Policy choices turned an oil-rich democracy into a petrostate, then into an authoritarian economy where repression followed redistribution.

President Trump has accepted the Nobel Peace Prize that was awarded to Venezuela’s opposition leader, María Corina Machado. Unlike Machado, however, he does not accept the central lessons that can be gleaned from five decades of Venezuelan misrule. There are three.

Lesson 1: Past prosperity is no guarantee of future prosperity.Lesson 1: Past prosperity is no guarantee of future prosperity.

Lesson 2: Policy matters.Lesson 2: Policy matters.

Lesson 3: Economic and Personal Freedom are Deeply Intertwined.Lesson 3: Economic and Personal Freedom are Deeply Intertwined.

What now?What now?

As the Cato Institute’s Marcos Falcone recently explained, one Venezuelan who seems to have internalized these lessons is María Corina Machado. As a decades-long leader of the opposition, she has consistently championed both personal and economic liberty. She traces much of the country’s corruption, mismanagement, and stagnation to its 1976 nationalization of the oil industry.

...read morte at thedailyeconomy.org