Socialism destroyed Venezuela’s economy, but freshmen Democrats want it here
When he was elected president of Venezuela Dec. 6, 1998, Hugo Chavez proclaimed, “Venezuela’s resurrection is underway, and nothing and nobody can stop it.” At the time, Venezuela had one of the best economies and highest per capita incomes in Latin America. The lure of socialism, where the government controls and distributes most everything, overwhelmed the country.
Twenty years later, 3 million have fled from Chavez’s “new and improved” socialism, and his people are starving. Public latrines are overflowing with urine, escalators do not work, public water systems and street lighting are not reliable, and citizens eat from the public refuse. The average citizen has lost 20 pounds in the last several months. Today, nearly 90 percent live in poverty, and hyperinflation is nearing a million percent. The once oil-rich country now has the appearance of being war torn. Socialism destroyed Venezuela.
The lure of socialism — getting something for nothing — first necessitates the villainization of those who have something. Those who produce become the “public enemy” class. Once this is accomplished, the public, whose numbers are always the majority, and the poor support the asset confiscation of those who have and produce — usually by confiscatory taxes or outright governmental takeover.
The prosperity class is the group that risks capital loss to fund experimentation that produces businesses that results in jobs for the masses. When has a poor man created employment for others? Yes, they are profit motivated, which sometimes makes the investor more prosperous. That is the incentive that elevates society. But should they miscalculate, they are the ones who are most hurt. When government makes prosperity unlikely through confiscatory taxes, they quit investing. Government is inefficient by nature. There exists no individual penalty for its mistakes once it has power. Socialism destroys the creative investment class.
Chavez was right: “nothing and nobody can stop it.” Once the productive class is destroyed, it is all downhill. Fuera Maduro, the new president, could only offer more of the same socialist remedies that have never worked where socialism has been entrenched.
Beware of politicians who wish to do “good” with someone else’s money. They are abundant in both major political parties but have overwhelmed the Democratic Party, more especially the freshman class led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and they will destroy liberty for us, too. Here is why.
Under socialism, vote power favors those who want things for free: food, welfare, housing, healthcare — even free college — as they in time become the majority. This process is accelerated, and corrupted, when politicians link government gift giving with being elected. This has happened in America, too.
As the poor, as a class, always tend to favor government intervention and thus financial favors from government to their benefit, and since the vast majority of government money comes from the middle and upper classes through ever increasing taxes — presently 47 percent of the adult population pay no federal income tax and a good share of these make up the non-productive class — they eventually destroy the productive base of society as government takes over more of the economy by confiscation or regulation. The overriding principle is that the more socialism there is, the higher the taxes and burden on the producing class there is.
Those who feed off the labor of others need to know what they are doing to a country by pushing for the freebies. An unknown speaker (possibly Texas Republican Rep. Ted Poe) nailed the problem when he said:
“The folks who are getting the free stuff don’t like the folks who are paying for the free stuff, because the folks who are paying for the free stuff can no longer afford to pay for both the free stuff and their own stuff. And the folks who are paying for the free stuff want the free stuff to stop.
“And the folks who are getting the free stuff want even more free stuff on top of the free stuff they are already getting. Now, the people who are forcing the people who pay for the free stuff have told the people who are receiving the free stuff that the people who are paying for the free stuff are being mean, prejudiced, and racist.
“So, the people who are getting the free stuff have been convinced they need to hate the people who are paying for the free stuff by the people who are forcing some people to pay for their free stuff and giving them the free stuff in the first place.
“We have let the free stuff giving go on for so long that there are now more people getting free stuff than paying for the free stuff.”
Ultimately, voters learn that they can purchase members of Congress who will take from those who have and give it to them — legalized plunder. As those who have are deterred from investing further, the poor class grows as does their cry for even more from those who have, thus the managerial and funding class are extinguished. The middle class is now seen as those who have and are next to be extinguished by the increasing strength of the poor class until all remaining are poor.
This is Venezuela now and the United States, too — and soon if it does not change direction.
This is Economics 101, but many freshmen Democrat Congressmen appear oblivious to this. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s advocacy of a 70 percent income tax on Americans would facilitate our economic demise.
The viewpoints expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Independent.
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