The Chávez government is preparing a decree to give the government control over food distribution if shipments and sales of food halt. There have been serious problems with shortages and a thriving black market.
Keeping the price of essential food items reasonable is no easy task. Where poverty is a serious problem, it is entirely reasonable for a government to enact laws to address the issue. But as I’ve been reading news about shortages, supermarket lines, hoarding, and the black market, and then the government’s ad hoc reaction, with a patchwork of new laws, accusations, police raids, combined with chronic mismanagement and corruption, one thought really came to me. The “revolution” in Venezuela was supposed to be different, a dream of 21st century socialism that learned from its 20th century predecessors. But this particular pattern is one that has been followed many times in Latin America; it is the same old story. Where is the new, improved, carefully crafted plan?
I’d be so much more apt to listen to President Chávez if there was just something new. Something original. I haven’t seen it yet.
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