Writing for RealClearWorld, John Dale Grover argues that Venezuela needs humanitarian aid, not an invasion aimed at toppling the Maduro “socialist dictatorship.” He’s certainly correct that the U.S. has shown no particular skill in standing up replacement governments with any staying power.
Grover’s Rx of sending humanitarian aid is likely, however, to end up propping up the corrupt and counterproductive Maduro regime. It has unquestionably been popular with Venezuela’s poor, who have been the main beneficiaries of its redistributionist policies.
I’d argue that what individual Venezuelans need and what their country needs are not only different but essentially opposite things. Individual Venezuelans need food, medicine, clean water, and hope. Venezuela the country needs to confront the essentially unworkable nature of socialism, and it isn’t clear enough of its people yet accept that bitter truth.
Giving Venezuela aid now is like giving heroin addicts methadone, it keeps them going but doesn’t diminish their dependency. Venezuela’s Chavistas need to confront the failure of socialism to improve their lives. To understand that it fails because it is based on a wildly optimistic assessment of human altruism that is unsubstantiated in real life.
Until the poor of Venezuela give up on socialism’s handouts and get on with earning a living by the sweat of their brow, the successors of Chavez will continue to have a hold on them and their country. Helping that happen shouldn’t be U.S. policy.
