Why are rich people rich while poor people are poor? Is it because governments fail to protect the poor with stringent standards on wages and workplace safety, or is it because of something else? FULL ARTICLE
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/10722/labor-standards-or-liberty/
Labor Standards or Liberty?
Previous post: Rothbard and the Post-High-Tech Meltdown
Next post: Gold vs Paper
{ 37 comments }
Great article. Popular beliefs about labor standards really needed a good nailing.
The question raised at the outset of the article is “Why are rich people rich while poor people are poor?” The article however does not address this matter at all. Part of the answer is that people earn their wealth and poverty. For those who may disagree, let them provide a better answer.
I agree with the authors regarding labor standards, but I disagree with regard to immigration. I also agree that micro finance is not enough. Having been involved in micro finance I came up with an idea call micro communities to address the problem of the poorer sectors of society (before you complain, I promise it is not a socialist idea, rather a neopaternalistic idea which I am prepared to defend as a libertarian). The package of reforms included in the micro communities concept include the access to private property, security, justice, finance and several other basic services which they do not have access to. With those reforms and free trade and capital flows, should they be implemented thoroughly, the need for migration as a means to reduce the income gap would be greatly reduced. In immigration matters I am a Hoppean.
Weingarten said: “Part of the answer is that people earn their wealth and poverty.”
Yes, like George W. Bush and Blind Willie Johnson.
The point of this article is important: “Increase economic choices to the poor to improve their lives.” It is also a good mind bender to traditional think-of-the-children criers. However, I think the argument was poorly laid out and poorly supported.
Why does opening borders increase their choices? I know the answer may seem obvious to you but it never hurts to cite. It doesn’t even have to be hard data, but at least point to another article that argues that point.
The last bit about micro finance doesn’t feel fully developed. Does micro finance contribute to an increasing betterment of the economic situation of those participating? “Eight weeks of working in the United States” is an increase in their income regardless of the relative proportion which it increases their income. Are the people taking advantages of micro finance not able to leverage the additional wages? If not, why?
You say the International labor standards are based on bad economics, but don’t support that statement. Again a link, or a few sentences about how their point is economically unsound is critical in exposing their position.
Really I liked the point, I just think it needs some work to really drive home the main idea.
Great. It is certainly true to developed countries but it will not work in many other countries in Latin America, Africa and East Asia. At those places if there are no constraints regarding minimum wages and child labor, we will se the rough exploration of non skilled workers and pre-adolescent children out of school due to the need to contribute to the family economy. In such places, many times the government applies so called social policies distributing small amounts of money to the poorest strata of the society that are nothing else than programs drafted for collecting votes from uneducated people. This will be seen in Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and the Caribbean in general. As to the opening of the borders to international interchange of work force it would be the total chaos in those countries as each one is not capable to provide means of subsistence to their own population and could not bear the impact of the invasion of uncountable unemployed flowing through the borders. Brazil for instance suffers of chronic unemployment in spite of the boastings of the government project to increase the number of work posts by ten million in eight years. This is an utopic and delirious assumption as in Europe the common policies are increasingly creating barriers to the immigration and the USA will never admit to be an open access country, which is against the understandable security policies necessary to protect the country from terrorism.
Apparently, not one reader seems interested in addressing “Why are rich people rich while poor people are poor?” Mpolzkill rejects the view that it has anything to do with people earning what befalls them, by noting that sometimes people merely inherit, or are hampered unfairly. So apparently the fact that some people work conscientiously, while others are slovenly has nothing to do with what befalls them. This still leaves the question as to why some become rich, while others become poor. I suppose that if two people went to a desert Island, and one prospered while the other ended in poverty, it would seem to our politically correct public that the source of the outcome was a mystery.
Antonio,
If it is a good Austrian economics it is universal. What you consider rough exploitation is not if it is a voluntary contract. I am against child labor, but sometimes the alternative is worse. I insist, the problem of the poorest in society require the neopaternalistic approach as most of the cases are the consequence broken families.
I don’t reject your view, exactly, Weingarten. If we lived under the rule of law I would agree whole-heartedly, but we don’t. I’m not against inheritance either. I am protesting the fact that W. is not doing hard labor (also, that “sometimes” for Black Americans was *every time* for 300 years or so). You think Goldman Sachs is where they are due to conscientiousness? But even with the corporatism of the U.S, I still agree with you essentially. In America it is still your own fault if you are destitute. I’m just saying it’s bad PR for free-marketers to take your position until the field truly is level. On your desert island, if only one of the two Crusoes has a loaded gun and no scruples, what would you attribute his wealth to?
“in America it is still your own fault if you are destitute”
I wanted to keep it simple, but I can’t restrain myself:
In brief, some of the reasons for the continued relative wealth of all Americans though (besides just plain inertia) are lovely things like weapons manufacturing, with its attendant wars and follow-up construction scams by firms like KBR. The nearly slave labor policies of the colluding Feds and Big Business regarding Mexican workers. Also, the trade of American paper for Arab oil and Asian toys. Latin America provides most of the drugs for America’s decadent citizens; America’s Arab puppets keep their populations down; the Chinese government basically enslaves their population for our amusement. Most of the world is a single hideous plantation, and American citizens are the fat, ignorant house slaves.
mpolzkill nailed it on the head. Wealth is a relative term; there will always be “the rich” and “the poor” because individuals differ in their productive capacity and, well, just plain luck. But in no way is this slavery without the threat of violence against otherwise peaceful freedoms, especially the freedom to move.
Antonio
You’re neglecting the fact that multinationals don’t just randomly pick countries to settle down in. They find places where the government is friendly to their cause and then use gov’s coercive powers to institute borderline slavery.
(yeah, this article really could have used citations)
In Sai Pan, workers were lured from china with the promise of good paying jobs. They were actually indentured as servants and payed a meager wage. It was so bad that people were trying to sell their kidneys to get back to china. The whole thing was busted open and taken care of to some extent. Btw, Sai Pan is actually a commonwealth of the United States.
Similar BS exists in indonesia, the philippines. Look it up. No one would work 16 hours a day with no holidays for the rest of their lives voluntarily.
It’s also funny too because most of your Latin America countries you cite have had their economies destroyed by the IMF/USAID/CIA. Look it up look it up wikipedia that sh*t. Bolivia contributes something like half of its GDP every year to pay off its debts taken out by a military dictator.
Venezuala isn’t exactly Austrian paradise but it is so much better than it was before. Literacy and health rates are through the roof. If you have to pick between an oppressive oligarchy and actual socialism, you’d pick the latter. Note that when Chavez hears capitalism, he hears multinationals privatizing his country’s water supply and jacking up the rates. This happens all over latin america because of IMF loans. Of course, this is not really capitalism but this is why Chavez opposes it; because all his experience with that word has been negative.
Back to the point though.
Open borders –> why would people flood into a country that cannot even feed them? Seems to me like people would follow the jobs and opportunities, just like they already do illegally.
Borders keep rich countries rich. A country is just a name given to a group of people. By extension, borders keep rich people rich. This is borderline racist.
Say, if americans had to compete with international laborers I think our standard of living would go down a little and everyone else’s would go up tremendously. I’m tired of seeing American truck drivers earn 6 figures.
Professor_Blitzkrieg,
Yes, that’s a lot of what I happened to be alluding to. Well put.
- – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
Thanks, DW, I think. Yes, we *are* free to move around the “house”, so long as we keep our noses to the grindstone, pay our overseer his huge take and hopefully don’t attract the attention of a DA when we break one of the over one million laws on the books.
I have been thinking a lot about this sort of flippant formulation about wage calculations that says “if the worker voluntarily accepts a work contract, however horrific, it must be a fair wage since he wouldn’t have accepted it otherwise”. While this might be technically true, it is also deeply ethically flawed. When someone leaves the conditions of his own country, which can be conditions of FAR GREATER wealth and advantage, and seeks to increase this already great relative advantage by utilizing a cheaper labor pool, this imposes obvious ethical responsibilities on this person/company, ESPECIALLY if this company uses the power of the local government to win advantages over potential local competitors for labor, and even MORE especially if the local conditions are kept artificially miserable by this same government (as is most often the case). To offer wages which steeply increase the profits of the already greatly wealthier partner in the contract, wages which allow for only a miserable existence for the wage earner (by objective human standards, and YES, there are objective human standards, however broad) is obviously rapacious and disgusting. It would be like seeing a man bleeding out on the street from a wound of unknown etiology, and offering to transport that man to the hospital, but insisting that he agree to be your personal slave for 2 years in exchange. If the man knows he will probably die if he doesn’t accept this evil bargain, he will probably accept it, and the grotesquely low standard of a “voluntary contract” will have been fulfilled. Anyone who doesn’t recoil from such an act from out of their basic humanity is a creature I cannot conceive of as belonging to the human species.
great points, it is hardly a “voluntary” contract if the option is starvation.
we can’t just talk of “freeing up” the bottom or labor end of things without “freeing up” the top end.
multinationals work collusively with governments to “set up” their workplace and ensure no competition and bigtime profits.
and there can never be free choice with monopolized land.
its interesting to note how many comments agreed to the labor end of things and rejected the free borders concept. typical royal libertarian attitude, free as long as it benefits ones own.
Isn’t that the “rich” accumulate wealth because they please thousands or millions of people (like Derek Jeter, Bill Gates, or Oprah), and the “poor” person does not please thousands or millions?
gene says:
“it is hardly a “voluntary” contract if the option is starvation.”
you can choose to starve. many brave individuals have gone hungry rather than collaborate with evil, corrupt regimes. to deny this is to besmirch the reputations of those who have put morals above hunger.
libertarians celebrate “freeing up” of all strata, not just the lower ones.
gene,
There are many conservatives around here.
gene said: “Royal libertarian”
Hadn’t heard that one before. The only place I find this term is from a Dan Sullivan. Are you a Georgist? (I guess I won’t deliberately offend you like I do Randians. A “geoist”?) You distinguish between land and capital? Can any land be privately owned?
You do know that both you and Tina are talking about ills caused by the agent most in the service of wealthy land owners, right? A real libertarian doesn’t only want liberty for one group, as “newson” indicated.
Tina, if there are no restrictions to entry into business there is no call for anyone to tell an employer how much he must pay employees. It’s the whole package that is rotten and there is no use looking at only one part.
to blitzkrieg:
i think you paint far too rosy picture of chavez’ venezuela. check out the queues for emigration from this workers’ paradise. they’re far longer than they were under previous, corrupt regimes. and this, notwithstanding a veritable bonanza from high crude prices. unemployment is massive, inflation rampant, and civil liberties curtailed (free press largely silenced).
seems socialism works even worse than crony capitalism. and everyone’s subjected to castro-length-rants on public tv by el lider maximo.
hi mpolzkill,
to be honest, i like the “royal” word for effect!
geolibs only call for rent to go from tenant to everyone rather than landlord, nothing else. government can be small or nonexistent. they [we] see it as the path of less force [there is no private property at all without force].
land is a seperate factor [can't be produced] and certainly can be privately owned.
and yes you are right, the neo con thing would be “keep the sweatshops but keep the sweaties out of here”, that isn’t a libertarian view.
oh, that is land or site rent only, not improvements.
“you can choose to starve. many brave individuals have gone hungry rather than collaborate with evil, corrupt regimes. to deny this is to besmirch the reputations of those who have put morals above hunger.” – newson.
Should that read “a duty to starve”? The slacker doesn’t want to starve nor do menial work but wants to steal the good life from someone else by force? Maybe an employer could give the dullard a third choice: a loaded gun. This will give the loser a chance to avoid menial hard labour and a slow painful death.
to gil:
menial work isn’t slave labour, unless the factory door is bolted shut, or there is some coercive means to stop workers resigning. no one starves to death because they enjoy leisure more than work.
Mpozkill acknowledges that “In America it is still your own fault if you are destitute†however, he claims that “it’s bad PR for free-marketers to take [Weingarten's] position until the field truly is level.†His position is instead to consider that on a desert island the wealthier Crusoe has exploited the other. In other words, he would call attention to wealth being stolen, rather than wealth being earned, in America today.
Now the two paths to wealth are by earning and by theft. Clearly, if we wanted to address why some are rich and others are poor, it would be necessary to include both factors, rather than argue for either of them. In “The Myth of the Robber Barrons†the author differentiates between market entrepreneurs, and political entrepreneurs. Surely, it is undeniable that earning and theft both occur. Now it is true that it is politically correct to focus upon the theft by those who become wealthy, as it justifies the wealth distribution by the government. Yet that is precisely why I chose to focus upon the existence not only of the earning of wealth by the rich, but the poverty that many of the poor bring upon themselves.
Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow Robert Rector has a new study on what the poverty advocacy complex is costing Americans tax payers. The cost goes into the trillions of dollars, and the corruption and human cost is also devastating. Thus, Over the next decade welfare, spending will amount to around $300,000 for each person currently living in poverty, or, on average, $1.2 million for a poor family of four. {That is, $30,000 per person per year, and $120,000 for a family of 4 per year.} Of course this does not mean that the poor receive most of the money, which instead is spent on the government bureaucracy.
I would add that *even the programs that are not strictly for the poor, are generally justified because of the need to help them.* As examples:
Universal education by government is justified because some people couldn’t afford it;
The housing bubble was justified so that the poor could afford owning homes;
Health care is said to be needed so as to insure that all could afford to be covered;
Portions of the social security system require that those who have less will receive proportionally more. Similarly, having a minimum wage is justified so as to aid the poor.
So my approach is to focus on our overemphasis with helping the poor (especially by the force of government) in contrast with focusing upon those wealthy who should be punished for violating the law.
Professor_Blitzkreig really stole my thunder on this one.
I’m currently in the Middle East as an expatriate, and it is quite interesting to observe the labor markets here. Saudi Arabia is growing significantly and has a lot of job opportunities that are “beneath” the Saudi people. Bahrain was in a similar situation during the boom. Therefore, there are a lot of “guest workers” here. Neither country has a minimum wage and in my time here insofar, I have not seen one beggar. I’ve been hassled to let some people wash my car, but not much more than that. Everyone is employable, and this is apparent as soon as you arrive at the airport.
Here is what victimizes people who come here to work: closed borders and passports. You cannot enter Saudi without a sponsor–even for a visit. Bahrain requires a sponsor for a visa that grants more than 28 days. Upon arrival, the sponsor requires the employee to surrender his passport.
Therefore, when the employee arrives here to work, but the nature of the work is different (think sex trade), or the sponsor do not pay what was agreed, the employee cannot just leave. Nor can he even switch employers or sponsors. He doesn’t have his passport to leave the country or return to his own.
It is the immigration law that creates the indentured sex trade. Requiring passports to enter and leave nations is nothing more than a means to control the migration of the masses and to keep them where the world governments want them. If you eliminated the passport requirement for travel and work, the slave trade would have a much more difficult time keeping its objects for sale.
Who said anything about slave labour?
@Newson
Yeah… Chavez isn’t my favorite person either. Its just there are a lot of lies spread about him in the mainstream media. This is probably because Venezuela has more unconvential oil reserves than saudi arabia has conventional. They aren’t able to produce the oil atm, but Venezuela is poised to become the new OPEC all on its own. This is why American media rides him all the time. There are many worse people in Latin America, but we’ll probably invade Venezuela when oil gets too scarce.
So I don’t like to see Chavez criticized by Austrians, because even though they are right, I think it is fueling the war-fire more than it helps demonstrate libertarian ideals.
@ Tina Brewer
Your example of the dieing man voluntarily becoming a slave assumes that there is only one person who can help him. This is unrealistic.
Even if this were possible, it would not negate the billions of people given new opportunity by being allowed to voluntarily negotiate their contract.
@ Weingarten
So let me get this straight…. what you’re saying is that poverty costs Americans a lot of money because of welfare and that is why the free market is bad.
…
You know I also have a study. I found out that Americans who don’t work 90 hours a week cause up to 2 trillion dollars of GDP to be lost.
What Austrian free market theory predicts is that over time, prices will approach zero as competition and innovation reduces production costs. Therefore, the market tends towards equality and not inequality.
Lets look at inequality in the united states. Which industries are the richest?
Car companies –> receive many many subsidies, the most of which is that gov built roads for them everywhere. This helps car sales in the same way that if you bought everyone steak, then BBQ sauce sales would go through the roof. In short, this makes things like trains non-competitive with cars, since everyone has already paid for the roads.
Microsoft –> Patent laws protect M$ from competing distributors and developers. I can sell you a copy of windoze for 3 dollars burnt on a CD. I will get nailed for it. I don’t wish to open up a discussion on IP though… there are many forums on that.
Medical Industry –> Again, patent laws… The pharm industry has the highest growth rate in American (17%/yr). It is also one of the most heavily regulated. Foreign drugs are not really allowed to compete. Nuff said.
Now, lets look at all the things the free market is able to produce at low low prices.
Triscuits
Mp3 players
Soap (really this is a big deal)
Computer Hardware
Furniture
Paper
etc
I think you can just look around your house and find things that are very very cheap compared to what they once were. These industries are relatively unprofitable, because the free market is working wonders in them. While if you really looked, I’m sure you could find some way government has intervened in each of them, there is international competition which causes these businesses to be lean and productive.
This is how the free market actually works.
If you want more companies like microsoft, or to be more like the pharm industry, restrict international trade and and stop free entry into domestic markets with overbearing regulations.
If you want more companies to be like whoever makes Triscuits (the Triscuit company?) push for open borders and deregulation.
Cheers
Hello back, gene (I caught myself before I said “Hi, gene”. How many times have you heard that one? haha) Thank you for your answers. I hope you are reading “Professor_Blitzkrieg’s” stuff. This latest one looks real good, too. I’m pressed for time right now, hope to talk to you again soon. Take care.
Let us agree with the article that freedom will build the economy, and consider its question about the rich and the poor. Given freedom, most people will become richer; the rich will become far richer, and the shiftless will become far poorer. Consequently, the disparity between the rich and the poor will greatly increase.
Professor_Blitzkrieg writes “what you’re saying is that poverty costs Americans a lot of money because of welfare and that is why the free market is bad.†Since I did not in any way attribute government spending on the ‘poor’ to the free market, his statement does not seem to relate to my position. Similarly, his statement “the market tends towards equality and not inequality†bears no relation to Austrian theory or historical experience, where with the division of labor the ratio of earnings of rich to poor, grows rapidly. It is true that with the free market rich and poor benefit by lowered prices. However, in 1776, the rich might earn $10 (per day per person) and the poor $1, for a ratio of 10. Today, the ratio can be 1,000. (Here, the analysis is purely monetary, and does not relate to what is far more important, such as the elimination of starvation, the reduction of infant mortality, the universal ownership of radios, etc.)
hi weingarten,
if you want to know why the rich get richer, take a look at the prof’s comments above you. and don’t forget to add “unsecured debt secured by the force of government” and “money creation”.
my guess and it is certainly a guess since we have never had a free market, is that the poor would get richer under a free system and the rich would get more average.
profit would work towards zero and capital, which would be widely produced and widely distributed, would go exactly where it needed to be, where there are lots of poor and hungry people waiting for work.
the concept of incorporation backed by the force of government is not a free market occurence and corporations would have to bring their “limited liability” onto a real playing field, in other words, they would have to pay for it.
i don’t think we can even imagine the changes.
to blitzkrieg:
well, not being american or living in the us, i don’t have any views on the mainstream media. i follow the latin american scene and find chavez particularly odious. his socialism has brought nothing but division and generalized poverty (the murder figures aren’t subject to as much spin).
i don’t think the us is stupid enough to contemplate invading the country, and i’ve yet to see any “oil-invasion” come anywhere near economically sensible.
gene writes: if you want to know why the rich get richer, take a look at the prof’s comments above you. and don’t forget to add “unsecured debt secured by the force of government” and “money creation”.
So he addresses the fact of theft to gainsay that under a free market the rich would increase their ratio of wealth over that of the poor.
He also makes “a guess since we have never had a free market, is that the poor would get richer under a free system and the rich would get more average.”
Surely those who labor would get richer in proportion to the freedom of the market. Conversely, those who profit from government largess and other parasitic behavior would do worse.
lol, okay
@ Weingarten
“Heritage Foundation Senior Research Fellow Robert Rector has a new study on what the poverty advocacy complex is costing Americans tax payers”
Yeah you bloody did cite how poverty is hurting us all. If there are poor people, and they get welfare from taxes, this is government spending, case closed.
“his statement “the market tends towards equality and not inequality†bears no relation to Austrian theory or historical experience”
Actually I’m pretty sure all free market theorists assert that competition reduces costs and improves productivity. As for historic precedent, I already cited a bunch of industries that follow this trend.
“where with the division of labor the ratio of earnings of rich to poor, grows rapidly. ”
Well… again this is not a free market problem. I also had like a list of examples showing how the richest echelons in America rely on government intervention to keep competition out.
Growing inequality is not the cause of market processes. There is less of a free market today than there ever was.
Austrians formulate economic laws from praxeology. Therefore, they are a priori.
What you’re trying to do is say that these laws are wrong a priori without citing evidence or reason.
This is like you claiming that water runs uphill, dismissing all laws of science and having nothing empirical to show for yourself.
Oh well.
As for the rich getting richer… the only way you can get richer in the free market is by providing goods and services to other people at reasonable costs…
So if a person has attained massive wealth in the free market, they must be actually awesome, and continue to improve everyone’s lives.
Most rich people today have no skills, no expertise, and their wealth would decay rapidly if they didn’t have government sanctions to keep them on top.
But being economically productive isn’t something limited to just rich people. Even a poor person with work ethic or a good idea could get loans to attend college or start a business.
@newson
Yeah, I hope you’re right about us not invading chavez.
The problem is that, while most wars are a net loss for America, they are a gain for a select minority.
The thing about the media in Venezuala is that chavez has zero restriction of freedom of speech, and all the media outlets are owned by the old elite (save for one government run channel).
So, chavez comes into power, takes the natural resources and political leverage away from the top 20%, and they blast him on their talk shows. They regularly asserted that Chavez was gay for Castro among other things.
The USA also had a dealio with Venezuelan elites back in the day, where Venezuelan oil would be sold at below market prices in exchange for… well noone really knows. But its not like the CIA never threatened or blackmailed anyone in that part of the world…
Anyway, that policy went away with Chavez and now Amrica pays full market price for Venezuelan oil. Bad blood ever since.
Again this is not to say I support Chavez, but an awful lot of evil people hate him, and want to get rid of him and make everything much worse.
Unfortunately, I do think America will invade Venezuela sometime. Can you think of any other reason why our media would blast him as well? There are so many other dictators in the world who have done so much worse…
We have an axe to grind
exactly, the media preps the population for the next invasion. the guy is evil, he must be taken down or “freedom” will not prevail.
Chavez simply stole what was stolen, in a sense like robinhood. he’s like the police chief who instead of the police auction of stolen goods, he decides to give everything to charity, after he sorts through it for himself!
for that he is a commie oil monger socialist.
it wouldn’t be so bad if the two sides were free market and socialist, but its pathetic that in reality its corporate socialism vs. social socialism. it’s like two house painters arguing over what type of brushes they should use to do the same lousy paintjob.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/venezuela/3184293/Venezuelas-murder-rates-surpass-Colombias-under-Hugo-Chavez.html
i’m not won over by the-enemy-of-my-enemy logic. neo-cons are monsters, but so is chavez and his socialist goons.
sure, american interests are pissed off big time because they pay top dollar for venezuelan crude, but giving heavy fuel subsidies to the cuban regime just doesn’t pass the stink test for me. likewise, provision of subsidized venezuelan heating oil to the poor of the us northeast seems like a sick joke at the expense of the venezuelans.
Yeah and his price controls on food also caused food shortages etc etc. I don’t agree with him. I don’t think he understands how stuff is supposed to work. But there is good reason to think he has the best interest of his people at heart.
Look at these other macro trends. Since chavez, GDP up, inflation down, unemployment down. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Venezuela_Economic_Indicators.png
Pointing out the murder rate being abnormally high isn’t necessarily his fault… The murder rate was on the rise before he took power. There are probably some social tensions we’re not aware of. In fact, the article you mention cites problems in colombia (particularly kidnappings), so its again possible that this could be due mainly to colombians.
I think his most important function is to be a symbol of resistance to western imperialism.
Actually I can’t see why you dislike him, you just kind of say he’s a monster. This is exactly what the media does. They have no evidence, and if they do, it’s wrong.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_representation_of_Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez
In particular look at the international media section.
One of the TV station’s right to broadcast expired and they were taken off the air. They were still free to distribute newspapers and go on the radio. Fox news reported that Chavez had shut down all media across the country in an effort to silence dissenting voices bla bla dictator.
This is why people hate chavez. Because they hear one side of the story.
In the wiki page, it also cites that while many contest Venezuelan elections, international accountability agencies have overseen and certified the validity of Venezuelan democracy. If we did that in the USA, I bet no one would be president
In Chavez’s infamous bill that would extend the maximum presidential term limit to 3 terms, western media stated that the bill would allow him to seize power for life. Just for kicks, the length of a term is only 3 years. But whatever.
What they also failed to mention was that this was a giant conglomerate of legislation for everyone to vote on, including pro-gay rights amendments and restrictions on the autonomy of their central banking system.
People have a lot of reasons to hate Chavez. I mean he has >huge< unconventional oil reserves. If they found out how to tap them he will be the new OPEC all on his own.
Comments on this entry are closed.