Chavez follows Mugabe's lead

[IglooDame]

In today's world, in order to produce stuff efficiently (say, hypothetically, food and oil) you have to specialize. The people with the best skills and technology will produce the most food (or oil). There is simply no getting around this.

If you kick out rich foreigners who are better producers than you are, you will produce less. There's no getting around this either.

Something else there's no getting around: that, throughout history, lower living standards have been a pretty popular reason for people to get mad and start shooting each other.

Which is probably why Chavez is creating a militia that is loyal to him.

 

[BasketCase]

In those two links you provided, Igloo, I see several disturbing parallels with Mugabe--and with several dictatorships whose destruction I have frequent wishful dreams about. Including the Soviet Union. (EDIT: Oops! My bad--my dream came true there. )

History is basically a no-rules game, but right now this looks like it could get ugly.

 

[Che Guava]

the socialist vision works when you are rich, until money last. So, the richer the country, the longer it can remain as socialist without collapsing.

Isn't that the system that Norweigens work with? All thier oil is extracted/sold through government corporations, and they use the revenues to fund social programs that make it one of the greatest places in the world to live.

As long as Chavez is smart about it (and that remains to be seen), I think he could be doing a whole load of good to Venezuela...

EDIT: As for the militias, perhaps Chavez is a little paranoid, but considering the importance of petroleum products to the US, and the interventionist spirit of the US (particularly in the americas, where the Monroe doctrine still applies), I'd probably be nervous too...

 

[guspasho]

Which is probably why Chavez is creating a militia that is loyal to him.

Several things:

1) I don't see any indication or suggestion in the articles you linked to that suggest this militia is "loyal to Chavez", whether it means Chavez' private militia, or one loyal to the office of the Venezuelan President. That seems to be editorializing on your part. Rather, it sounds like he is setting up a national guard. Why is that bad? Isn't enforcing the rule of law a good thing? Do you believe we should disband the US National Guard?

2) I concur with Che Guava, Chavez certainly has a right and a reason to be paranoid about the US. Bush has made it no secret that he considers Chavez an enemy. The Bush administration was the first and only government to recognize the usurper government in the 2002 coup attempt. Happy suggested there were assassination attempts. Were those likely?

3) I don't know about Mugabe, but I applaud the reported move. The only lands at risk are the ones sitting idle. It isn't very different from the long-established policy in the US of property condemnation. The property owners can eliminate their own risk by actually using their land.

Property rights and free markets are good and all, but I think it's ridiculously shortsighted to think that current property rights are the end-all, be-all, most exalted value to be respected above all else. Chavez is working with a country whose markets were defined centuries ago when property rights weren't respected and European colonialists seized all the property, and that system still persists today, preventing the large majority of Venezuelans from generating any wealth, barring from them the property rights that a few enjoy (by having taken all the property), and locking them out of the markets that are supposed to enrich them. Basketcase makes a good point when he says "lower living standards have been a pretty popular reason for people to get mad and start shooting each other". Chavez appeares to be merely the first guy to try to represent all of Venezuela and raise the living standards of the majority of Venezuelans who still suffer under severe poverty rather than just the 15% or so who own the land and have access to the the vaunted markets.

 

[IglooDame]

Several things:

1) I don't see any indication or suggestion in the articles you linked to that suggest this militia is "loyal to Chavez", whether it means Chavez' private militia, or one loyal to the office of the Venezuelan President. That seems to be editorializing on your part. Rather, it sounds like he is setting up a national guard. Why is that bad? Isn't enforcing the rule of law a good thing? Do you believe we should disband the US National Guard?

(bolding below is mine)

From the first article: "The new formation, which the president wants to become a two million-strong force in the near future, will be directly under his command."

From the second: "Critics say Venezuela's new military reserves are intended more to intimidate domestic opponents than to repel foreign invaders." ... "But retired General Alberto Muller, a military analyst who is close to Chavez government officials, says Venezuela's new reserve is similar to the US's own Army Reserve and civilian forces in many nations." ... "Colombian military analyst Alfredo Rangel, who heads the Security and Democracy Foundation in Bogota, says the reserve forces' real purpose is to repress internal dissent, and suggested that they will be given some of Venezuela's new Russian rifles."

2) I concur with Che Guava, Chavez certainly has a right and a reason to be paranoid about the US. Bush has made it no secret that he considers Chavez an enemy. The Bush administration was the first and only government to recognize the usurper government in the 2002 coup attempt. Happy suggested there were assassination attempts. Were those likely?

3) I don't know about Mugabe, but I applaud the reported move. The only lands at risk are the ones sitting idle. It isn't very different from the long-established policy in the US of property condemnation. The property owners can eliminate their own risk by actually using their land.

Property rights and free markets are good and all, but I think it's ridiculously shortsighted to think that current property rights are the end-all, be-all, most exalted value to be respected above all else. Chavez is working with a country whose markets were defined centuries ago when property rights weren't respected and European colonialists seized all the property, and that system still persists today, preventing the large majority of Venezuelans from generating any wealth, barring from them the property rights that a few enjoy (by having taken all the property), and locking them out of the markets that are supposed to enrich them. Basketcase makes a good point when he says "lower living standards have been a pretty popular reason for people to get mad and start shooting each other". Chavez appeares to be merely the first guy to try to represent all of Venezuela and raise the living standards of the majority of Venezuelans who still suffer under severe poverty rather than just the 15% or so who own the land and have access to the the vaunted markets.

We disagree so completely on this, that I have a difficult time picking a place to start. Anyway, I'd recommend that you read up on Mugabe's exploits.

 

[The Last Conformist]

We disagree so completely on this, that I have a difficult time picking a place to start. Anyway, I'd recommend that you read up on Mugabe's exploits.

I'm not sure why Zimbabwe is the most relevant place to compare to. Plenty of Latin American countries have carried out land reforms in which large estates have been split up and divided among small farmers, and none has seen a Zimbabwe-style collapse of productivity. On the contrary, many has seen (mostly modest) increases.

 

[Che Guava]

(bolding below is mine)

..."The new formation, which the president wants to become a two million-strong force in the near future, will be directly under his command."

From the second: "Critics say Venezuela's new military reserves are intended more to intimidate domestic opponents than to repel foreign invaders." ... "But retired General Alberto Muller, a military analyst who is close to Chavez government officials....

Isn't the US president the comander in chief? And wouldn't you want a close friend running your military. I think that ideally there should be a separation between the military and the government, but at the same time the rules are a little different in South America. Chavez is simply trying to protect himself and what he hopes to acheive from outside influences and elemnts in the country that would try to derail what he's started. And hopefully not end up like Jean-Bertrand Aristide

We disagree so completely on this, that I have a difficult time picking a place to start. Anyway, I'd recommend that you read up on Mugabe's exploits

Mugabe is a thug who decided to nationalize the country's farmland without any real plan (other than telling war veterans to just take it). I'm pretty confident that Chavez will have something better planned than that for the oilfields

 

[Little Raven]

I'm not sure why Zimbabwe is the most relevant place to compare to. Plenty of Latin American countries have carried out land reforms in which large estates have been split up and divided among small farmers, and none has seen a Zimbabwe-style collapse of productivity. On the contrary, many has seen (mostly modest) increases.

Exactly. Mugabe's 'land reform' was anything but...it was a crude though effective means of destroying political opposition. Actually reforming the system was never in his agenda.

It's too early to tell if Chavez means to go the same route. It's certainly possible, but not guaranteed. The fact is that many Central American countries really do have horribly lopsided wealth distribution that actually stifles economic growth. While governments certainly have to be careful about attempting to correct these imbalances, I'm not sure it should be tainto for them to try.

 

[guspasho]

(bolding below is mine)

From the first article: "The new formation, which the president wants to become a two million-strong force in the near future, will be directly under his command."

From the second: "Critics say Venezuela's new military reserves are intended more to intimidate domestic opponents than to repel foreign invaders." ... "But retired General Alberto Muller, a military analyst who is close to Chavez government officials, says Venezuela's new reserve is similar to the US's own Army Reserve and civilian forces in many nations." ... "Colombian military analyst Alfredo Rangel, who heads the Security and Democracy Foundation in Bogota, says the reserve forces' real purpose is to repress internal dissent, and suggested that they will be given some of Venezuela's new Russian rifles."

I did notice that, but by the time I got to your second emphasized quote everything else before already led me to the impression of a national guard-like setup, except for the first emphasized quote you pointed out which I missed. However, if that is all there is, it's very weak support to your claim of a personal militia. As has been mentioned, that could be a summation of the United States Army, which, under the Constitution, is also under the command of the President, aka "Commander-in-chief."

We disagree so completely on this, that I have a difficult time picking a place to start. Anyway, I'd recommend that you read up on Mugabe's exploits.

That's okay that we disagree. It's something to think about. Property rights aren't everything. Government interference, while sometimes regrettable, is sometimes necessary. Venezuela has, even by South American standards, a very high deal of wealth concentration which stifles growth, as Little Raven pointed out, and precludes the participation of most of the population in the economy. This is not good for peace or for prosperity.

I can see you are probably of a very libertarian tack with a high regard for property rights. So answer me this. If I steal something from you, do I get to keep it or should government step in to force me to give it back? What if you die before they get around to it? Should I be required to return it to your heirs? Or is it mine by right? How long does your right of ownership extend before it becomes my right of ownership? What if this happened on a massive scale, and the interim was across many generations? We're pretty lucky in America, we didn't have to seriously answer these questions, where we usually consider questions of Native American relations and slave reparations as resolved. Plus, it helps that the debtor groups are still small minorities in this country.

How would reading about Mugabe help? I suspect that comparisons to Mugabe or Castro won't reveal anything about Chavez, only serve to create a dishonest impression of him.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Let's see who gets the land. If it's soldiers, push the panic button. If it's peasant farmers and other small-scale farmers, don't.

guspasho has a valid point. Many Latin American big-time landholders inherited estates which were originally established by dint of superior firepower. Which, come to mention it, is how land rights are usually established. With the difference that in Latin America, land ownership over the generations reflects more inheritance and less trade than in many other places.

 

[luiz]

I'm not sure why Zimbabwe is the most relevant place to compare to. Plenty of Latin American countries have carried out land reforms in which large estates have been split up and divided among small farmers, and none has seen a Zimbabwe-style collapse of productivity. On the contrary, many has seen (mostly modest) increases.

The reason why there has not beign a Zimbabwe-style collapse around here is that the land reforms carried in the continent(even the biggest ones - Mexico and Brazil) are in relative terms very small compared to the one that took place in Zimbabwe.

However to consider the latin-american land-reform policy a success is a tremendous stretch. It costs a fortune to the governments, and around half(or more) of the landless workers settled end up selling the property the state gave them. It's a huge failure, and the only reason why they keep it is because it is a very politically correct failure.