A good piece in the Financial Times points out that the gap between Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s rhetoric and achievements is becoming visibly wide, as his well intentioned social programs are failing despite their healthy budgets.  Lesson of the day:  not even 21st century socialism can work very well if the private sector is rendered ineffectual due to constant interventions by the state.  Somewhere in the Venezuelan experience, we can see a trend common to most authoritarian capitalist models, whereby the damage incurred on the independence of the judiciary in the consolidation of power causes corruption to soar and accountability to plummet, which obviously hampers the domestic programs of the administration.  Hopefully Russia, whose president Dmitry Medvedev just left Caracas for Havana this morning, is taking note.

Mr Chávez’s renowned “missions”, or social programmes, have been extremely popular among the poor but there are increasing signs that many are suffering from neglect, poor management, corruption and politicisation. Most disappointing have been attempts to encourage co-operatives, with little to show for over $1bn spent on grants.