Government-ordered price cuts spawn desperation shopping in Venezuela

[Zorro]

The appliance salesman nervously eyed the chaotic scene outside his door.

An unruly line of shoving and jostling shoppers was waiting to enter the store in a Caracas shopping district, where prices had been cut in half — by government decree — on refrigerators, washers, stoves and TVs. Fights broke out as customers tried to force their way to the head of the line.

"I'm afraid they are going to attack the store. There's a lot of aggression, because they think we are hiding products in the warehouse," said the salesman, Rafael Garcia. "People are desperate because they have been in line for five hours, but we're only letting five people in at a time."

Desperation shopping has been common in Venezuela in recent days, since President Nicolas Maduro's move to force shop owners to cut prices on appliances and electronics. Maduro, the handpicked heir to the late leftist leader Hugo Chavez, has become increasingly aggressive — heavy-handed, say many economists — as he struggles to shore up a sinking economy.

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-venezuela-chaos-20131116,0,4565607.story

[Igel]

1. Some may have been desperation.

A lot of it was people desperate for something they wanted but didn't need.

I intend to be desperately buying a new TV in the next few weeks. The old one broke a while back and, well, you don't know poverty and penury unless you've been TV-less. Food versus TV? May as well ask which is more important, food or water, shelter or clothing. Puerh tea or oxygen. The latest iPhone or Android or medicine for a sick baby.

In this kind of system you can only pay government benefits out of another's wallet for so long. Then you have true equality--well, except for the politicians and enforcers, who turn out to be about as numerous as the "parasites" were but at least ideologically pure. "Kto kogo?", the old Russian question--"In capitalism, man oppresses man, but under Socialism it's entirely different, man oppresses man."