> please, don't blame it on communism/socialism; people have interests and I believe so do people in Venezuela (sic)
This statement shows that you fundamentally don't understand the problems a socialist (or communist) economy runs into. People obviously have interests and incentives; people in Venezuela are people, just like people in the US.
But you can have an economic structure which helps align those incentives with productive work -- in a market economy, those running the oil industry are heavily incentivized to actually _produce oil_ and get paid for it.
When you have price controls and rampant shortages because of them, you can make far more money using your federal money to buy supplies and sell them on the black market, instead of fixing your oil rigs (because (1) you don't own the output and (2) the gas you sell is price controlled to ridiculously low levels).
If you have a government which turns a blind eye to rampant theft and cronyism, you're not even taking risks by doing the above -- it's practically condoned.
Russia, China, and Norway know that the government of Venezuela is just as likely to turn their kleptocratic ways on them, as soon as the going gets even tighter. The "state" oil industries in those countries are actually semi-private, and have actual financial incentives to not get screwed over.
This statement shows that you fundamentally don't understand the problems a socialist (or communist) economy runs into. People obviously have interests and incentives; people in Venezuela are people, just like people in the US.
But you can have an economic structure which helps align those incentives with productive work -- in a market economy, those running the oil industry are heavily incentivized to actually _produce oil_ and get paid for it.
When you have price controls and rampant shortages because of them, you can make far more money using your federal money to buy supplies and sell them on the black market, instead of fixing your oil rigs (because (1) you don't own the output and (2) the gas you sell is price controlled to ridiculously low levels).
If you have a government which turns a blind eye to rampant theft and cronyism, you're not even taking risks by doing the above -- it's practically condoned.
Russia, China, and Norway know that the government of Venezuela is just as likely to turn their kleptocratic ways on them, as soon as the going gets even tighter. The "state" oil industries in those countries are actually semi-private, and have actual financial incentives to not get screwed over.