Hugo Chavez: His One Gift To Latin America

I learned of Hugo Chavez's one positive attribute from Jacobo Goldstein, a reporter who covered Latin America for CNN for 33 years.  It was that Chavez throughout his career refrained from violence and brutality.  This is not to damn the man with faint praise.  When you consider the likes of Fidel Castro, the Sandinistas, and other Latin leftists who rose to leadership positions, having hands free of blood is no small thing.

The thing for which Chavez is most praised; namely, his concern for the poor is the area in which we can see his greatest failure.  Yes, the redistribution of wealth by Chavez did help Venezuela's poor.  But, it also did them great harm.  Smearing money around like cream cheese on a bagel does not take a country out of poverty.  Compare Cuba with Venezuela.  Why was one rich and the other teetering on collapse?  It's oil.  Venezuela has humongous amounts of it.  Cuba has little to none.

That doesn't mean that a country without oil is automatically condemned to poverty.  Germany, Switzerland, Israel, Singapore are all countries without oil, and yet they've managed to raise the standard of living for their citizens. So, what can oil do, and what can't it do?  First, and foremost, it can buy friends; especially, dictators leading dysfunctional countries.  And, there are certainly enough of those in Central and South America.  God must love Cuba.  This wonderful country is truly dysfunctional.  But, as long as it was sponsored by the Soviet Union, it got all the oil lit needed.  When the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba faced the prospect of real poverty.  But, then, along comes Venezuela, more than happy to pick up Cuba's oil bill.

The Venezuela-Cuba arrangement was a deal made in a socialist heaven.  Cuba gets the oil it needs, and, in return, it gives Venezuela's Chavez a Praetorian Guard, a secret service, and military training -- one authoritarian ruler supplying another with what it most needs.  But, again, never fail to note that Chavez did not dip his hands in blood.

Chavez also bought the support of Daniel Ortega and other rulers of similar ilk.  But, it was not without cost to Venezuela.  Chavez's arbitrary and capricious rule has lead to a degradation of Venezuela's major industries -- first and foremost, its oil industry which is now in a pretty sorry state.  With a dysfunctional economy, there can be little hope of generating the jobs that are so badly needed by all Venezuelans and especially its poor.  In brief, Chavez has tossed the poor some fish, but has denied them proper fishing poles.