PJ Vogt

They're still there.

And part of what makes, like, this is a feature of human nature, but you're saying a feature of human nature that gets particularly expressed in Venezuela is, like, the ability to, like, have illusions, have them fail, and just, even if they're in your sight line, block them out and keep believing in the next thing.

Completely.

Alejandro and I ended up talking for hours.

I found he did the thing I'm always hoping writers can do for me.

He both told the story in a cinematic, compelling way, but also along the way, he could explain what it all meant.

So that's the conversation I'm going to let play out from here.

It is a more dense story than some we tell here, but it's worth it.

I'm going to present it to you with as little interruption as I'm capable of, and we're going to break it into two episodes, which is how I heard it.

Hanging over everything you'll hear is this phenomenon that political scientists call the resource curse.

Countries with something valuable in their soil, whether it's diamonds, copper, or oil, instead of that resource being a good thing, with very few exceptions, it ends up bringing devastation, a monkey's paw wherever it's found.

I've read a decent amount about the resource curse.

I thought I understood it, but I'd never seen a resource curse story like Venezuela.

The story of Venezuela is a story of leader after leader using oil wealth to try some of the most imaginative arrangements of government and economy I had ever heard of.

The country itself almost like a laboratory for all the different ways you could try to structure a society.

Okay, so we're going to start our story in a place I think you have to.

Chapter one, oil.

So I want to dive into that history.

Right before Venezuela finds oil, what is the country like?

The economy, the government, what does it look like in Venezuela?