Magnus Linton writes about
Hugo Chavéz in
DN Kultur today. It’s a nuanced article which doesn’t try to excuse Chavez’ authoritarianism. But one thing is odd, really odd, and I think it says a lot about the worldview of leftists generally.
To explain Chávez´ rise to power, Linton writes that poverty increased dramatically during “the neoliberal epoch” in Venezuela – the 1980s and 1990s. But Venezuela didn’t see any economic liberalisation during those two decades. On the contrary, according to the
Fraser ranking, Venezuela became
less economically free between 1980 and 2000 – from 7 to 5.5 on their 10-point scale (about where Nigeria and Pakistan is). And it was not because of Chávez’ first two years in power. The fall was even greater between 1980 and 1995, from 7 to 4.5.
So it’s not just that Venezuela didn’t deregulate and open the economy like the rest of the world, it went in the opposite direction. And it was one of just four countries to do that (Congo, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe were the other three). And in fact, Venezuela reduced economic freedom even more than those three countries.
In other words,
Venezuela was the country that moved away from economic liberalism the most in those 20 years, more than any other country in the world, and poverty increased dramatically. Magnus Linton’s conclusion: “Neo-liberalism” is to blame.
If they get away with that in Venezuela’s case, liberalism could obviously be blamed for any kind of problem anywhere in the world.
Here is my interpretation: When Linton and other leftists talk about “neo-liberalism” they don’t really mean liberalism and free-market policies. Linton’s only reason for calling Venezuela in the 80s and 90s neo-liberal is that poverty increased. Apparently, many leftists call everything that’s bad for the poor “neo-liberal”. If socialism, protectionism and regulation hurt the poor, it’s liberalism. In that case, I do understand why they think that we who call ourselves liberal are awful.
But if this is the case I am not a liberal, because I believe in liberal policies and they are good for the poor. It probably makes me a socialist, because I hate socialism, which hurts thepoor.
