A Stitch in Haste

"We don't want the companies to go ... we just want them to be (minority) partners."
--Socialist dictator Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.

Anyone who's read Atlas Shrugged understands this statement full well. It's very easy for a thug to seize a productive asset; it's less easy for him to keep it productive. It's very easy for a statist to convince poor, ultra-unskilled workers to accept authoritarianism -- and its plunder; it's less easy for him to convince skilled professionals to accept authoritarianism -- and be plundered. It's very easy for a thief to steal; it's less easy for him to steal for a living.

Every single person affiliated with any capitalist enterprise -- whether investor, manager or employee -- should, on both moral and consequentialist grounds, flee Venezuela entirely. Better to lose a finger once than to be bloodsucked forever.

"I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours."
--Ellis Wyatt, "Atlas Shrugged"

More thoughts from Cato.

Think the mindset of Venezuela's socialist dictator is an anomaly?

Some Seattle school children are being told to be skeptical of private property rights. This lesson is being taught by banning Legos.
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According to the teachers, "Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation."

The children were allegedly incorporating into Legotown "their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys." These assumptions "mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society — a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive."
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At the end of that time, Legos returned to the classroom after the children agreed to several guiding principles framed by the teachers, including that "All structures are public structures" and "All structures will be standard sizes."

I can just imagine the conversation the next day between the bully and the scrawny kid:

"Your lunch money is oppressive and class-based. So give it to me."

"Perhaps — let's collaborate with the rest of the class and engage in full democratic participation!"

Of course, given that no students ever really owned the Legos in the first place, it's trivial for a collectivist-minded teacher to "convince" the youngsters that — voilà! — they don't really own the Legos ... and therefore should not really own anything else either. I wonder if the teachers extended the discussion to, e.g., the children's toys, or clothes, or pets. Try getting the kids to be "skeptical of property rights" in those contexts.

Too bad also that the original "class-based, capitalist" Legotown was not used to illustrate the concepts of, say, zoning laws, property taxes, or eminent domain — all of which are quite instructive examples of "collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation."

Note also that the "guiding principles" were "framed by the teachers." Blind submission to authority never seems to escape the curriculum, does it?

Or maybe they could just go on a field trip to Venezuela.

(Via Distributed Intelligence. More thoughts at Cato@Liberty.)

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POST SCRIPT: The issue of the magazine, Rethinking Schools, that first documented the Lego ban also ran the following articles --

• Investigating Slavery in New York City
• Algebra Students Look at Peak Oil
• Teachers in Mexico Face Oppression and Violence

Nope, no bias or agenda there.

(And for those who don't understand the title.)

Was anyone really naive enough to think that Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez would stop at "evil, greedy, foreign" ExxonMobil?

President Hugo Chavez said Sunday that his administration plans to create "collective property" as part of sweeping reforms toward socialism, and that officials would move to seize control of large ranches and redistribute lands deemed "idle."
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"It's property that belongs to everyone and it's going to benefit everyone," said Chavez, who vowed to undermine capitalism's continued influence in Venezuela.

At this point I think it's fair to reclassify Chavez, not as a socialist, but as a communist. We'll make it "small-c communist" to distinguish him from the Soviet-era (and Chinese) totalitarians.

Stealing a pizza from a rich man and declaring it "collective food" does little good after the collective has eaten it. Stealing a pizzeria from a rich man and declaring it "collective property" does little good after the collective realizes it doesn't know how to cook a pizza. They'll trip and stumble, producing ("inexplicably" in their minds) fewer pizzas than the pizza man did. What few pizzas are produced will be seized by the government, to be handed out to "important" elites.

Soon supplies will disappear, to be diverted to the black market. Perhaps the collective will have to try baking pizzas with no gas, electricity or oil, after the government allocates ever-dwindling energy supplies to "more important" industries. Eventually the members of the pizza collective will simply eat the raw dough, drink the tomato sauce, watch the oven rust into junk metal -- and then starve to death. All the while blaming the pizza owner, or the pizzeria down the street, or the bank, or the United States. But they, in their own minds, will have remained noble, pure, and untainted by "greedy" capitalism. All the way to an early grave.

Don't believe me?

The government has been forced to import food amid shortages of staples such as meats, milk and sugar.

This -- in one of the most oil-rich nations on earth.

Behold the socialist communist paradise. Same as it ever was...

To review: The distinction between economic freedom and political freedom is a fiction. They are merely two sides of the same coin. There is no such thing as a "semi-totalitarian" regime where one can have individual rights without property rights, or vice versa. The best recent example of this principle has of course been China, with its preposterous claims to be a "market-based" Communist dictatorship.

But, as some of us predicted, Hu Jintao now has some competition:

President Hugo Chavez has imposed a ban on alcohol sales during Holy Week in an attempt to reduce accidents and crimes, prompting a run on liquor stores.
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The sudden, unprecedented measure confused many Venezuelans who raced to stash up before Friday, thinking that would be their last chance to buy for more than a week.

"People are desperate, above all because the majority found out at the last minute," said Jose Manuel Fernandes, a liquor store owner in Caracas, as he struggled to meet the demands of dozens of customers yelling for bottles and cases of their preferred drink.

Remind me again how banning alcohol has anything to do with "socialism"? Apparently "freedom from economic oppression" includes freedom from the ability to buy a bottle of wine on a Friday night. Viva La Revolucion!

It's quite simple really: Create a dictator and he will eventually begin dictating. Power corrupts -- especially the corruptible.

Meanwhile, one wonders what arbitrary, capricious, make-people-desperate decree Chavez will issue next -- in the name of his "glorious socialist revolution."

But look on the bright side -- at least he didn't ban trans fats.

Talk about "socialized medicine"!

President Hugo Chavez warned Monday that his government could take over private hospitals if they continue raising prices for health care.

"Any private hospital that doesn't comply with the regulations that are made, if necessary, will have to be nationalized," Chavez said during a speech at the presidential palace. "We cannot allow there to be a shameless looting using such important services as health."
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A state takeover of some private hospitals would expand Chavez's nationalization effort, which already includes electrical companies, Venezuela's largest telecom and lucrative oil projects in the Orinoco River basin. Chavez called on Cabinet ministers to study possible price controls for medical services, the same way his government set price controls on beef.

"Medical services" and "beef." A physician is now the functional equivalent of a cow in Venezuela -- beasts of burden both.

This is, as always, the great blank-out of socialism and its variants. Hospitals don't provide health care, people provide health care. Doctors (and nurses and dentists and therapists and lab technicians and orderlies and ...) are what constitute "health care," not buildings and pills and needles and bedpans. To nationalize health care is to enslave these skilled professionals. Do you really want an indentured servant performing surgery on you -- assuming you can even find one?

And yet this is -- with alternative, warm-fuzzy-feeling names such as "universal coverage" or "single payer" -- precisely what radical liberals like Hillary Clinton and John Edwards seek to establish in the U.S. You can take the "socialist" out of "socialized medicine," but don't pretend that the same level of "medicine" will remain regardless.

To declare a war on doctors is to declare a war on patients. This is Chavez' idea of a "glorious socialist paradise."

Call it the Willie Sutton theory of political economy:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday warned he would nationalize the country's banks and largest steel producer if they persist with what he described as unscrupulous practices.
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Coming alongside recent moves to nationalize telecommunications, electricity companies and the oil sector, the warning was yet another sign that Chavez is serious about deepening his socialist revolution.

"Private banks have to give priority to financing the industrial sectors of Venezuela at low cost," Chavez said. "If banks don't agree with this, it's better that they go, that they turn over the banks to me, that we nationalize them and get all the banks to work for the development of the country and not to speculate and produce huge profits."

Just as Chavez and his mindless, soulless drones think that the only factor of production in an oil refinery are the oil and the refinery -- but not entrepreneurship -- so too do they think that the only asset in a bank is the money -- not the banker.

They will be proven wrong, as central planners and dictators always are. The only question is how much misery, poverty, starvation and death will occur in Venezuela in the meantime.

One cannot default against reality -- it will always foreclose on you if you try.

All he needs now is a young, conflicted Jedi acolyte:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has confirmed that he will try to change the law to allow him to remain in power indefinitely.

Under the current constitution, Mr Chavez will have to leave office at the end of his term in 2012.

But he says he wants to remain in power for as long as Venezuelans continue to support him.

The constitution is under review and Mr Chavez is expected to make changes to cement in law his socialist revolution.

"The constitution is under review..." Inevitably that will become, "under review by the military as commanded by Chavez."

And if "have to leave office at the end of his term in 2012" is the first strikethrough from the "reviewed" Venezuelan constitution, then of course "for as long as Venezuelans continue to support him" will be the second. Of this there can be no doubt among sane observers.

Thus ever with tyrants.

(Via PoliBlog.)

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Then again, are we much better these days?

...and the loon taketh away:

Hugo Chávez threatened Sunday to halt oil exports to the United States if the oil giant Exxon Mobil succeeds in freezing billions of dollars of foreign petroleum assets controlled by Venezuela.

The warning ratchets up a fierce legal dispute between Venezuela and Exxon after Mr. Chávez's move to exert greater state control over the nation's oil industry last year. Rather than submitting to Venezuela's terms, Exxon withdrew from a major production venture, intensifying the feud.

To review: Chavez literally stole the Venezuelan oil industry from its private owners, including foreign investors such as Exxon. Exxon is now simply trying to recoup some of its stolen property, as would any other victim of any other petty mugger. This is not complicated.

Meanwhile, Chavez -- in classic socialist propagandist fashion -- tried to convince the ignorant that he was really a nice guy. He paid Joseph Kennedy $366,000 a year to prostitute himself as a Chavez spokesman for a program under which the poor oppressed people of America would receive low-cost Venezuelan oil (i.e., would received the plundered wealth of poor oppressed Venezuelans).

So much for that idea.

Mr. Chávez has repeatedly threatened to cut off oil supplies to the United States, but has never done so. In fact, despite a deterioration in political relations, the United States remains Venezuela's top trading partner. Venezuela is the fourth-largest supplier of crude oil to the United States, sending 1.2 million barrels a day to American refineries, according to the Energy Information Administration in Washington.

Of course, it will be much easier for the United States to find other sellers of oil than it will be for Venezuela to find other buyers.*

Read that passage again: We are Venezuela's largest trading partner; Venezuela is only our fourth largest oil supplier (and in terms of overall trade, they're far lower down the list than that). So who is going to dictate terms to whom here? For Chavez to threaten us with an embargo is about as meaningful as Ken Hutcherson threatening to bring down Microsoft.

Finally:

Declining oil production at Petróleos de Venezuela has allowed other countries in the OPEC oil cartel, notably Saudi Arabia, to gain a greater share of the market in meeting the expanding global demand for oil. The problems at Petróleos de Venezuela, a major revenue source for Mr. Chávez, are occurring amid growing discontent over food shortages and galloping inflation.

It's easy to seize a refinery -- all you need are some guns and a cheering mob. Running the refinery after you've stolen it is another matter altogether.

Eventually, Petróleos de Venezuela will collapse while the looters head for the exits, Chavez will make some speeches about how he was betrayed by this or that Enemy of the Revolution, and then flee to live in exile in Bolivia or Cuba or some such socialist wasteland. Then the rebuilding (probably by Exxon) of Venezuela's oil industry can commence -- until the next two-bit dictator comes along.

Thus ever with tyrants -- and the mobs who spawn them.

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*More thoughts from Samizdata, including this (unverified) comment:

Venezuelan crude is particularly heavy and tarry, and most of the refineries capable of processing it are in the US. The US will have less difficulty buying crude from elsewhere than Chavez' [sic] will have ... selling it elsewhere.

Not my area of expertise, but if that's true then Chavez really is a light crude moron.

The more things change...

President Hugo Chávez said on Sunday that Venezuela was not planning to halt oil exports to the United States. The statement may ease fears in energy markets over fallout from Venezuela's legal battle with Exxon Mobil over compensation for the nationalization of a large oil project.

Mr. Chávez's conciliatory tone stands in contrast to recent comments made by him and other officials here in which they threatened to stop exporting oil to the United States. They said the Bush administration and Exxon Mobil were conspiring to wreak economic havoc in Venezuela.
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But the move seemed to be meant more for consumption within Mr. Chávez’s political movement here, which faces growing discontent over corruption charges and food shortages.

...the more they same the same.

Shoppers in oil-rich Venezuela often can't find basic food items in stores but the government of President Hugo Chavez on Sunday turned up a huge stash of milk and chicken in a private health clinic.
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Chavez has repeatedly complained that private clinics charge too much for services and has threatened to take them over.

Just another day in the glorious socialist paradise.