07/16/2026
Venezuela was not always a symbol of hunger, shortages and mass migration.
In 1950, its income per person was higher than Norway’s, and during the 1970s it had the highest income per person in Latin America.
It possessed enormous oil reserves, a stable currency and the ingredients needed for lasting prosperity.
Then government control kept expanding.
By the time Hugo Chávez took power, socialism was sold as the cure for inequality and corruption.
The cure became a catastrophe.
The government seized private businesses, expanded state owned enterprises, imposed price controls, restricted competition and treated oil revenue like an unlimited political slush fund.
Producers stopped investing because they could not earn a reliable return or trust that their property would remain theirs.
Shelves emptied, domestic production collapsed and the country became even more dependent on oil.
When oil prices fell, there was no healthy private economy left to absorb the shock.
The government covered enormous deficits by creating money, helping trigger hyperinflation.
Venezuela’s economy shrank by more than 70 percent between 2013 and 2018.
By 2021, more than 94 percent of Venezuelans were below the poverty line, and nearly eight million people ultimately fled the country.
Sanctions imposed later added pressure, but they did not create the socialist controls, expropriations, reckless spending and monetary destruction that had already hollowed out the economy.
That is the warning.
Socialism always begins with promises of fairness, security and abundance.
It ends by concentrating power in government, punishing production and making ordinary citizens dependent on politicians for the necessities of life.
The politically connected remain comfortable, while everyone else stands in line.
America should not look at Venezuela with smugness.
We should look at it as a warning from people who were promised prosperity and received poverty instead.
Do you believe Americans understand how quickly government dependency can become government control?
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