Venezuela Shows The Human Cost Of Statism

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans poured into neighbouring Colombia to buy food and medicine on Saturday (30 July) after authorities briefly opened the border that was closed for almost a year. A similar measure, last week, led to dramatic scenes of the elderly and mothers storming Colombian supermarkets, and highlighted how daily life has deteriorated for millions in Venezuela, where the economy has been in a freefall. 

Travelling through the country this month I saw endless queues of people trying to buy food – any food – at supermarkets and other government-run shops. I was stopped at a roadblock in the middle of the countryside by people who said they had eaten nothing but mangoes for three days. I saw the hopeless expression of a mother, who had been eating so little that she was no longer able to breastfeed her baby.   

…it was my family who really brought it home to me. My brother told me all his trousers were now too big. My father – never one to grumble – let slip that things were “really tough”. My mother, meanwhile, confessed that sometimes she only eats once a day. They all live in different parts of Venezuela, but none of them is getting enough to eat. It’s a nationwide problem. A young mother, Liliana, admitted to going to bed in tears on days when she had been unable to give her two children any dinner. In western Venezuela, in the oil-rich province of Zulia, I visited several small towns where people didn’t know what they would eat the following day.

A study by three of the country’s main universities indicates… that “extreme poverty” has jumped by 53 percent since 2014. The country’s official inflation rate was 180 per cent in December, the last time a figure was made public, but the IMF estimates it will be above 700 percent by the end of the year.

…the government years ago fixed the price of many basic goods, such as flour, chicken, or bread. But Venezuelans can only buy the goods at these fixed prices once a week, depending on the final digit of the number on their national identity card. Because there is a risk of the goods running out, people often arrive at supermarkets in the early hours of the morning, or even earlier. At 6am one morning in Caracas, I met a man, who had already been in the queue for three hours. “I’m hoping to get rice, but sometimes I’ve queued and then been unable to buy anything because the rice runs out before I get in,” he said.

President Nicolas Maduro[‘s]… latest step has been to create Local Committees of Supplies and Production, better known by the Spanish acronym, CLAP. The CLAPs essentially mean that the government will stop sending imported food to supermarkets and start handing it over to local community councils. The ultimate aim of the CLAPs is to create self-sustaining communities, where people grow their own food. A member of a colectivo – a group of hardcore government supporters, often armed, agreed in the end to show me what the CLAP was aiming to achieve. I was taken to see a barren field – “which we aim to have ready for crops in eight months” – and several chili plants waiting to be planted. It was, to say the least, disheartening.

In a vaguely-worded decree, Venezuelan officials indicated that public and private sector employees could be forced to work in the country’s fields for at least 60-day periods, which may be extended “if circumstances merit.” President Nicolas Maduro is using his executive powers to declare a state of economic emergency. According to the decree from 22 July, workers would still be paid their normal salary by the government and they can’t be fired from their actual job. Venezuela is grappling with the lack of basic food items like milk, eggs and bread. People wait hours in lines outsides supermarkets to buy groceries and often only see empty shelves. Venezuela is the world’s worst economy, according to the IMF. It’s expected to shrink 10 percent this year and inflation is projected to rise over 700 percent. Beyond food shortages, hospitals are low on supplies, causing many patients to go untreated and some to die.  

Former Congressman Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.) mourned the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and praised him as someone who made a difference to the lives of poor people. Kennedy also said that “some of the wealthiest people on our planet have more money than they can ever reasonably expect to spend.” Kennedy joins Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) among the few American politicians to praise Chavez after his death.