| We can continue a bit with the wikipedia: "After Pérez initiated such liberal economic policies and made Venezuelan markets more free, Venezuela's GDP went from a -8.3% decline in 1989 to growing 4.4% in 1990 and 9.2% in 1991, though wages remained low and unemployment was high among Venezuelans. Some state that "neoliberalism" was the cause of Venezuelan economic difficulties, though overreliance on oil prices and a fractured political system without parties agreeing on policies caused much of the problems." Though after dismissing a lot of Chavists as conspiracy-theorists, I have seen some outrageous mistranslations and downright lies about Venezuela from the anti-Chavist side, taken uncritically by western media as factual, I am now very careful about sources there. There is a very active propaganda on both sides there. In a country with the largest oil reserves in the world and an underdevelopped oil industry, I doubt that free market forces would naturally tend to diversify the economy. On the contrary it would lead to increased investments there. I would like to remind that under Chavez, his centrally planned economy was criticized for hindering the oil sector development. The other ranking where Venezuela is high is corruption. That is the problem you want to solve first. High corruption, under free market or centrally planned economy, is not going to lead to good outcomes. Forget the economic model, it is the justice and democratic model that is important. |