Road to Serfdom 70% Travelled in Venezuela

On the occassion of F.A. Hayek's 110th birthday there are likely alot of commentators rightly quoting or otherwise employing material from Hayek's classic The Road to Serfdom. If you haven't read it, you should, but if you don't have the wherewithal right now, you don't necessarily have to read it because the what the book talks about is literally happening in real time, right now in Venezuela. (Truly handy if you missed the last time this book was re-enacted in real life a few years ago in Zimbabwe.) In Venezuela, it's been slowly unfolding now for awhile, but it has been as predictable as the sunrise. This latest development sets the stage for another easily predictable turn of events. So, Chavez steals all this oil and gas infrastructure. He'll be hard pressed to find people to work the equipment. The equipment will also suffer wear and tear. I doubt Hugo has a very large maintenance capex budget. Actually I bet that it is not much higher than zero. In time - a short time - this equipment will cease to be operable and no good to him. So he'll have to try to steal some more stuff, but most of the potentially stealable equipment will be long gone out of Venezuela. Without equipment and manpower you can't get oil out of the ground. Ergo, Chavez is spiralling fast toward the point at which he has no more oil, which is the point at which most people in Venezuela will have almost no prospects, little food, and alot of anger.