Alejandro Velasco

They distributed it in the context of building an educational system that eventually became a real envy of many parts of Latin America.

Social services that were also increasing in terms of its capacity as well as its efficiency.

Building new cities that were meant to extract other resources like steel in the southern part of Venezuela.

And building infrastructure beyond just the major cities to try to link up the country.

And so there was a palpable sense of progress, but not quickly enough to satisfy everyone.

And that is key to understand the balance between dictatorship and democracy in Venezuela.

Patience.

Which is to say, one of the things that the boom and bust cycles of oil generates is, in moments of bust, the breach between those who have and those who have not accentuates and extends and grows.

But then that means that when the next boom period comes, you have a choice to make, whoever is in power.

You can either try to close that gap, and you have the wherewithal to do so with petrodollars coming from abroad.

but you don't know how much time you have in power, right?

And so the question for you is, do you spend conservatively to try to slowly but concertedly close this gap, or do you spend lavishly what you have coming in in order to try to be able to secure and close that gap very quickly and then get the political benefits of having done so, especially in a democratic regime?

The problem, of course, is that in a dictatorship, you don't have to worry about what the population thinks.

You're just a dictator.

You can do whatever you want.

In a democracy, you have to worry about the ballot box.

And so your time horizon for results is much shorter.

Therefore, the incentive, if, for instance, you're in a period of boom, to spend all the money that you're getting right away, and in fact, more even,

than you're getting right away is much greater.

But of course, then that ties you to the whims of the international oil market.