rose 125 percent. Compared to Venezuela, the United States’ zero percent growth is a bonanza. Since 1976, Venezuela’s oil production declined 20 percent. Chavez’s socialist experiment is ending in the same rampant poverty that ends every socialist experiment, because they are all built on the same false premise — that an economy is a mechanism that can be managed by a cadre of elites. Experience, both long and painful, should paint a clear picture. An economy is much more like an organism composed of millions of different people employing different skills, doing different things, in pursuit of their own innumerable goals. More…