How would Venezuela be different and how would Chavez be different as it's leader? It seems like it's easier for Chavez to promote his view of Socialism when he has a lot of oil wealth to distribute. But supposed he didn't have this?
Kansas city ----------------------------------------- Again what if Chavez didn't have oil? His supporters seem to be impress with him using oil wealth to promote and spread socialism or his version of it. My point is that his whole Socialist agenda is dependent on having something that he is very lucky to have in his country. How would he be promoting socialism if he didn't have oil? Would Chavez even be a socialist or populist if he didn't have oil as Toledo suggested above? If his socialism is going to be based on having something like oil that few countries are lucky to have,then you aren't going to see too many countries going in his socialist route because they won't be able to. What will happen with Chavez's oil dependent social programs when oil prices drop? He hasn't seemed to diversify Venezuela's economy beyond oil very much.
If Chavez didn't have oil, the US couldn't care less whether he was running Venezuela or not. If Saddam Hussein didn't have oil, we wouldn't have cared if he massacred half the population of Iraq. It's all about oil, period.
If Venezuela didn't have oil would Chavez had even been interested in running it? " The Economist reports that "Mr Chávez has grasped all the powers of state into his own hands, and eliminated all independent oversight of his government. The opposition argues that the inevitable result of this is graft on an increased scale. " Berlin-based Transparency International, in its annual survey Corruption Perceptions Index, ranked Venezuela as one of only a dozen countries where perceived corruption had "greatly increased", resulting in a ranking of 130 out of the 150 countries surveyed, to become the nation perceived as the third most corrupt in Latin America, above Paraguay and Haiti..." Wikipedia
I think that he would find some other way. He is very smart, maybe a little nuts, but after all, you'd have to be a bit nutz to want to have that much power. I believe that he has very strong ambitions and visions, and very strong likes and dislikes, and if he were not so lucky to have all that oil, he would find something else. People in his country are not so different than any others and as long as they have a president whose ideas and values resonate with the majority then he will do OK. USED to be venezuela's biggest thing was agriculture until the oil thing go going. That is probably the issue that would keep things going in the right direction. They are DEPENDANT on USA imports to feed their people, and I'm sure that they don't wish to be. That's what their land reform issue is all about. Anything that would make them more independant, particularly from us, and give the poor more strength and incentive would go a long way towards achieving their goals. Setting good examples in many different areas is what gets Chavez his popularity. Not the oil. That's just luck, or maybe karma.
Leftists haven't just been interested in running countries that had a lot of oil. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua were running the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere-no oil there. (Actually, they just got re-elected after being out of power for 15 years.) Chavez either cares about improving the conditions of his countrymen or he doesn't. He was legitimately elected, and I think he should be given a chance to do what he claims he wants to do, and let history judge him-without US interference, or any more coup attempts.
If Chavez did not have oil then he would not be president and Venezuela would be just like Colombia but with less drugs and a worse football team.
