Venezuela's poster child for failure of socialism
Five months after Venezuela nationalized dozens of oil service contractors in Zulia state, the once-bustling industrial dock on Lake Maracaibo is nearly abandoned, and the 16 red flags raised to celebrate the takeovers are already tattered and faded.There si more.A few small groups of workers remain, hoping to get the jobs they were promised after the expropriations.
"We demand our jobs. Because we haven't gotten an answer, we're still here," said Demostenes Velasquez, who for months has lived under thescorching sun in a tent improvised from remnants of oil union election pamphlets.
Like Velasquez, many workers on the eastern shores of the lake have protested or gone on hunger strikes to demand jobs promised them after President Hugo Chavez's government expropriated 76 oil services companies on the Maracaibo Lake. The western region has a long history of oil production.
As part of his drive to install socialism in the OPEC nation, Chavez expropriated the companies contracted by state-run PDVSA, with promises of social prosperity and worker justice.
Over the months since then, protests have intensified so much the government sent troops to control the discontented workers. Many of the protesters sewed their lips together and chained their hands and feet to call the president's attention to their plight.
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This all seems pretty predictable. Chavez has no concept of running a business, especially a high tech business that services oil and gas wells. He ran off the competent staff and there was no one to manage the "jobs" he had promised. This will someday be seen a metaphor for his operations int he rest of the country.
The one exception is Venezuela's facilitating the transit of drugs through the country. That appears to be a successful operation so far.
I have studied organizational decision making academicaly and in applied settings. Decisions entail the allocation of resources, both human and capital, to proceses in order to achieve intended purposes. A nice description of one such system is the decision management described in Fran Yates book, "Decision Management"
ReplyDeleteThe real purpose of totalitarian regimes is to monopolize power. Only they decide. "They" are the small group of people that happen to be in the inner circle of the king, at that time. You never know whne the king will get mad for something he decides to get mad and you happen to be iat the wrong place at the wrong time. Then he charges against you and you are no longer part of the decision making group. But he is not going to be left alone. He will nurse his inner circle.
The real purpose of the decision purpose of totalitarian regimes is to defend the authority of the king. Promises were made: "with promises of social prosperity and worker justice." But that is a custom like the one people wear in Halloween. A mask to present an image to those who hear the message. They don't say: "we are nationalizing these service companies because chávez doesn't like you and he wants to run you out of town." There is no plan to make these companies run under the management principles of socialismo bolivariano. Such a thing dooes not exist. These guys know only one thing: to kiss ass. They know the chief is mad, they band like mafia to plot the move. Fuck any constitutioinal principle. The only law is the will of the king. And then tremendous failures happen. Electricity, health, employement, telemedicine, and now the service to the oil industry. The story of El Charcote is another demostration of a decision style that leads to failure. They issue those grandiose plocamations as if they were to have a cosmic relevance. And it is pure, unadulterated bullshit. What matter is the will of the king.