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| Alex Tabarrok |
Well, this is quite the trick. We have a near perfect socialist hell-hole and Tabarrok attempts to blame it on anarchism.Socialism is bad. I need no convincing. But the collapse of Venezuela is much worse than anyone would have predicted from socialism alone:
NYTimes: ….the drop in Venezuela’s economic output under Mr. Maduro has undergone the steepest decline by any country not at war since at least 1975.By year’s end, Venezuela’s gross domestic product will have shrunk by 62 percent since the beginning of the recession in 2013.Venezuela has lost a tenth of its population in the past two years as people fled, even trekking across mountains, setting off Latin America’s biggest ever refugee crisis.Venezuela’s hyperinflation, expected to reach 10 million percent this year according to the I.M.F., is on track to become the longest period of runaway price rises since that in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 1990s.“This is essentially a total collapse in consumption,” said Sergi Lanau, deputy chief economist at the Institute of International Finance…So what is causing the tremendous drop in economic activity? Ironically, it’s not too much government but too little. Outside of the capital, the government has practically abandoned its most basic responsibility of providing law and order. The result has been widespread looting.
In order to do this, Tabarrok needs to ignore:
- That the looting is the result of extremely onerous government regulations that make it impossible for businesses to openly operate.
- That price controls make it difficult to near impossible to buy any goods--while the government inflates and inflates the money supply
- That years ago the government banned the sale of guns to private citizens, so it is impossible for them to buy now needed guns to protect themselves against looters.
As Venezuela continues to crumble under the socialist dictatorship of President Nicolas Maduro, some are expressing words of warning – and resentment – against a six-year-old gun control bill that stripped citizens of their weapons.So yeah, starve the people, take away their means of support, prevent them from obtaining guns, all socialist created situations--and then blame anarchism.
“Guns would have served as a vital pillar to remaining a free people, or at least able to put up a fight,” Javier Vanegas, 28, a Venezuelan teacher of English now exiled in Ecuador, told Fox News. “The government security forces, at the beginning of this debacle, knew they had no real opposition to their force. Once things were this bad, it was a clear declaration of war against an unarmed population.”
Under the direction of then-President Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan National Assembly in 2012 enacted the “Control of Arms, Munitions and Disarmament Law,” with the explicit aim to “disarm all citizens.” The law took effect in 2013, with only minimal pushback from some pro-democracy opposition figures, banned the legal commercial sale of guns and munitions to all - except government entities...
The punishment for illicit carrying or selling a weapon now is 20 years behind bars...
The punishment for illicit carrying or selling a weapon now is 20 years behind bars.
The fact of the matter is that these people are only surviving to the degree the underground anarchistic black markets have emerged in the shadows of the oppressive socialist state.
-RW
(Ht: Chris B.)
So he lists things that are bad, but all of them were caused by socialism.
ReplyDeleteShrinking GDP - socialism - this is a feature of socialism
Fleeing people - When you are in a socialist country, and the government cant provide you food, like has happened in Venezuela, you have two options: leave, or loot.
Looting people- see above - If they cant feed themselves or their children, people will resort to violence to survive.
Hyperinflation- from the money printing done by the socialist government.
Tell me again where you see "too little government" ?
I've never heard of Tabarrok, but considering the world has been watching this predictable and predicted economic and social collapse for the past several years due to their socialist government, I have to think this guy is either a complete moron or he is evil.
“This is essentially a total collapse in consumption,” said Sergi Lanau, deputy chief economist at the Institute of International Finance…
ReplyDeleteOh yeah, that's it. They don't CONSUME enough. You don't SAY. haha.
More accurately a rapidly collapsing socialist state is worse than a socialist state in its typical slow collapse.
ReplyDeleteTabarrok doesn’t seem to understand what anarchy is. There may be pockets of the country where the government does not have much control but even in those areas people are still influenced by the governments existence and that governments presumed legal right to initiate force.