Venezuela recent history2/29/2024 The United States have bought half the world with useless banknotes, but the empire of the dollar has reached an end!” he said in 2009.ĬARACAS, VENEZUELA - DECEMBER 07: Members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela raise their hands with a clenched fist in a sign of victory after midnight after the parliamentary elections where 277 parliamentarians were chosen with a participation of almost 70% abstention on Decemin Caracas, Venezuela. “The world is victim of the dollar’s empire. He attacked capitalism, but never quit commercial relations with the United StatesĬhavez dreamed of ending the dominance of the US dollar - an emblem of the world’s biggest proponent of capitalism - and creating an alternative currency with which to buy and sell crude oil. He threatened to take over most private companies in Venezuela, but never abolished private property. Throughout his 14-year presidency, Chavez swung between different economic tendencies - though always working to strengthen the state’s command of the economy through price controls, currency exchange regulations, and public spending. In December 2007, he even sent truckloads of heating fuel to low-income Americans in New York and Boston, only 15 months after calling then-President George W. He sent Cuban medical personnel to the barrios to set up clinics for the poor, and launched literacy and education campaigns. State television would broadcast hours of footage of citizens receiving state-funded housing, food, and subsidies for agricultural cooperatives. Chavez invested most revenues in programs aimed at increasing living standards and reducing inequality. With that kind of money, it was easy to imagine the state as the ultimate father figure. When Chavez rose to power in 1998, Venezuela’s wealth was abundant, with some analysts estimating that the country earned almost a trillion dollars from oil revenues between 19 - more than eight times today’s equivalent of the Marshall Plan. Chavez’s successor, current President Nicolas Maduro, recently inaugurated an ultra-luxury hotel where rooms are the equivalent of $300 per night.Īll of which raises a question that Sanchez has clearly been wrestling with: Is socialism still alive in Venezuela? “I don’t know, we are doing things upside down,” she says.Ī mural depicting Venezuelan late President Hugo Chavez (C) saluting and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (R) holding a child in Caracas on December 9, 2020. The US dollar is increasingly taking precedence over the bolivar, and while the Venezuelan minimum wage is the lowest in the region, the country’s stock market is booming. Hunger is rampant, inequality dizzying, and public hospitals stand derelict as the country deals with the coronavirus pandemic. “One never loses hope, and that is a project that I still believe in,” she said.īut Venezuela today hardly resembles the one pictured by Chavez. Sanchez, 57 years old, is a faithful member of the Socialist Party and believes fiercely in the vision of late president Hugo Chavez, who prophesied a Marxist utopia where the state would look after the needs of the people, raise the quality of life, erase inequality and limit private enterprise to a minor role in the economy. Petare, Venezuela's largest barrio, is seen from above on December 6. “Everything is in dollars now,” she says ruefully - a sign of monumental change in the country that she says would have Chavez turning in his grave. And as she counted it, Sanchez realized that the four $20 bills she held were worth more than 50 months of her pension. But they weren’t Venezuelan bolivars - they were US dollars. It was the Socialist Party - the late Hugo Chavez’s party - that gave Ingrid cash to pay for the vehicles. Sanchez has no money to spare - a former teacher, she lives on a state pension worth just one and a half dollars per month. As parliamentary elections got underway on December 6, she hired motorcycles and jeeps to ferry poor but faithful voters up steep hills to the polling station. Little houses pile on each other on the steep hills, some reachable only by vertiginous staircases.Įarlier this month, Ingrid Sanchez tried to rustle up votes here for the ruling Socialist Party in Petare, Venezuela’s largest barrio. Shantytowns surround Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, like the walls of a bowl.
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