Opinion of Hugo Chavez

[opebo]

I don't actually know him that well, but it is obvious from the above comments that he's disliked by all the HPs, so he must be a FF.

[Jacobtm]

Depends on your perspective.

If you are of the lower-classes in Latin America, you'd have a better life in Venezuela than Colombia, Ecuador or Peru.

If you're of the upper-classes in Venezuela, you've probably left or are planning on it already.

Of course there will be a lot of fixing up to do once he's gone. But his land redistribution programs, if not reversed, will be a long-term boon to the campesino venezolano.

[Miles]

FF

Venzuela was one of the few (only?) countries to meet the UN Millennium Goal of halving national poverty. 

[lowtech redneck]

HP for setting Venezuela back 50 years in developing a democracy and for ruining the country's chance of being one of the first developed nations in Latin America. I don't know why some left wingers are defending him. If you want to defend a leftist Latin American leader, at least choose one that has been a positive influence on his or her country.

Pretty much this.

[politicus]

But his land redistribution programs, if not reversed, will be a long-term boon to the campesino venezolano.

Yes, but bad for nature conservation. It includes a lot of important nature areas that used to be protected by their owners. 

[Jacobtm]

But his land redistribution programs, if not reversed, will be a long-term boon to the campesino venezolano.

Yes, but bad for nature conservation. It includes a lot of important nature areas that used to be protected by their owners.  

Does Venezuela have less wild land than Denmark or the United States? I'm pretty sure nearly any Latin American country has more ''nature'' than any developed country.

We can't really tell them not to use their land to make a living when we've done just that, now can we?

A quick search of national parks reveals:

Venezuela


The United States


Denmark


Seems like Venezuela easily has a larger part of their national territory kept as natural.

[politicus]

But his land redistribution programs, if not reversed, will be a long-term boon to the campesino venezolano.

Yes, but bad for nature conservation. It includes a lot of important nature areas that used to be protected by their owners.  

Does Venezuela have less wild land than Denmark or the United States? I'm pretty sure nearly any Latin American country has more ''nature'' than any developed country.

We can't really tell them not to use their land to make a living when we've done just that, now can we?

There are different development strategies and keeping the poor peasants in the countryside and giving them small allotments of land is an oldfashioned and inefficient one. Larger agricultural units are more effective and a combination of modern farms and ecoturism would be preferable.
You need to create jobs for the poor in the cities in industry and service, not keep them on inefficient small scale farms in the countryside.

[Jacobtm]

There are different development strategies and keeping the poor peasants in the countryside and giving them small allotments of land is an oldfashioned and inefficient one. Larger agricultural units are more effective and a combination of modern farms and ecoturism would be preferable.
You need to create jobs for the poor in the cities in industry and service, not keep them on inefficient small scale farms in the countryside.

Have you ever been to Latin America?

All across the region, cities suffer the same problem. Campesinos are being kicked off their land as it's bought up by people with lots of dough. They come to the cities looking for work. They end up in slums, with no skills marketable in an urban economy.

Latin American cities certainly do NOT need any more flooding of campesinos. It does no one much good.

Certainly over time it's natural for societies to shift towards more urban living, but the pace at which it's happening all across Latin America will give anyone who's seen it first hand pause in cheering on kicking campesinos off their land.

[politicus]

There are different development strategies and keeping the poor peasants in the countryside and giving them small allotments of land is an oldfashioned and inefficient one. Larger agricultural units are more effective and a combination of modern farms and ecoturism would be preferable.
You need to create jobs for the poor in the cities in industry and service, not keep them on inefficient small scale farms in the countryside.

Have you ever been to Latin America?

All across the region, cities suffer the same problem. Campesinos are being kicked off their land as it's bought up by people with lots of dough. They come to the cities looking for work. They end up in slums, with no skills marketable in an urban economy.

Latin American cities certainly do NOT need any more flooding of campesinos. It does no one much good.

Certainly over time it's natural for societies to shift towards more urban living, but the pace at which it's happening all across Latin America will give anyone who's seen it first hand pause in cheering on kicking campesinos off their land.

Yes I have been to South America and the slums are horrible. But urbanization could be managed and new towns and neighbourhoods build if the governments wanted to focus their resources on this. With its oil revenues Venezuela has better odds of doing so than most countries.
Many industrial jobs doesn't require that much training.
But you are right that time is a problem. I just think that land reform and creating small holdings is the wrong way to go since it creates less efficient agriculture (= less export revenue) and destroys valuable nature areas. It also gives people less incentive to reduce the size of their families since children is an asset on small holdings so you get a higher population growth (which IMO is the root cause of most of the worlds current problems).

Without rapid urbanization nature areas will be destroyed all over the world. You need to get the surplus population off the land to protect it. In Latin America left wing populists are fighting this. With their enormous poverty problems I can certainly understand why they are doing it, but I still hope they fail. It is the one part of the word where Conservatives actually has a (sightly) better environmental record than left wingers.