Did Chávez Help the Poor?

[Zorro]

In a recent opinion piece, Venezuelan-American author Eva Golinger proclaimed the late Hugo Chávez was “a maker of dreams.” Chávez, she says, dreamt of eradicating poverty, and made those dreams come true. Much of what has been written—including by people critical of his legacy—repeats the same conclusion: Chávez improved the lives of the poor.

Sadly, this is not entirely true. While nobody can deny Hugo Chávez gave poor people money, goods and social services, some would argue he didn’t make their lives better. In several ways, the poor are worse off than they were in 1999, when Chávez took office. An honest assessment of Chávez’s legacy should take this into account.

When people talk about how Hugo Chávez helped the poor, they point to three basic things. The first is that the Chávez years saw a decrease in the percentage of people living below the poverty line. The second is that he gave them increased and improved social services. And finally, people claim he “empowered them” by caring for them and elevating their self-esteem. All of this may be true, but it is not enough to support a claim that he improved the lives of the poor.

Thanks to an unprecedented influx of petro-dollars, the disposable income of poor families rose significantly in the latter portion of the Chávez era. However, the poor now have less access to quality jobs. Close to half of Venezuelans of working age labor in the informal economy. While public payrolls have increased to roughly 2.5 million people, the consensus is that this is clearly unsustainable. The number of private employers has decreased by about a third, according to government statistics.

http://americasquarterly.org/did-chavez-help-poor

[polly7]

1. Yes. nt.

[The Wielding Truth]

2. YES. In our country, too.

[ocpagu]

3. Yep.

He did.

[dipsydoodle]

4. Yes.

The article conveniently misses out improved literacy.

[polly7]

5. Which, imo, is the greatest thing a gov't can do for its people.

Not only for the obvious reasons, but he wanted everyone involved in his vision and gave them the tools they'd need to participate.

[djean111]

6. Yes.

Odd, the effort being expended to try and tamp down any praise for Chavez.
Is it because he was more of an actual socialist and did achieve some good for the poor?
Not like the job situation is really being focused on here - here, the poor and elderly are being looked at as ways to increase profits and cut subsidies.

[sabrina 1]

8. He did a terrible thing. He proved that socialism works and the Global Capitalists

have spent so much time and money and wars and support for dictators, to try to hide that fact and to demonize helping people with no ulterior profit motive for them, that they viewed him as a serious threat to all the 'work' they did for so long.

You only have to look at who OUR allies are. The Dictatorship in Bahrain, the Saudi Dictators, The Uzbekistan Dictator. Pinochet, and until the people threw them out, Mubarak of Egypt, Ben Ali of Tunisia, Uribe in Colombia. The list is long and our history of support for Right Wing Dictators continues.

Yet there is no mention in our outstanding media of any of these horrific, cruel dictators while millions is spent trying, though failing thankfully, to demonize someone who actually DID what we as a nation claim to support.

We are run by Corporations, most of them crooked and anti-everything we are supposed to stand for. So Chavez stood up to them and dared to say that the profits from a country's resources should benefit the people. What a frightening thought, especially when he put it into action, that must have been for the greedy, corrupt, cartels who had free reign over Venezuela's resources until then. He cut into their profits, made them share the wealth.

What I don't understand is how any Democrat could oppose his stand against the neocon/liberal policies that have virtually destroyed countries. That makes no sense at all.

[djean111]

9. Most Democrats in power ain't what Democrats used to be. That's how, that's why.

[sabrina 1]

7. Yes, and he even helped the poor in this country. Shamefully our own government

does little for the poor. I know someone who received Chavez's cheap oil when she was going through some difficult times. She is very grateful but wonders why some foreign 'dictator' had to help her rather than our own 'democratic' government. I couldn't answer that question for her.

[Judi Lynn]

10. That's what the voters seem to think. n/t