“Wealthy elites hated (Chavez) almost immediately and viewed him as usurping their political and economic power, which was largely centred on access to state oil wealth,” George Ciccariello-Maher, an expert on Venezuela who teaches at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said in an email. “When Chavez displaced them and began to enact reforms, they attacked even the smallest reforms ferociously, and he learned quickly that there could be no middle way between capitalism and socialism.” ... “Uruguay’s stability is largely due to stable economic growth,” says Ciccariello-Maher. “In part, Venezuela’s difficulties hinge on the vices that oil brings with it: a reliance on imports and the corruption this entails, as well as dramatic levels of smuggling.”
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 17:15:06 +0000