تتكشف مأساة مشتركة في تاريخ البشرية في فنزويلا. من المستحيل التنبؤ بكيفية انتهائها أو ما ستكون عليه الخسائر البشرية.
As we watch events and hope for a peaceful resolution that restores liberty in Venezuela, here are some noteworthy facts about the Land of Grace.
The causes of the pain are well known. As Vernon L. Smith, a Nobel laureate in economics, recently said on the topic:
The government of Venezuela in the name of the people and for the benefit of the people seized the big bad profit-grabbing oil companies, thinking that anyone off the street could manage a business. They started redistributing wealth to the poor, made electricity free, were praised by some (well at least one) American Nobel economists for reducing inequality.
This small, incredibly oil-rich country now cannot feed itself. Markets, whose prices coordinate and incentivize the creation of wealth cannot function. Farmers cannot buy seed or fertilizer, food imports have declined 70 percent, and people cannot find enough food in the garbage cans. The invisible-to-the-eye workings of the complex economy of plenty—which of course cannot assure that all will be productive enough to share in its plenty—have utterly collapsed.
Smith goes on to explain that the suffering would quickly cease if state officials simply allowed market forces to resume.
“REVERSE all those policies, and its effects would be immediately reversed and plenty restored easily as quickly as it disappeared,” he observed.
The Nobel laureate’s words reveal a maddening truth: The suffering in Venezuela is not just tragic. It’s also senseless.
This article was reprinted from FEE.com.