Episode 59 - SOCIALISM REFUTED in France, and the Caracazo in Venezuela

Coming up, we'll talk about the history of the situation in Venezuela, and see how it has a lot in common with the Yellow Vest riots in France.  That's right now on today's Hot Zone.

 

Hi folks!  Hope you are having a great week.  If you haven't seen Episode 57: my interview with our iraqi interpreter and humvee driver Mahamad, you definitely should make time to see it.

 

Thanks so much to all of you who are supporting this podcast.  It was a slow start, but now we have new subscribers joining every day over at Patreon.com/hotzone, and we're seeing encouraging growth across all our platforms.  Very shortly we'll be live on Opslens.com and their new app which should be online this week.  

 

Okay, the Yellow Vest Movement marched again in France over the weekend, with more than 50,000 people taking part in marches across that country.  There wasn't as much violence this time - only a couple dozen arrests were made - but the grassroots movement shows no signs of going away, and they continue to call for the resignation of French President Emmanuel Macron.  

 

Just as a refresher:  the protests started over 15 weeks ago in November with some of the most violent riots seen in France in years.  And if you are confused as to what exactly the yellow vests stand for - that's understandable, because there are elements of both the far right and the far left in the group.  Basically it's become a catchall for anyone who is dissatisfied with any aspect of life in France.  Some say taxes are too high, others say they need more taxes (on the rich only of course).  Some are calling for social changes, or an increase in the minimum wage.  Others are just there to take advantage of the chaos and pillage and burn.  

 

It all started over a hike in the tax on diesel fuel.  You probably know that gas prices in Europe are already far higher than the US - upwards of seven bucks a gallon in most places.  But diesel has normally been cheaper in France.  Well, Macron's firm commitment to the environmental accords agreed to in Paris back in 2015 led him to hike the tax on diesel in 2018 with another hike planned the first of this year.  

 

People who live outside the cities and blue collar workers were disproportionately affected by the hikes, since they tend to drive more.  And there was no end in sight for the increases, since France has committed under the Paris accords to ban gas and diesel vehicles completely by 2040.  Well the taxpayers got fed up, and fifteen weeks later, here we are.  

 

There have been over 1800 casualties and fifteen deaths attributed to the protests, and at the peak nearly 300,000 people were taking to the streets.  Macron has made many concessions, like lifting the new gas taxes, a freeze on electric utility prices, an increase in the minimum wage, etcetera.  But his approval rating is still about 25 percent.  By comparison, Trump's approval rating is usually somewhere in the 40's.  

 

Part of the reason for this is that many people in France are unhappy with the flood of migrants, many of whom end up sleeping on the streets, and the increasing crime in the cities.  I made a frontlines episode about this a couple years ago.

 

[Frontlines Paris]

 

If you are looking for a lesson in all this, I think there are several things Americans can take away from the yellow vest movement.  

 

1. People don't like tax increases for anything, especially something as conjectural as climate change. 
2. Anytime government promises people something it will eventually come to be considered a right.  Violence will come if that benefit ever goes away.
3. The idea of taxing people out of doing something that is central to their livelihood (like driving) is pretty dangerous.
4. Socialism is progressive like a cancer is progressive.  France already in the top 25 countries in the world with the highest standard of living - that means like 88 percent of the nations on earth people are worse off than france.  But people are burning the country down demanding BETTER wages, SHORTER work hours, and CHEAPER prices.  And those things are all sort of self-contradictory.  In order to even try to deliver on these demands, France would have to substantially increase taxes - but only on the wealthy.  And France already taxes it's citizens north of 45%.  The wealthy have been fleeing France for years over the heavy tax burden.  So socialism consumes wealth and industry and still cannot ever fully deliver on its promises to the common man.

 

Now, let's pivot to Venezuela, which is kind of the case in point for how democratic socialism ends up.  People there are way past the "tax the rich" stage and to the "eat our pets" stage.  Over the last week, we've talked a lot about the mayhem, poverty, and despair in Venezuela today.  More than three million people have fled the country, and many more will follow if the current regime does not fall. 

 

See, thirty years ago TODAY, the streets of Caracas were on fire.  People were looting and burning the city in protest of - take a guess - an increase in the price of fuel.  It came to be called the Caracazo.  Some say more than 2000 people died as the government came in and repressed the protests with a heavy hand.  

 

Now this was before Venezuela fully embraced Socialism.  They were leaning left, no doubt, and politicians liked to do what all politicians like to do...try to buy the votes of the poor by "redistributing" wealth from the rich.  But their champaign tastes didn't fit with their beer budget, and the government had borrowed heavily to pay for all it's promised "entitlements." to the people.

 

In late 1988, when the new president, Carlos Andres Perez proposed moving things toward fiscal responsibility by removing subsidies on  fuel, the effect was a 30% increase in the cost of transportation.  And people took to the streets in protest. 

 

Now I've never understood what people think they gain by burning down their own neighborhoods.  But that's kind of how the mob mentality works.  Once people get infected by the mob, their actions cease to make sense.   And rarely does any good come from it.  In Venezuela's case, the government ended up suspending the constitution, violently suppressing the riots with extrajudicial killings, torture, disappearances, and more.  One of the soldiers carrying out these orders was a previously unknown Venezuelan Military Colonel named Hugo Chavez.  In the political instability that followed, Chavez and his henchmen began planning a coup, but was found out and put in jail.  He was later pardoned by President Perez' successor, and was then elected president himself in 2002.  Chavez's campaign platform went like this: 

 

• free healthcare for all - including pets
• free college
• social justice reform
• forced compliance with environmental reform
• land expropriation and wealth redistribution to the poor

 

Sound familiar?  Seriously, sometimes I think Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez are plagiarizing speeches Hugo Chavez gave in 2001.  Nevertheless, Thus began a twenty-year decline into the socialist pit.  And untold suffering by millions of people.  

 

Now I've done my best here to simplify a complex and thorny issue, and to be fair, corruption in government plays a significant part in the decline and fall of Venezuela, as it has with many other countries.  But now you know a little more of the story of how Venezuela got to where it is today - and what France could very well be looking like tomorrow.  

 

Okay, that's all I've got for today folks.  Thanks for going with us on this adventure.  If you have suggestions or other feedback, put them down below in the comments section. 

 

I'm Chuck Holton and I'll see you back here tomorrow, on the Hot Zone.