Monday, February 25, 2008
Venezuela will halt exports of foods such as milk and meat unless domestic demand is met first
Venezuela will halt exports of foods such as milk and meat unless domestic demand is met first, the government said today, as leftist president Hugo Chavez struggles with shortages of staple products. Venezuelan shoppers have for months faced shortages of basics such as milk and chicken, a problem the government blames on growing demand and hoarding but business leaders say stems from price controls that do not keep pace with high inflation.
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Why they didn't do this years ago I don't know. Now they're behind the curve instead of ahead of it -- and they've paid too much of a political price for this needless oversight. Same with the housing issue. In any case they should simply ignore all the usual capitalist arguments being advanced by the very people who are the cause of this problem in the first place. Only political fools -- or fifth columnist saboteurs -- would tie themselves in any way to this class of people.
ReplyDeleteThe job of a socialist revolution is to take care of the people first. That's all of it. If the market gets skewed for a while -- so be it: it's not the job of a socialist government to make profits for self-promoting, selfish people. The job of a socialist government is to develop society by socialist means -- which will always be superior to capitalist planning, if they can get past the endless sabotage and ignorance. If small producers really are hurting -- help them out, financially, by all means. What's the issue there? Not that all production shouldn't already be in the process of moving to co-operative farming and agricultural processing, or government-created agricultural enterprises.
The bottom line is that agricuture in Venezuela must serve the needs of the local people first. This has to be a iron law. And if capitalist producers are allowed to openly or covertly thwart even this, what authority, or even legitimacy, does this 'revolutionary' government have?
No resources should be leaving Venezuela for other markets if the need for them can be even foreseen inside the country first. 'Profits' be damned. Capitalist 'logic' be damned to Hell.