Venezuela Embarks On Well-Trod Path to Starvation

The WSJ has an excellent piece today on the front page that sheds some light on the agricultural collectivization that Hugo Chavez is inflicting on Venezuela. The article illustrates clearly the economic fundamentals of how collectivization results in failure - price controls induce supply shortages, inappropriate human capital is applied to the task, eroding property rights diminish the incentive to invest, etc.

History, not too distant history I might add, has stunning examples of the failure of farm collectivization and this article makes clear that Venezuela's experiment will be no different than Mao's or Stalin's. We can only hope for the sake of the Venezuelan people that the magnitude of the outcome will diverge from historical precedent. Having said that, let me repeat that I have little sympathy for the Venezuelan people, they have voted time and again for this fate, and are getting the government that they asked for. I'm afraid that the only way for them to get their country back will be through violent means. The only question is how much economic failure and loss of their liberty they will endure before they choose to adopt those means.