Most Americans alive today knew Venezuela when it had a vibrant healthy economy and had considerable liberty for its citizens. Many Americans may not have been aware of the exact nature of Venezuela, but in those days, the country was prosperous and active trading partner and ally of the United States. Then socialism got its hands on the Venezuelan government, and then America and the world got to watch, in real time, how socialism slowly but surely bleeds the life out of an economy and ramps up repression of a free people. In the case of Venezuela, once socialism failed and the government ran out of other people’s money, the elitists of the Venezuelan government turned to the criminal drug trade to support themselves, and their citizens be-damned.
"There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide." ~ Ayn Rand
"Two world wars, three monstrous dictatorships-in Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, Red China-plus every lesser variant of devastating socialist experimentation in a global spread of brutality and despair, have not prompted modern intellectuals to question or revise their dogma. They still think that it is daring, idealistic and unconventional to denounce the rich. They still believe that money is the root of all evil-except government money, which is the solution to all problems." ~ Ayn Rand
Socialism, such as practiced in Venezuela, is a story that has been repeating itself for the last century. Modern intellectual elitists (aka the American Democrat Party) are still trying to make the already proven unworkable socialism work in America. We’ll soon see how well it works in New York City but, so far, in every other Democrat controlled city and state in America, all that has been successfully accomplished by socialists is unnecessary poverty, homelessness, and out of controlled crime. So, good luck with that.