Venezuelan Citizenry Losing Moral High Ground

This is the trick of the Socialist System: Make the slaves love their slavery

Make them embrace their servitude and instill the fear that they can’t function on their own without the heavy hand of government. This is where the people of Venezuela are right now. There are many who still understand how their country is supposed to work but they are outnumbered by those who just blindly WANT and will run to the hand that will GIVE it do them. Enter El Presedente Maduro or should I say "Robin Hood".

It is disturbing to read the quotes from the “bargain hunters” queuing up at the Daka electronics chain recently seized by Venezuelan government troops to hear them say they have no love for the government BUT are still all too willing to take a cheap Television basically at the retail electronics chain's and their 500 employee's expense.

There is a lesson to be learned in all of this.

The Venezuelan people have shortages of the most basic products of human sustenance: Chicken, rice, coffee, sugar, cornflour, cooking oil, milk and yes, even the most important paper in any business or home; toilet tissue, and yet will queue up and purchase at a "discount" a Television when Mr. Maduro sends his goon squad to set up an organized looting of a Venezuelan electronics chain. 

People can rationalize anything.

Venezuela USED TO produce rice and USED TO produce coffee, good coffee too but since the government introduced price controls producers of these products dwindled and when the government eventually took over most of the fields, these products have all but disappeared in quantity that can feed a town never mind a nation. This is the same sort of process that led to the former Soviet Union’s disappointing 76 year crop “Drought”.

Yet the recent hordes that lined up as soon as the government solders jailed the Daka chain’s store managers and started selling the inventory at “fair” prices, all that is apparently forgotten and what the government has done is a GOOD THING. It has become obvious that the Venezuelan people either don’t know or don’t care and for this I have lost my sympathy for their situation since we here in the formerly industrialized Northeastern part of the United States face a similar situation in the future. They have made their choice and they are to suffer the consequences since there will be no one to help them. Socialism isn't about helping oneself unless you include "helping yourself" to the fruits of someone else's labor. But how long will that last?

I hope those TELEVISIONS last awhile since I have a feeling that this will be the last crack most of the Venezuelan people get at them. I find this more than ironic since Venezuela is also a country that can’t seem to keep the electricity running on a weekly basis, having frequent blackouts across the Provinces. The Venezuelan infrastructure is crumbling.

The Venezuelan economy has too much money chasing too few goods. This means that the Venezuelan government has created money in excess of production. That means inflation or rather "Inflación increíble!".

When a government taxes, regulates, price controls and downright seizes the assests of private busnesses, you essentially drive them and the businesses that produce the goods they sell out of business and production halts. The Venezuelan people may love the idea that they have money in their pockets but since the means of production has been confiscated, consumers can't purchase what isn't made. This is the lopsided economic model that Socialism produces and has never failed to reach: Inefficiencies, shortages and hardship.  

In a Free Market system manufacturers will increase supply to meet demand and bring a balance to a products availability and its pricing. This is what leads to new hiring and the growth of industry, production and wealth. Lacking this, Venezuela is a poor country.

But Venezuela does have oil. Venezuela has LOTS of oil. Problem is they can’t seem to get it outta the ground on their own yet they seem to hate the people that help them. They’ve seized oil platforms from private drillers but now those ungrateful people have pulled out of the country so there won’t be any more where that came from.

Taking things from Free Market enterprises does not serve as a long-term economic strategy.

But that's the basic Method of Operation for Socialist/Totalitarian regimes. They HAVE to take from the producers since these systems don't produce. Mr. Maduro’s government, like his predecessor Hugo Chavez, have to continue to seize private enterprises until there is nothing left to take. That's when the failure of these "Business Models" show their gapping flaws: They don't make any money.

And this is all come about because of Capitalism. That’s right. Or to be more exact the Free Market principle of Capitalism which raises many boats and allows for more than a single power structure. This has to go since it is in direct opposition to a Totalitarian power structure. We can’t have multiple groups with resources and means of self-fulfillment and quality of life. Totalitarians everywhere agree that the people must only come to them for sustenance.   

Yet the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace is still all around us, it is born into us right from the very beginning of our lives.  It motivates us to do things for ourselves and by ourselves we can serve others and ourselves at the same time. It raises all boats, or rather all boats that want to float, and rewards those who wish to work and who have a better idea, to reap the benefits of that work and those ideas.

No, it's not Utopia and it has never passed itself off as such. Not everybody makes it to the top of their profession but then again, everybody's idea of the Top is different. You'll at least be better off at the level you achieve then if you never went for it and if you go out to buy  a steak, sushi, chicken or rice, the chances are very good that you'll be able to put your hand right on them and that you can afford to buy them.

Without this Work/Reward dynamic, there are no new ideas, no new industry and no prosperity. If you want something, anything really, understand what it will take to achieve and are willing to do the work for it, you can get it. Better to have a chance on a level playing field and fail than to never get a chance in the first place. To lock oneself in a cycle of dependency is the greatest failure.

The Venezuelan people appear to not realize what an opportunity they have in their hands since they are not without the industrial spirit. They just don’t know who to blame for their current situation. Right now, it looks like THEMSELVES. After close to two decades of Socialist claptrap, it appears a majority will still pull the lever for President Maduro.

Oh, but Capitalists loot and exploit the people! They only work for profit and grow rich through the toil of the downtrodden. Why should the top people in the organization get paid more than the lower people? Why don’t they pay people “Living” wages? It is the Capitalists who have TVs and the people get nothing!

Ok, then feel free to move to Venezuela where they’ve managed to get rid of those evil Capitalists.

They’re doing so much better there.