Venezuela Illustrates the Perils of "Democratic Socialism"

In yesterday’s Venezuelan election, the vast majority of the people wanted to remove socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro from power, but the regime remains in control through a combination of violence and fraud. Venezuela’s socialist government has turned what used to be one of Latin America’s wealthiest nations into an oppressive hellhole so awful that over 7 million people have fled—the largest refugee crisis in the history of the Western Hemisphere. This terrible experience is relevant to the broader debate over “democratic socialism.”

One traditional response to evidence that the USSR, communist China, and other communist states demonstrate that socialism leads to poverty and oppression, is the argument that these regimes failed because they were undemocratic. If government control of the economy is combined with democracy instead of dictatorship, then socialism would fulfill the promise of uplifting the working class. Venezuela’s history over the last 25 years undercuts such optimism.

To avoid confusion, I should emphasize that the “socialism” referred to here is government control over all or most of the economy (what Marxists call “the means of production”), not merely having a relatively large welfare state. The latter creates dangers of its own, but not of the same type and scale.

Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez first came to power in a democratic election in 1998. For a time, electoral democracy was maintained. But, gradually, the government’s control over the economy and centralization of power (itself a requirement of socialism), enabled it to suppress opposition and establish a dictatorship. State control over the economy was a key element of this process. For example, the government used its control over food supplies to suppress opposition. If you oppose the ruling party, you are likely to go hungry. In an economy where there are few or no job opportunities outside the state apparatus, regime opponents also risk unemployment.

Meanwhile, far from uplifting the working class, Venezuelan socialism impoverished them. And that process began even before democracy was fully ended.

In a 2019 piece on “The Perils of Democratic Socialism,” I outlined some reasons why democracy cannot cure the flaws of socialism, and why a socialist state cannot remain democratic for long, even if it starts out that way. Here’s an excerpt where I highlighted the example of Venezuela:

Perhaps democracy will save us from any potential negative effects of bringing most of the economy under government control…. Any aspiring American Lenin or Hugo Chavez will be voted out of office or—better still—never elected in the first place.

Unfortunately, the democratic element of democratic socialism is unlikely to save us from the severe risks of the socialist part. Voters in democratic systems can and do elect dangerous demagogues. Hugo Chavez was democratically elected.

Closer to home, our own voters elected Donald Trump. And he is far from the first illiberal demagogue who ever achieved political success in American history….

A socialist state that controls most of the economy would also make it nearly impossible for voters to acquire enough knowledge to effectively monitor the government. It would greatly exacerbate the already severe problem of voter ignorance that plagues modern democracy. In a world where most voters—for perfectly rational reasons –  do not even know basic facts such as being able to name the three branches of the federal government, it is highly unlikely they will learn enough to properly monitor a socialist state. Most of the powers of government would instead fall under the control of politicians, bureaucrats,  powerful interest groups, or worse.

Finally, it is unlikely that a democratic socialist state will actually remain democratic in the long run. If the government controls the vast bulk of the economy, it can, over time, use its control over key resources to reward its supporters and suppress opponents. This has, in fact, actually happened in Venezuela, where the government has used such tools as its control over food resources to incentivize support for the regime, and forestall opposition.

For reasons noted in the 2019 piece, if democratic socialists came to power in the US, it would be harder for them to establish a dictatorship than it was for Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela. But that is in large part because we have more obstacles to the establishment of socialism itself than Venezuela did, such as stronger systems of federalism, separation of powers, and judicial review.

It may still be tempting to conclude that Venezuela’s tragedy is the result of defects in their culture or the personalities of particular leaders, such as Chavez and Maduro. But socialist governments have led to similar horrific results in many nations around the world, despite differences in culture and leadership. Either socialism’s weaknesses are caused by systemic institutional flaws, rather than local idiosyncracies, or the system tends to elevate awful leaders. Most likely, it’s a combination of both.

There are, of course, obvious parallels between Maduro’s use of violence and fraud to stay in power after losing this election, and Donald Trump’s attempts to do the same after he lost in 2020. One major reason why Maduro may well succeed where Trump failed is that the Venezuelan regime’s control of the economy and extreme centralization of power makes it easier for it to suppress opposition. Trump did not control the courts and many other key institutions, and he could not threaten opponents with unemployment and denial of food. Thanks to socialism, Maduro does have these tools of coercion available to him. Fans of democratic socialism would do well to consider whether they want Trump or someone like him to be able to wield such power, should he win an election.

Despite some ideological differences, the “national conservative” policies advocated by Trump, J.D. Vance, and others on the right, pose many of the same dangers as socialism—including the use of state control over the economy to suppress opposition. The difference in slogans and flags between the two movements should not blind us to this underlying similarity.

There is another way in which the Venezuelan experience should give pause to the right, as well as the left. As in the similar case of Cuba, conservatives who rightly denounce socialist oppression should not at the same time try to close America’s doors to refugees fleeing it. You can’t combat socialism while simultaneously turning your back on its victims.

Like their Cuban counterparts, Venezuelan refugees should not be forcibly consigned to poverty and oppression merely because they had the misfortune of being born to the wrong parents in the wrong place. And, like Cubans, Venezuelan migrants can make valuable contributions to our economy and society—if only we would let them.

In sum, the Venezuelan experience should lead people on the left to reject democratic socialism, if they haven’t done so already. For their part, right-wingers would do well to reject similar ideas sailing under the flag of nationalism, and adopt a more welcoming attitude to Venezuelan refugees.

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