Venezuela Is Just Too Dependent On Oil Exports

Excellent article. Venezuela is just too dependent on oil exports. Any country with a similar dependence, no matter its ideology, would have suffered the same:

These days it seems you can't talk about socialism without being required to talk also about Venezuela—largely because certain people on the right bring up the failures of Venezuela every time the word "socialism" appears. Right-wing pundits claim incessantly that socialist policies are to blame for the terrible conditions that Venezuelans are now living through.

But this story is fundamentally false.

"It's a cheap rhetorical tactic," says James Galbraith, professor of economics at the University of Texas–Austin.

"No serious person makes this argument," says Richard D. Wolff, professor emeritus in economics at the University of Massachusetts–Amherst.

There are many reasons why Venezuela failed in the way that it did. But it certainly wasn't because Venezuelans got free health care. An over-reliance on oil exports in the years before oil prices plummeted in 2016 was a partial cause of the crisis. Intervention by the United States is another important part of it. Most crucially, it was a government rife with corruption that shattered Venezuela.