The Reproduction and Crisis of Capitalism in Venezuela under Chavismo

DACHEVSKY, FERNANDO; KORNBLIHTT, JUAN

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

University of Riverside, California

Año: 2017

0094-582X

The current crisis in Venezuela is sometimes said to have been provoked by the response of imperialism and the local oligarchy to the fundamental changes in economic and political relations fostered during the administrations of Hugo Chávez. A quantitative study using various statistical sources shows that the significant increase in oil rent during the Chávez presidency did not translate into a qualitative transformation in the form of state intervention and that, although social expenditures increased in that period, most of the income that allowed this was obtained through currency overvaluation by inefficient national and foreign capital. The current crisis is, therefore, evidence of the limits of low-productivity state and private capital reproduction due to the decline in oil prices rather than of a conflict between overcoming and reproducing capitalism in an alleged ?economic war.?