The most business-friendly socialism

| 3. Januar 2007 | | Jure

Chávez’s rhetoric might not be out of place in “The Little Red Book,” yet everyday life for many Venezuelans today looks more like the Neiman-Marcus catalogue. Thanks to the boom in the price of oil, many Venezuelans have been indulging in rampant consumerism… In the past year, auto sales have doubled, property prices have soared (mortgage loans are up three hundred per cent)… And while Chávez has done a good job of redistributing oil revenue to the … poor … to improve education, health care, and housing, and has forced oil companies to renegotiate contracts, there has been no nationalization of industry, relatively little interference with markets, and only small gestures toward land reform. If this is socialism, it’s the most business-friendly socialism ever devised. Več