“He was the greatest Argentine since San Martín. But two things can never be forgiven him. He created class hatred in a country that had never had it, and he ruined agriculture by siphoning off labor into the towns.” — Inside South America, p. 184

“Los débiles invocan la justicia: déseles la justicia: déseles la fuerza, y serán tan injustos como sus opresores.” [The weak invoke justice. Give them justice; give them force, and they will be as unjust as their oppressors.] — Andrés Bello, Estudios de Crítica Histórica

The former quote was spoken by an Argentine when asked for his opinion about Juan Perón. The quote is most perceptive and applies not only to Perón but to a majority of western 20th and 21st century politicians. Like the more successful ones, Perón was — to Peronistas — charismatic, with big teeth and a wide, easy smile. His method was to preach unity while inciting class hatred. In this regard, class includes wealth, race, religion, sex, fill-in-the-blank. The method also requires perpetuating a permanent sense of guilt for events that may have taken place long before the current generation was a twinkle in its parents’ eyes. Guilt weakens a people and also destroys their love for their country. It makes a people more easily manipulated by politicians. The unscrupulous know this. It would behoove the rest of us to know it too.

Have you noticed that this “method”, the inciting of class envy (although it is rarely, if ever, reported as envy), is intensely promoted by Socialist and Communist politicians? Those ideologies cannot survive without an incentive to “get even” or to create discord among a people. That alone ought to warn us to be wary of non-Socialist politicians who labor along the same path.

In the case of Venezuela, as alluded in prior posts, the country’s problems did not begin with Chavez. That gives him too much credit. The issues predated him by generations by men and women who prepared the way for him.

Venezuela was one of the most prosperous South American countries. Refer to the earlier post, Chile vs. Venezuela, for a 2-minute précis on this. She enjoyed great economic freedom, and this, under military dictatorships. I was born under one of those, the Pérez Jimenez regime. I remember in childhood rubbing shoulders with friends from all social and economic strata of society. I do not recall folks fomenting class warfare or envy.

Later in life I came to realize that under the dictatorship, we did not enjoy a free press nor did we have universal suffrage. However, we did enjoy high levels of freedom, including freedom of mobility, freedom of commerce, freedom in society, and, certainly, freedom in our homes. We had nowhere near the restrictions the peoples of Eastern Europe or Mao’s China, both atheistic regimes, were struggling under.

In the first half of the 20th century Venezuela became an economic powerhouse. As the petroleum, and later the iron ore, industries surged, Venezuela ensured it remained in private hands. The dictators understood that the state did not have the expertise to manage such vast, far flung operations; they left them in the hands of the international companies but did charge royalties and obtained other concessions in return. This arrangement ensured increasing prosperity for her people as well as great advances in local technology and culture. This was a period of phenomenal progress in research and discovery. To cite just one example, the diamond knife (or scalpel) was invented in the 1950’s by Venezuelan Humberto Fernández-Morán Villalobos (1924-1999). This “significantly advanced the development of electromagnetic lenses for electron microscopy based on superconductor technology and many other scientific contributions.” 

As for state spending, it was mostly focused on the country’s roads, airports, schools, and universities. The Caracas skyline and the country’s expressways became the envy of South America. State-owned companies were few. 

Nevertheless, the state began to encroach in the early 50’s, expropriating the telephone and other companies. This was very limited, but the seeds of intervention were sown and when Venezuela became a democracy, the whirlwind began to be reaped. Rómulo Betancourt, Venezuela’s first democratically elected president, one who is revered in Venezuela, was first a Communist who then forsook Communism and became a Socialist, although he spurned that label. Folks do not like to recall that he founded the Communist Party in Costa Rica when in exile there and had a hand in founding the Communist Party in Colombia as well.

We should not be surprised that he immediately proposed, and the legislature approved, price and rent controls, something previously unheard of in Venezuela; a solution seeking for a problem. He worked to create a new constitution which was not friendly to private property.

It’s easy to forget all of that because we had so much more economic and other freedoms back then than what is the case today. But it is necessary to remember that the process began generations ago. Hugo Chavez merely took it to the next level. Speaking philosophically, he was epistemologically consistent, unafraid to take his faith to its logical conclusion.

And his successor, Nicolás Maduro (or his regime’s philosophy) will remain in power so long as his “opponents” refuse to honestly declare their own complicity in what has happened to that stricken land. And an ugly manifestation of that power is the murdering of youth who are resisting what is happening to their homes and country.

A new regime will not arise so long as the opposition refuses to denounce its own love affair with Socialism and its accompanying appeal to envy.

During my last visit to Venezuela, in 2005, I conversed with a taxi driver who expressed satisfaction that the Chavez government had expropriated property that belonged to the Roman Catholic Church. The taxi driver was a protestant and was pleased with Chavez’ denunciation of that Church. I asked him whether Protestants did not care for the Ten Commandments. “Of course we do!” he replied. 

“Well, I am also a Protestant. However, theft is wrong, regardless whether the state steals from atheists, or Protestants, or even Roman Catholics. Don’t you agree?”

He, of course, saw the point. But the fact I had to point it out to him, was ominous. Chavez, with a wide smile and ingratiating style, was superb in fomenting envy and class hatred, even among the religious. 

The country of my birth needs to re-discover its Christian roots and look beyond politics to the Creator and Redeemer God, to whom all allegiance belongs. She must, once again, see that salvation is not in the State or, heaven forbid(!), in politicians, who, like little Caesars, revel in usurping what belongs to God.

Meanwhile, we are left with the unhappy fact that Venezuelans struggle every single day. “The collapse of Venezuela has been the worst recorded for any nation in nearly 50 years, outside of war.”

Andrés Bello (see blog post “Simón Bolivar III — Influences”), was prescient when he wrote the above quoted citation, circa 1830, decades before the publication of Das Kapital and eighteen years before that of The Communist Manifesto. He understood the human heart and its wickedness and he knew that the politics of envy would never satisfy but rather foment anger and discontent. No ideology will fix man’s heart, which is the source of all human misery.

My heart yearns for and is pained for the land of my birth.