Venezuela’s Tyranny of Bad Ideas
Socialism was a proven failure, but Hugo Chávez got his countrymen to try it.
Ideas run the world. Good ones create freedom and wealth; bad
ones, oppression and poverty. You are not what you eat, but what you
think.
Politicians in particular fall under the sway of ideas. As John Maynard Keynes put it, “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. . . . It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.”
Politicians in particular fall under the sway of ideas. As John Maynard Keynes put it, “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. . . . It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.”
The story of Venezuela makes this point with singular clarity.
In 1914 the discovery of oil brought the country vast revenues and
produced a relatively free economy. By 1950 Venezuela enjoyed the
fourth-highest per capita income in the world, behind only the U.S.,
Switzerland and New Zealand. As late as 1980, it boasted the world’s fastest-growing economy in the 20th century. In 2001 Venezuela still ranked as Latin America’s wealthiest country.
Venezuela’s troubles, however, had begun long before. Starting around 1958, government interference in the economy, including price and exchange controls, higher taxes, and restrictions on property rights, led to decades of stagnation, with per capita real income declining 0.13% from 1960-97. Still, it remained a normal, functioning country.
Today the country with the world’s largest oil reserves suffers from a severely contracting economy, runaway inflation, despotism, mass emigration, criminality, disease, hunger and starvation, with circumstances deteriorating daily. Venezuela’s economy contracted by 16% in 2016, 14% last year and a predicted 15% in 2018. Inflation was at 112% in 2015 and 2,800% at the end of last year. Economist Steve Hanke finds an annualized rate of around 65,000% for 2018, making Venezuela’s one of the most severe hyperinflations ever. Food shortages led to an average weight loss among Venezuelans of 18 pounds in 2016 and 24 pounds in 2017.
What caused this crisis? Foreign invasion, civil war, natural disaster, substitutes for oil, or agricultural plagues? No, bad ideas, pure and simple.
Socialism might have been a proven failure globally, but Hugo Chávez convinced Venezuelans to try it. On becoming president in 1999, he stole, dominated, polarized and jailed. Benefiting from about $1 trillion in oil sales during his 14 years as president, he had the means to launch massive social spending programs to secure votes. He could even afford to kill the goose laying golden eggs, replacing competent professionals at the government-owned oil company with agents, stooges and sycophants. In the grandest socialist tradition, his daughter María accumulated a fortune estimated at $4.2 billion in 2015, according to Venezuelan press reports.
“The trouble with socialism,” Margaret Thatcher once observed, “is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Chávez pre-empted that problem by seeking treatment for his cancer in Havana, where, Fox News reports, he “was assassinated by Cuban malpractice.” He died in March 2013, about a year before oil prices tumbled, and conveniently bequeathed the disaster that followed to Nicolás Maduro, his still more brutal and incompetent handpicked successor. Once oil revenues shrank, the true costs of Chávez’ bankrupt ideas became clear. Venezuela is now sinking into totalitarianism, using military force to keep socialism afloat.
Bad ideas have always existed, but they acquired new importance with the advent of liberalism in the late 17th century. Before then, conservatism—respecting tradition while adapting it to new circumstances—had prevailed. An individual king’s or religious leader’s besotted vision could progress only so far before convention rolled it back. Liberalism rendered tradition optional by optimistically deeming each person capable to think through the great issues from first principles on his own.
Radical theories proliferated, especially during the French Revolution. The floodgates were opened for ideas unmoored from experience and common sense, such as conspiracy theories. These ideas incubated through the 19th century and came to terrible fruition after World War I with fascism, Nazism, socialism and communism. As historian Paul Johnson notes, “The worst of all despotisms is the heartless tyranny of ideas.”
The roll call of tyrants who have imposed their own philosophies over the past century is depressingly long, including Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin, Tojo, Hitler, Ho, Mao, Kim, Nasser, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Assad, Saddam Hussein, Khomeini, and Chávez. They fully understood their own game; as Stalin reportedly observed, “Ideas are more powerful than guns.” Each one devastated his fiefdom.
If bad ideas bring horror, their antidote lies in conservative, modest, tried-and-tested ideas that respect tradition and human nature; not in revolutionary lurches and grandiose experiments, but in incremental improvements on customary practices.
At a moment when many Democrats are ignoring the lessons of Venezuela and swooning over socialism, it’s back to the barricades in the war of ideas.
Mr. Pipes is president of the Middle East Forum.
:
Venezuela’s troubles, however, had begun long before. Starting around 1958, government interference in the economy, including price and exchange controls, higher taxes, and restrictions on property rights, led to decades of stagnation, with per capita real income declining 0.13% from 1960-97. Still, it remained a normal, functioning country.
Today the country with the world’s largest oil reserves suffers from a severely contracting economy, runaway inflation, despotism, mass emigration, criminality, disease, hunger and starvation, with circumstances deteriorating daily. Venezuela’s economy contracted by 16% in 2016, 14% last year and a predicted 15% in 2018. Inflation was at 112% in 2015 and 2,800% at the end of last year. Economist Steve Hanke finds an annualized rate of around 65,000% for 2018, making Venezuela’s one of the most severe hyperinflations ever. Food shortages led to an average weight loss among Venezuelans of 18 pounds in 2016 and 24 pounds in 2017.
What caused this crisis? Foreign invasion, civil war, natural disaster, substitutes for oil, or agricultural plagues? No, bad ideas, pure and simple.
Socialism might have been a proven failure globally, but Hugo Chávez convinced Venezuelans to try it. On becoming president in 1999, he stole, dominated, polarized and jailed. Benefiting from about $1 trillion in oil sales during his 14 years as president, he had the means to launch massive social spending programs to secure votes. He could even afford to kill the goose laying golden eggs, replacing competent professionals at the government-owned oil company with agents, stooges and sycophants. In the grandest socialist tradition, his daughter María accumulated a fortune estimated at $4.2 billion in 2015, according to Venezuelan press reports.
“The trouble with socialism,” Margaret Thatcher once observed, “is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” Chávez pre-empted that problem by seeking treatment for his cancer in Havana, where, Fox News reports, he “was assassinated by Cuban malpractice.” He died in March 2013, about a year before oil prices tumbled, and conveniently bequeathed the disaster that followed to Nicolás Maduro, his still more brutal and incompetent handpicked successor. Once oil revenues shrank, the true costs of Chávez’ bankrupt ideas became clear. Venezuela is now sinking into totalitarianism, using military force to keep socialism afloat.
Bad ideas have always existed, but they acquired new importance with the advent of liberalism in the late 17th century. Before then, conservatism—respecting tradition while adapting it to new circumstances—had prevailed. An individual king’s or religious leader’s besotted vision could progress only so far before convention rolled it back. Liberalism rendered tradition optional by optimistically deeming each person capable to think through the great issues from first principles on his own.
Radical theories proliferated, especially during the French Revolution. The floodgates were opened for ideas unmoored from experience and common sense, such as conspiracy theories. These ideas incubated through the 19th century and came to terrible fruition after World War I with fascism, Nazism, socialism and communism. As historian Paul Johnson notes, “The worst of all despotisms is the heartless tyranny of ideas.”
The roll call of tyrants who have imposed their own philosophies over the past century is depressingly long, including Mussolini, Lenin, Stalin, Tojo, Hitler, Ho, Mao, Kim, Nasser, Pol Pot, Mugabe, Assad, Saddam Hussein, Khomeini, and Chávez. They fully understood their own game; as Stalin reportedly observed, “Ideas are more powerful than guns.” Each one devastated his fiefdom.
If bad ideas bring horror, their antidote lies in conservative, modest, tried-and-tested ideas that respect tradition and human nature; not in revolutionary lurches and grandiose experiments, but in incremental improvements on customary practices.
At a moment when many Democrats are ignoring the lessons of Venezuela and swooning over socialism, it’s back to the barricades in the war of ideas.
Mr. Pipes is president of the Middle East Forum.
:
