Carlos Bellorin ( @CarBellorin), Venezuela's "reforms require a broad redesign of the state's legal and institutional framework."
"In Venezuela, the idea of what society and state should be...has been built with tales of hand-picked historical facts which have been manipulated by short-term populist policies and it's at the center of a social imaginarium...cast into unmovable beliefs that see us a rich country, blessed with natural resources, and as a país potencia."
It's really hard to question these assumptions due to the fact that society has absorbed them and made them part of its identity. Whoever tries to do so, may lose political capital, which would make their government unviable. That's why leaders opt to take the easier road: feed the myths with populist measures that strengthen their charisma and get them more support.
But in Venezuela, that has only been possible during sustained periods of high oil prices. Because these old beliefs assume that oil revenues are infinite and inexhaustible when they only conceal the most basic feature of oil markets: volatility, that every boom will end in a bust and that every bust will end in a boom. Continuously, cyclically, forever.
The unfortunate coincidence of many factors took us to the unimaginable and cruel situation that Venezuelans are going through today. In order to survive it, society will have to abandon long-standing dogmas.
Read the whole piece on Caracas Chronicles here: Without Fear, Beyond Reproach: the Reform of the Hydrocarbons Sector | Caracas Chronicles
https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2020/05/05/without-fear-beyond-reproach-the-reform-of-the-hydrocarbons-sector/
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