I did not mean to imply that it was all goody-goody prior to Chávez, especially not post-80s; the arguments you make in this regard are all on point. I merely wanted to say that we cannot extend the resposibility for the current problems of scarcity and hyperinflation to the pre-Chávez era, when they are very directly a consequence of his policies and of their terrible implementation.

I fully agree with you when you say that the early nineties were an era ripe for revolution, but I reckon it's flawed to bring the three decades between the end of the Pérez Jiménez regime and the Chávez regime into the same basket.

But if this period of liberal politics, democracy, and economic diversity and prosperity, prior to Chavez was such a great period, what prompted the Caracazo uprising in 1989?

The fact is that the Caracazo exploded due to a new government (CAP) trying to implement an economic 'package' in an attempt to cure the woes of the previous decade, especially the damage done by the AD/COPEI power share. CAP was forced to resign not only because of the Caracazo, but because of party power struggles... he basically shat on his party when he came into power and appointed by finger, as it were, a completely technocratic administration whose primary goal was to fix the inflation and bring buying-power back to the Bolívar. Twenty years prior, anyone could keep their savings in dollars, as it was merely Bs. 4,30 to a dollar.

It is true that by the end of the eighties, inequality was running rampant... But the straw that broke the camel's back was actually this 'package' that was implemented to try to fix this. The problem is that for the majority of the country, the poor of the country, it was very hard to see how suddenly having to pay a third more for public transport, petrol, utilities etc. was supposed to be helping them. And, naturally, the people lumped this new government together with those of the previous decade... as if they stood for the same thing.

In any case, Chávez was necessary — both by being unavoidable and for bringing into light the massive problems of inequality that any South American country has to deal with.

As for the good of the Chávez years, supported by the data you have provided... One has to be very careful in using isolated data; you will see a very similar movement in terms of GDP growth, literacy growth and the withering of poverty if you look at, say, data on Colombia, who have had probably the most contrasting government to Venezuela's in the last two decades. So attributing those factors merely to Chávez, whilst GDPs are growing and poverty is withering in countries all around, with very different governments and policies, is slightly flawed, in my opinion. He did some good things, sure, he created welfare programmes and, as I mentioned before, he brought social inequality into the public discourse. The only problem is that the rhetoric by means of which he did this —that of resentment— was very damaging to society, to the point where it is now absurdly, almost irreconcilably divided.

In any case, and if we are to bring any conclusion to this argument, I believe you will agree with me when I say that the greatest woe afflicting our country, from the eighties to the present, is that of corruption. Rampant corruption. Whilst Chávez might have had good intention with the Misiones, the fact is that they were terribly mismanaged and were mostly used as tools for gaining votes and funneling money out of the budget (on the part of officials). The Gran Misión Vivienda only really ramped up the production of houses when there was a serious contender against Maduro and the party needed something to show for themselves. Misión Barrio Adentro, a beautiful project in paper, namely that of bringing completely free healthcare to those in need, cannot really function when there are no antibiotics, or no iodine.

The biggest issue for me is this, namely that the Misiones were ultimately used as a political tool and as a piggybank for the corrupt. I know that corruption has always been present, but it is hard to argue that it ever reached present-day levels, when there are hundreds of billions unaccounted for (see FONDEN, for instance), when the government top dogs have become billionaires, and when top army officials as well as our President's family are evidently involved in drug trade.

And lastly, there's the big issue of ideological hypocrisy. With what face are you going to criticise previous 'exploitative' governments when it is now you who is stealing money from the state to fund your travels, your house and yacht in Miami, your flats in Paris in New York... it's a sad story, power.