Venezuela consumption booms under leftist Chavez Mon Mar 20, 2006 9:02 AM ET By Fabian Andres Cambero CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez spends much of his time extolling socialism and deriding free-market values, but don't expect 29-year-old Steve Telleria to pay much heed. In the huge Sambil shopping mall in eastern Caracas, Telleria joined the heaving crowds on a recent weekend browsing through expensive boutiques and shops looking for a bargain gift for a friend. "This is fundamentally not a socialist society," a business administrator said, standing next to a rack of mens' jackets in a packed store. "People here would prefer to stop eating than to stop spending." Even as Chavez promises a 21st century socialist revolution to end "savage capitalism," rejects the very rich and promotes collective values, Venezuela is enjoying a consumer spending boom as its oil exports bring in record revenues. While the tough-talking former soldier has spent billions of dollars on social development programs that have made him popular among the poor, consumers in 2005 spent roughly $8.3 billion at the nation's shopping malls... LINK
Hasn't Venezuela gotten in troubal for torturing people? Don't they get alot of their money from oil? I don't think they are a good example if they are an oil rich country
What I found interesting about this is that for a while I've been checking to see in Venezuela was having similar problems as other state-socialist countries have had,but so far I haven't found any info of this happening too much. Now after reading this I guess Chavez has been allowing enough capitalism to do it's part in keeping the economy afloat.
There hasn't been any major nationalisation of industry. Chavez has mostly gone on a spending spree with the oil windfall, which isn't really the same as moving to a socialist economy. There is a lot more state intervention though, such as interest rate controls, directed lending, and currency controls.
There are never simple answers in modern politics and Latin America is no exception. For some good reading on Chavez and Venezuela have a look at these. http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff10142005.html http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney02132006.html Just search Counterpunch there are loads of articles on the subject.
