These are a Venezuelan citizen’s words posted to the Comments section of a New York Times article entitled “Dying Infants and No Medicine: Inside Venezuela’s Failing Hospitals” (May 15, 2016).
This individual also said, “I going to protest again.Last time i almost die, the national guard shoot me,i run covered in blood.I escape. I don’t care if I die anymore.”
What this Venezuelan was willing to die protesting against is a life we may all experience when our own markets collapse and we too are left to scavenge for basic supplies whose availability we currently take for granted.
The bulk of reader comments for that article pits socialism versus capitalism as the cause of and the cure for that country’s economic problems. In the end, however, if money had been removed from the picture decades ago this would not be Venezuela’s fate. The fact that the oil boom in that country created a lot of wealth but was not saved for future market downturns would not be an issue today had the boom been motivated simply by a demand for supply and not by promises of excessive profits for a small percentage of the population. In fact, the concept of a “boom” would not exist in a money-free world … Period.
As one other reader commented, “In reality, this is a tale of greed and corruption. The current situation in Venezuela is the result of years of squandered and stolen funds from the country’s sole export, oil, which has now seen prices collapse globally. This is what happens when billions of dollars are diverted to enrich cronies …”
I could not agree more. Greed and corruption will always be money’s undesirable bedfellows.
Rather than trying to find a way to eliminate them, I would suggest that it’s time to show money the door and ask that its bedfellows leave with it.
