Iran faced the same drop in oil prices and its sanctions are , if anything, even stricter then Venezuela's and yet they didn't (and don't) have people digging through garbage dumpsters for food. Also Venezuela raised tariffs through the roof a considerable time before the sanctions hit.
Supplying Cuba and others with near free Oil didn't help.
I know that. I'm saying that needs to be changed and then the POD is easily met. How to do it specifically would need to be answered by someone well versed in Venezuelan history and I'm not that person but it's not an impossible task.Most of the Americas give citizenship by birth in the country.
Bring in people and not allowing them citizenship create a subclass with no stake in society and who tend to get deported when the money runs out.
More than 30 other countries recognize birthright citizenship — here's the full list
Unlike what President Trump said, the US is not the only country in the world that recognizes birthright citizenship, though it is in the minority.www.businessinsider.com
It could help, yes - though I'd suggest doing it much sooner than the 1970s. Oil as a fixture of the Venezuelan economy dates back to the early 20th century, and was further consolidated under Juan Vicente Gómez who freely gave out contracts in exchange for a huge amount of corruption to line his pockets, eventually evolving into the classic magical state. Compare that with Argentina, which around the same time under Mosconi created YPF, which did pretty well for itself throughout much of the 20th century. If Gómez is completely removed from the picture and democracy takes root in Venezuela (along with a better non-oil economy from the get-go), the development of Venezuela's oil industry (including the domestic refining capacity) would have taken a different course, either through an YPF-like direction (let's call it YPFV) or a compromise towards an ARAMCO-like direction, but with a stronger presence of the state through YPFV or something else. But to make it work so that the resource curse could be avoided, I would think the ideal solution would be to delay the development of the oil economy as much as possible and focus on building up its industrial capacity first. I hate to call it "pulling a Meiji" because it carries all sorts of connotations that don't really work outside of Japan, but maybe something similar could work in this case - and take advantage of the prevailing progressive mood in the US at that time. Then, once the Depression hits, at least Venezuela would have some sort of cushion that could also be used to help out other Latin American countries as their traditional European clients erect major tariff barriers.
Venezuela's problems aren't as simple as "capitalism vs socialism". Nationalization of the country's oil industry started under a US-friendly "capitalist" administration; as George Mason University associate professor Jo-Marie Burt puts it, "Venezuela has long been dependant on oil revenues, and the Bolivarian revolution of Hugo Chavez did not fundamentally alter that situation."
There is a difference between largely dependent on oil revenue and literally having people digging through garbage for food. There are a lot of countries out there that are largely dependent on oi revenue and yet didn't have their entire economy collapse to the point people were digging through garbage to find something to eat.
That's not the point. The point that's being made there is that Venezuela has always had this problem ever since the discovery of oil. What was originally rural poverty became urban poverty once cities like Caracas began to grow and Gómez (later Pérez Jiménez) moved the oil industry towards directions favorable to him. It's not a matter of ascribing simple explanations to things until you dig deeper into what's really going on. The structural problems leading to that could have been addressed at the earliest possible opportunity in the early 20th century if Gómez's regime is avoided at all costs, while taking advantage of the prevailing moods of the era. Tackle the problems with the agricultural sector and build up Venezuela's industrial capacity first, then handle the oil issue separately and responsibly. That would significantly reduce a good portion of the problems associated with poverty in Venezuela, and in tandem with modernizing the state à la Uruguay and Costa Rica.
Dependency on oil exports was not the problem. A lot of other countries are one product exporters. The problem is overspending and failure to build up reserves when the prices of oil go down.
LOL. Buying tons of raw materials and components abroad (using oil money), and then paying people (mostly imported serfs) to process them locally (using oil money) and then selling the results at loss (subsidised with oil money) is not ‘heading towards being diversified’.
Well, since you compared Venezuela to Iran upthread...
Source: USA Today
Source: Hortidaily
Agreed.
While most of what we know about the cushion and all that is largely very modern and all that, I could possibly see something like that occur in the 1920s and 1930s (particularly as far as the Depression is concerned), but it would have to be a wholistic process that takes into account the entire economy (at least if we date the changes, as I do in my suggestions here, to avoiding Juan Vicente Gómez and prolonging Cipriano Castro for a bit). Granted, it would be much more modest and would be nothing like we would expect now - it's impossible for someone in the early 20th century to think that far ahead into the future - but basic elements of it, under democratic oversight, could be put down very early as part of a responsible framework for managing oil. It would certainly avoid the corruption involved with the early oil contracts that Gómez encouraged, including bribes and kickbacks to get things moving and enriching his régime (sound familiar?).
Not to this extent, Venezuela was the richest country in Latin America with a poverty rate around 20%, it is now 90%
Buying raw materials abroad, manufacturing products and exporting them is not anything new. Nor is "dumping" exports when you are starting out. I said they were beginning to diversify, not that they were diversified.
I would argue even up to this extent. The difference pre-oil was that most of the poverty was rural and had been part of Venezuelan life for a really long time. When cities like Caracas started growing, alongside Gómez's regime and the beginnings of the oil industry, the poverty was transferred to the cities as well - hence the barrios and all the shacks that you see surrounding cities like Caracas. It's always been there, but either hidden, or unknown, or (however you describe it) manageable. Hence my thinking that the sooner it gets resolved pre-oil, the better off Venezuela would be when engaging with oil. One cannot look at the present and very recent past (much of it being something more suited for Chat) without looking deep into Venezuela's history and its place within Latin America overall.
I would dispute the whole "richest country in Latin America" bit, but that's me. The presence of abundant oil wealth alone did not make Venezuela rich, just like how the presence of abundant copper reserves did not make Chile rich (although it helped). It only served as a mask for hiding what was actually happening, although it did provide a temporary base for democracy to flourish. What I think would best fit the AHC is to make the economic and political roots of Venezuela much deeper than OTL so that it's not as dependent on the oil and the benefits of prosperity would reach even more people than OTL. Now, I'm neither Venezuelan nor am I an expert of Venezuelan history, but I know a little of Cipriano Castro and positivism in Latin America, and figured those two together would be a better option. I'm constrained here because the furthest back I can go in this section is 1900, so I have to make do with what I have. To me, focusing solely on the last two decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century just doesn't work because it's not fixing the core problems with the model. Even if the 1973 oil crisis is avoided or severely mitigated, that's only still kicking the can down the road until it's too late - in which case you'd still have a similar situation as now, only this time instead of (INSERT CHAT REDIRECT HERE) you have a government by patronage that has abused the system. That's why I see the early 20th century as the best option for fixing that so Venezuela would truly be one of the richest countries of Latin America, instead of only fleetingly. What cannot be done is making it an equal of Saudi Arabia. Saudi is its own thing, a product of certain conditions that really only work for Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf states. Venezuela could never reach the heights of Saudi Arabia, even if it wanted to (for one thing, geography would work against it); what it can do is better manage everything else through a comparatively more gradual route, which is much more achievable.
I was about to say, having somebody other than CAP prevail in 1974 - maybe Fernandez defeats him straight up, or Burelli Rivas makes another go at it, or Betancourt makes a comeback, there’s a variety of options - would be a big butterfly, perhaps allowing Caldera’s philosophy to take root instead
Neither food nor medicine is subject to Venezuela Sanctions. They can sell oil to buy as much food as they want. They chose not to.
