Chávez dead

[Viking]

Sounds like Chavez is to be embalmed and put on display like Lenin, Mao, etc.  He's in good company!

Shame he's not in company with Cromwell.

[derspiess]

Sounds like Chavez is to be embalmed and put on display like Lenin, Mao, etc.  He's in good company!

Shame he's not in company with Cromwell.

Or Il Duce.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Here is my Chavez op-ed and will be the final definitive opinion of Languish on this matter. It will cover the following key areas: Freedom and Democracy under Chávez, Domestic Policy under Chávez, Foreign Policy under Chávez.

Freedom and Democracy under Chávez

There is a question as to whether or not Chávez was a dictator, I think a meaningful definition of that term is as follows: "A ruler whose legitimacy stems from physical power and control over the portions of a government that exercise force, without accountability to any other element in a given state." A dictator does not derive legitimacy inherently from the people, nor do they derive legitimacy through pedigree as does a monarch. Instead they exercise personal control, typically over police and military forces and use this control to control the country. They typically establish institutions to prop up their power so they are not vulnerable to being displaced in a "palace coup" by different factions within the military and police. By and large Chávez does not meet this definition, he took power in elections and sustained power in elections. Saddam Hussein took power through force, held elections that had no impact on his rule and maintained power through controlling the organs of government that had a monopoly on the use of force.

However, the converse of "dictator" is not "democratic leader." Chávez fits a different sort of mold, he was more of a "Tribune of the People." This is a leader who is accountable to the people but not bound by democratic or legal institutions like a more ordinary democratic leader. In modern, fully established democracies as you see in the United States, Canada, and much of Europe leaders are accountable to more than just elections. There is a strong rule of law, and strong institutions that check the power of any leader no matter their electoral mandate. In the United States the Presidency is limited in several important ways regardless of how many elections a President wins, and altering the constitution to further empower the President is a long, difficult, and nearly impossible proposition. In the United Kingdom their Prime Minister has less formal checks on power, but must effectively share power with his Parliamentary majority, a reaching Prime Minister can be brought down by Parliament, and the United Kingdom has a strong history of common law not easily overridden by a Prime Minister.

Chávez doesn't fit these molds for two reasons. Firstly, once in power he used his power, which was legitimately earned, to alter the system to his benefit. Removal of term limits and seizure of national assets that gave him a large purse to use toward political ends. Secondly, he used "soft power" against his enemies in a way that would be politically objectionable in most democratic countries of the OECD. Chávez never crossed the line into being a true despot, but in most Western democracies a political leader is expected to use the powers of their office to govern and implement their policies. Actively using the powers of the office to explicitly further their political party and political power base is widely frowned upon and even structurally discouraged. Chávez danced a fine line in which he was able to use the powers of his office to intimidate, bully, and discourage the opposition while essentially bribing the electorate. Many of his specific actions, individually, don't seem inherently undemocratic but taken as a whole  a picture is painted of a man accountable to the people but unaccountable to anything else. In some ways he is a personification of the fear of America's Founding Fathers of unrestrained mob rule.

According to Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, and Reporters Without Borders Chávez took actions to limit press freedom in his country. Chávez refusal to grand a license RCTVI made significant international press, but was defended by many. RCTVI actively supported a coup against Chávez and in truth even in truly democratic countries a media outlet supporting a coup would probably face severe sanctions and most likely be shut down with its operators punished under existing criminal statutes. However Chávez behavior towards the media doesn't start and end with RCTVI, Chávez has given significant benefits to his own state-controlled media outlets he created and even worked against international media outlets such as Globovision. Chávez is thus widely understood by independent outside organizations to have actively worked to stifle press freedom and the independent press in his country, independent of going after media outlets associated with the military coup against his rule.

So in total, Chávez was a democratically elected leader who did not respect the rule of law or democratic institutions. He was not unaccountable to the people as is a true dictator, but he is best thought of as a "Tribune of the People", a champion of the people chosen by them who wields the powers of an autocrat and is not subject to the limitations of democratic leaders in more established democracies.

Domestic Policy under Chávez

Most political leaders will be judged by both history and their own people based on how well they functioned as shepherds of the public interest. Hugo Chávez gave every indication of being deeply concerned with the wellbeing of the Venezuelan people, but he appears to have done very poorly in working for their interests and to the long term best interests of Venezuela.

Prior to Chávez, Venezuela had extreme wealth inequality and vast oil reserves. This created a situation in which Venezuela was growing economically but the benefits of this economic growth were disproportionately accruing to the upper class. Historically, such situations have created societal instability in the long term. While there are parallels to increasing wealth concentration in some Western countries, lower class Westerners live a very cosmopolitan high standard of living lifestyle which makes them far less likely to be angry and concerned with how the upper class lives. In Venezuela, where the lower classes live in abject poverty and squalor, such that they have food security issues, high infant mortality and other markers of poverty in poor developed countries it creates a simmering pot of anger and resentment that history suggests will almost always boil over into some society altering movement.

Chávez tapped into that anger, and by and large resolved the problem of wealth inequality without the extreme violence that is typical throughout most of history in the resolution of such situations. However in several key areas of reform Chávez failed to execute his management and oversight role effectively. In part this is because Chávez had two goals with everything he did for the Venezuelan people. One was his aforementioned genuine concern for their wellbeing. But the other was his opinion that only he was a fit shepherd of Venezuela's public interest, Chávez saw himself as being bigger than his country, and thus he felt he had to maintain control for the good of the people—and thus many of his actions were also heavily influenced by a strong desire to keep people voting for him and dependent on him. Unfortunately for Venezuela, this lead to decisions ultimately not in their best interests.

Several key areas: the management of Venezuela's petroleum resources and PDVSA, agriculture and land reform, and the Mercal network.

Venezuela has theoretically the largest petroleum reserves in the world, this should serve as a long term boon for its people. However, unique among OPEC nations over the past decade Venezuela has not been able to increase their production and in fact has fallen in production in terms of millions of barrels per day. This is primarily because Chávez has poorly managed PDVSA and its operations. State run oil companies are not immediately a bad idea, many countries use them effectively. However the best oil-producing companies that utilize state run operations tend to do so with heavy partnerships with private investors along with agreements that insure a good portion of oil revenues go to the state.

Venezuela is not an OECD first world country, and thus it is not always reasonable to believe that the more free market concepts that work well in the OECD are the most appropriate options for Venezuela. With his 2007 oil industry nationalization, and his previous diminishment of PDVSA's independence Chávez made the government directly responsible for managing essentially all aspects of the industry. This is a task the government has proven itself to be incapable of performing adequately. To foster ideological purity Chávez fired many thousands of PDVSA employees who were experts in their field. Safety declined rapidly as did major refinery accidents, this is a large part of the reason production by PDVSA has not increased to allow Venezuela to reap the benefits of recent increases in oil prices.

Other countries have shown much more reasonable operating standards in which you maintain public-private oil partnerships and insist on revenues going to the residents of those countries while still allowing for profit from outside entities. Chávez ideological opinions got in the way of pragmatism on this issue.
As a side note, many savvy oil rich nations try to use their oil revenues to build alternative industries in their countries. You see this with varying degrees of success throughout the Middle East. In Venezuela PDVSA accounts for 80% of the country's GDP, 50% of government revenue, 80% of Venezuela's export earnings. This is a dangerous scenario, as this leaves a country dangerously reliant on the extremely volatile price of a single commodity. While Chávez was generous in doling out revenue from PDVSA to social programs, he has not shown any meaningful interest in diversifying Venezuela's economy.

With agriculture and land reform, Chávez followed a familiar path to any observers of Latin America. Wealthy landowners were disposed and ownership was given to tenant farmers. Yields per acre fell as less efficient small farms ran by less educated and less talented members of the lower class failed to execute. Additionally, broad price controls across the agriculture industry have made many of the new small farmers given land by the Mision Zamora unable to profitably farm their new holdings. Agriculture in Venezuela was not rosy before Chávez, with many of the massive landowners holding large amounts of land that was idled. Chávez made such holdings effectively illegal and seized some of the largest landholdings and has held them under state ownership. However, much of this land under state ownership remained idle, doing little to alleviate the worst aspects of Venezuela's highly concentrated land ownership structure. Unproductive land owned by a small cabal of wealthy landowners is little different than unproductive land owned by the state. The price and production controls has also lead to draconian activity targeted at food processers, which has ultimately lead to the shortages and extreme inefficiencies seen the world over time and time again anytime a state seeks to institute broad price controls and production controls.

Finally with the MERCAL network Chávez created a nationally ran chain of supermarkets. These stores provide heavily subsidized food to Venezuela's poor,  and employ over 8,000 Venezuelans directly. These stores operate at heavy losses and are massively subsidized by the government. The ultimate goal of the Mercados de Alimentos, C.A. (MERCAL) is to promote "non-capitalistic bottom up development." These means eventually operating without government subsidy by replacing large scale food processing and industrial agriculture with locally grown foods and products created by cooperatives. MERCAL outlets feature prominently pictures of Chávez and are one of the best examples of Chávez using the power of the State to personally empower his standing with the electorate. As a form of food welfare for the poor MERCAL is not a bad system. As a model for economic development it is an abject failure, and it suffers many of the queuing issues seen in similar operations in the Soviet Union.

Chávez's Bolivarian Revolution seeks to replace capitalism with idealistic operations like MERCAL but history has shown this does not work all that well. Additionally, many of Chávez other policies designed to stamp out the wealthy capitalists of Venezuela's past actually hinder the growth of larger and more efficient cooperatives and limit their ability to ever operate profitably. Even in capitalist havens such as the United States there are very large cooperative organizations that generate healthy profits. Chávez's policies would never allow such operations to truly flourish.
When Chávez ascended to power Venezuela had far too much wealth concentration to be healthy, and grave inefficiencies. Chávez mostly solved the wealth inequality problem but abjectly failed to provide a new prosperity. Chávez was right to direct oil resources to social welfare in a country so beset with poverty, but he should have tried to provide a means for small Venezuelan entrepreneurs to establish businesses for themselves and abandoned the foolish concept of cooperatives as a universally workable form of economic activity. He should have supported Venezuelan entrepreneurs with policies designed to nourish native, organically grown business. Unfortunately much of the largesse Chávez gave to his people was never going to make them better off in the long term. This may be because Chávez did not understand how to do that, but it may also have been because Chávez did not want to help people to self-sufficiency because that would mean they were no longer dependent on him for satisfying their wants and needs.

Foreign Policy under Chávez

Chávez foreign policy is one of his great failures and almost unambiguously so. It's probably the least interesting part of his Presidency for that reason, there is little nuance to his activities in this regard. Firstly, he funneled billions of dollars to countries like Cuba when his own people remained extremely needy for that money. This appears to have been done solely because Chávez personally respected the Castro brothers and wanted to do right by them. His snuggling up with Iran continued his policy of antagonizing the United States, a policy that made little sense domestically and did nothing to significantly help Venezuela or its people. The United States was the single largest purchaser of Venezuelan oil throughout Chávez's presidency, and there was little material benefit he ever attained with denormalizing his country's relationship with the world's lone super power. Unlike the North Korean Kims, Chávez power base did not require and was not meaningfully enhanced by his anti-American rants. His audience for those rants appear to have been other Latin American leaders, many who were receptive, but long term strategic and material benefit to Venezuela was sparse from Chávez getting other Latin American heads of state to nod in agreement. The whole approach of Chávez to the Western Hemisphere was strategically and politically flawed, he was able to get some degree of influence in other countries by exporting the rhetoric of his "Bolivarian Revolution" but by and large it is difficult to demonstrate any true strategic or economic benefit to have come from this rhetoric. On the converse it appears that he squandered billions in these efforts when his own country still need lots of money and attention. Venezuela is not the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and never will be, so it never made sense for them to try and funnel so much money to ideological fellow travelers to the detriment of their own people. The Soviet Union was a true superpower, something that will never be the case with Venezuela, and could make different geopolitical calculations and decisions.

Summation

Ultimately Chávez started from a core concept that was necessary in Venezuela: that wealth be shared more equitably. In a poor country you simply cannot sustain extreme wealth inequality when that country additionally has access to vast oil reserves. Impoverished people living in squalor will not tolerate such largesse with nothing in return. Different countries have approached this differently, many Middle Eastern oil states have maintained limited freedom but nice quality of life subsidies to their people to keep them happy, for example. Chávez approach of fighting to bring more oil revenue to ordinary Venezuelans was appropriate and also probably necessary for the long term good of Venezuela. However in several areas of execution Chávez failed to administer programs effectively and this has hurt Venezuela. The state oil company is in much worse shape now than it was before Chávez revoked its independence, and this hurts the entire country as it is so dependent on the fortunes of PDVSA. Chávez was a democratically elected leader who was above the rule of law and smashed legal and constitutional barriers to his power essentially at will, using his popular support as justification for all of his actions. This exposing Venezuela to a future in which a leader who is less concerned with democratic legitimacy could much more easily turn Venezuela into a true absolutist State now that Chávez has so substantially eroded the legal framework of a democratic society. What Venezuela needs right now is not another pandering leftist strongman or a reactionary from the upper class. Venezuela needs a more reform minded leader who accepts the premise that extreme wealth inequality is not sustainable in Venezuela but who wants to foster the rule of law and more reasonable economic policies. Venezuela would be much better off if it reverse much of its oil industry nationalization and brought in more outside investment, this would allow for a more professional run oil industry that could actually ramp up production at will as necessary, as other OPEC countries do to maximize revenue. Venezuela does not have to return to the extreme wealth inequality or go to a scenario in which most of the oil wealth ends up overseas, multinational oil firms will work with Venezuela in the right conditions, and a majority of the revenue can still flow to the Venezuelan economy. Venezuela needs to adopt some of the actions of other oil rich nations who have used oil revenues to establish permanent trust funds and sponsor alternative development, to try and free Venezuela from being solely dependent on the commodity prices of a single volatile commodity. Unfortunately for Venezuela it appears with Maduros they will be getting someone with Chávez anti-democratic tendencies and poor ability to administer the government but without Chávez deep personal appeal to the people. This will lead to an even less effective version of Chávez for the intermediate future.

[Admiral Yi]

The only thing I might add to Biscuit's otherwise very gay and effeminate essay is the effect Chavez' policies of expropriation had on the domestic food supply and the foreign investment climate, as demonstrated by the sky high interest rates charged on a country with something like a 20% debt/GDP ratio.

[fhdz]

Biscuit's otherwise very gay and effeminate essay

[OttoVonBismarck]

The only thing I might add to Biscuit's otherwise very gay and effeminate essay is the effect Chavez' policies of expropriation had on the domestic food supply and the foreign investment climate, as demonstrated by the sky high interest rates charged on a country with something like a 20% debt/GDP ratio.

What can I say, my life is moving in that direction. Going from DOD-->ICE has made me a lot more internationalist, and I even have some friends at State now that I discuss this stuff with all the time and that's probably coloring me as well.

[Viking]

On the operations of PDVSA. Like many third world state oil companies it doesn't, even in the best of times, maintain the core competencies for operating production and exploration activity. The best of these companies often move to an investor model where they subcontract out substantial parts of their operations to international companies. Not only in the traditional fields of service companies but also in running production and refining operations. Not only did Chavez purge the few educated venezuelans in PDVSA that did have this competence he also purged the foreign service companies as well as the foreign operators which operated fields on behalf of PDVSA.

In effect the only thing that PDVSA has been able to do for the past decade is to not turn off operating wells. This works for a while, much longer than one might think. In effect PDVSA is many years overdue for a tune up. When allowed to return foreign oilfield service companies will make a fortune.

[DGuller]

When allowed to return foreign oilfield service companies will make a fortune.

And then those shortsighted oil companies will get kicked out again.

[Razgovory]

I thought Otto did a fairly good job.

[Admiral Yi]

And then those shortsighted oil companies will get kicked out again.

The oilfield services companies don't have to worry as much as the integrated oil companies because they're not paying up front for exploration or drilling rights and putting a bunch of fixed equipment in place that can be stolen.

[derspiess]

When allowed to return foreign oilfield service companies will make a fortune.

And then those shortsighted oil companies will get kicked out again.

Yep.  "Thanks, gringos.  We'll take it from here."

[The Brain]

RIP Augusto.

[Sheilbh]

Honduras didn't ask the OAS to set up the Truth Commission so they could get to the bottom of that pesky question about the constitutionality of Zeleya's removal, they accepted it as part of a quid pro quo for reinstatement in the OAS.

It was part of the deal negotiated by the two parties in Honduras (the negotiations, on the request of the OAS, were handled by Costa Rica's President), that they would ask the OAS to run a Truth Commission for them, another goal of the deal was to get readmitted to the OAS. Here's the relevant text from the agreement:

We, Honduran citizens, men and women convinced of the necessity to strengthen the state of law, to aid our constitution and the laws of our Republic, deepen democracy and assure a climate of peace and tranquility for our people, have carried out a frank and intense process of political dialogue to seek a negotiated and peaceful exit to the crisis in which our country has been submerged in recent months.
As fruit of this dialogue in which has predominated the wisdom, tolerance, and patriotic spirit of all the participants, we have drafted a political accord that will permit the reestablishment of civic harmony and assure a proper climate for democratic governability in our country. This accord, we are sure, will define the road to peace, reconciliation, and democracy, urgent demands of Honduran society.
The agreement on this accord demonstrates yet again, that Honduran men and women are capable of successfully carrying out dialogue and thanks to that and by means of it, reach the high goals that society demands and the country requires.
In virtue of the forgoing, we have agreed on the following accords ... there will also be created a Truth Commission that will identify the acts that led to the present situation, and provide to the Honduran people elements to avoid that those deeds will be repeated in the future.

The South African analogy is a bad one.  Theirs was not set up to determine whether apartheid actually existed or not, but rather to document individual cases of mistreatment. 

I'm not analogising. I'm saying the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is the model of Truth Commissions in terms of their goals and their method. It's about establishing a historical record that enables the country to move without recriminations.

I'd note that that's what's happened in Honduras. They've returned to constitutional democracy, Zelaya's been allowed back and is now representing Honduras officially.

And finally decriminalization is not the same as legalization.

I know, but you said this:

The fact that drugs are decriminalized in Europe doesn't mean that they get their product from Mother Theresa.

Very, very few countries have decriminalised drugs. I believe only the Portuguese and the Czechs. There's some element of decriminalisation in the Netherlands and, I think according to my colleagues, Spain - but that's about it.

Sounds like Chavez is to be embalmed and put on display like Lenin, Mao, etc.  He's in good company!

I think Santa Evita's a more likely fate.

[Sheilbh]

Also on the original topic, I walked past the Venezuelan Embassy today. As well as a few bouquets, candles and pleasant messages ('you gave us a light...') there was one that said he should be burning in hell for what he's done. I wondered if a Languishite had made the trip

[Admiral Yi]

I'm not analogising. I'm saying the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is the model of Truth Commissions in terms of their goals and their method. It's about establishing a historical record that enables the country to move without recriminations.

I'd note that that's what's happened in Honduras. They've returned to constitutional democracy, Zelaya's been allowed back and is now representing Honduras officially.

The purpose of the SA commission was to establish a historical record of individual wrongdoings and sufferings.  Nobody contested that blacks couldn't vote or were beaten up by cops.

The Honduran commission does nothing like that.  It's a political excercise.  The OAS says Zelaya was a little wrong, the opposition was a little wrong, now let's split the difference and move on.

I know, but you said this:

The fact that drugs are decriminalized in Europe doesn't mean that they get their product from Mother Theresa.

Very, very few countries have decriminalised drugs. I believe only the Portuguese and the Czechs. There's some element of decriminalisation in the Netherlands and, I think according to my colleagues, Spain - but that's about it.

I thought Portugal was the rarity in fully legalizing possession, whereas the typical European model was decriminalization--a parking ticket if you smoke your ganja in the wrong place.  I could be mistaken.

Regardless, the original point--that Europe, with its less draconian drug laws, does *not* contribute any less to organized crime in the source countries than the US does--still stand.