keeping Venezuela prosperous (by Latin American standards)

[dovibear]

What would it take for Venezuela to not decline precipitously the way it has since the 1990s/2000s, to not have Hugo Chavez and then Nicolas Maduro in power, to more properly manage its oil revenues and so forth (I'm not saying like Norway though), and to keep its relatively high rankings in per capita income and similar indicators among Latin American countries? In short, to be a "normal" relatively advanced Latin American country along the lines of Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, etc.?

Perhaps a (somewhat) less rigid Puntofijo Pact of 1958 than iOTL, such that at least what passes for democracy in Venezuela lasts longer, perhaps until the present day?

 

[dovibear]

Any thoughts, re a somewhat less rigid Puntofijo Pact of 1958 ultimately stemming or reducing Venezuela's sharp decline from the late 1990s?

 

[Vinization]

Carlos Andrés Pérez was corrupt as hell from what I know, so Venezuela might manage the 1970s oil boom better if someone else is president during the 1974-79 period.

Having URD get the presidency at some point (they did well in the 1963 and 1968 elections, but their numbers collapsed afterwards) might help as well, if only by preventing some of the political stagnation that inevitably took hold due to the AD-COPEI duopoly.

 

[how]

Uruguay looks to have been in a poor state 20 years ago or so, from 1998 - 2003; gdp per capita halved, the unemployment rate nearly doubled and inflation doubled. Now Uruguay is the most prosperous country in South America, which is notable as it is a country whose exports are mostly agricultural, the wealth was not generated through mineral or oil extraction. The Uruguayan reforms were undertaken by a left wing political coalition who could be the template for a country like Venezuela. Venezuela needs to copy whatever worked for them with the added benefit of funding reform with the oil wealth. Perhaps Uruguay got ahead because they could not rely on a guaranteed money maker though just how recent the reforms were in my opinion suggests otherwise. It is a subject I must admit I know little about all information was gathered from glancing wikipedia.

 

[THE KINGFISH]

For a country like Venezuela to make the jump to a first world nation in the 1970s, the oil wealth should have been reinvested into infrastructure that would help the country develop a real industry - along with a robust education system that would give the Venezuelan economy skilled workers. Even though Venezuela was on paper the richest country in Latin America - the fact that it did not develop an industrial economy (or at least lay the groundwork for that to happen in the 80s when US manufacturing jobs were flowing outwards) meant that the country was bound to crash once their golden goose was no longer as valuable.

The main thing would be to start this is eliminate corruption thoroughly. That way all that valuable Venezuelan oil money isn’t wasted through greed and is reinvested into critical infrastructure/education a la Norway and South Korea. However, my knowledge on Venezuelan politics pre-Chavez is a bit spotty, so I am not sure which person would be the right man for the job. But should Venezuela be successful, they could potentially replace Mexico ITTL as America’s main cheap labor country south of the border - and become something of a “Latin Tiger” economy.

 

[El Pip]

Now Uruguay is the most prosperous country in South America, which is notable as it is a country whose exports are mostly agricultural

Uruguay is currently in the middle of a water crisis so severe they are having to mix salty estuary water with clean water just to stretch supplies. Tap water is so salty young children and pregnant women cannot safely drink it.

Skimping on vital infrastructure can make you feel richer in the short term, but it's not a long term plan.

 

[how]

Uruguay is currently in the middle of a water crisis so severe they are having to mix salty estuary water with clean water just to stretch supplies. Tap water is so salty young children and pregnant women cannot safely drink it.

Skimping on vital infrastructure can make you feel richer in the short term, but it's not a long term plan.

Looking into these issues, this has more to do with the current Uruguayan government than it does with the reforms implemented 20 years ago by a completely different party under a different political climate, Argentina has also been effected by drought recently but due to Uruguay being a small country they don't have the variety of climate that Argentina has or the ability to draw on nearby stored reserves or are choosing not to as their leadership does not want to cooperate with countries it does not politically align with, looking up Uruguayan politics right now it seems they are slipping massively into a similar style hole that the Argentines often put themselves in.

 

[Concerned Brazilian]

For a country like Venezuela to make the jump to a first world nation in the 1970s, the oil wealth should have been reinvested into infrastructure that would help the country develop a real industry - along with a robust education system that would give the Venezuelan economy skilled workers. Even though Venezuela was on paper the richest country in Latin America - the fact that it did not develop an industrial economy (or at least lay the groundwork for that to happen in the 80s when US manufacturing jobs were flowing outwards) meant that the country was bound to crash once their golden goose was no longer as valuable.

The main thing would be to start this is eliminate corruption thoroughly. That way all that valuable Venezuelan oil money isn’t wasted through greed and is reinvested into critical infrastructure/education a la Norway and South Korea. However, my knowledge on Venezuelan politics pre-Chavez is a bit spotty, so I am not sure which person would be the right man for the job. But should Venezuela be successful, they could potentially replace Mexico ITTL as America’s main cheap labor country south of the border - and become something of a “Latin Tiger” economy.

I might make a fictional politician who would do this, in my typical style.

 

[THE KINGFISH]

I might make a fictional politician who would do this, in my typical style.

If only Venezuela had their own version of Park Chung Hee or Lee Quan Yew, or hell even Deng Xiaoping if they went the leftist route.

 

[Vinization]

If only Venezuela had their own version of Park Chung Hee or Lee Quan Yew, or hell even Deng Xiaoping if they went the leftist route.

A bloodthirsty dictator? Nah.

 

[Concerned Brazilian]

A bloodthirsty dictator? Nah.

He would be a FHC-style Third Way centrist, not an authoritarian developmentalist.

 

[THE KINGFISH]

A bloodthirsty dictator? Nah.

Perhaps I should rephrase that. More like someone who can get the country up to high living standards and industrial powerhouse - preferably without being an authoritarian jackass. This is fairly plausible, as 70s Venezuela was one of Latin America’s few liberal democracies.

EDIT: Democracy or dictatorship, any developing country that wishes to become a developed one needs good infrastructure, lack of corruption, and most importantly stability.

 

[Vinization]

He would be a FHC-style Third Way centrist, not an authoritarian developmentalist.

Perhaps I should rephrase that. More like someone who can get the country up to high living standards and industrial powerhouse - preferably without being an authoritarian jackass. This is fairly plausible, as 70s Venezuela was one of Latin America’s few liberal democracies.

I see.

Going back to the main subject, I wonder how Luis Figueroa would be as president. Having skimmed through his article on Spanish wikipedia, he seems like a guy who would've invested in public education at the very least, which is always a must for any developing country. As for a POD, having him stay in AD and become their candidate (AFAIK he won the primary, but his victory was annulled under the argument he was too left-wing) should be enough.

 

[West]

No socialism and don't enrage the us.

The country has a lot of crude it's of incredibly low quality and the only country that could process that crap was the us and it was their biggest market.

Just by not wreaking the country with bad socialist policies and maintaining an alliance with the us the country would be one of the wealthiest in Latin America and the world.

 

[Dan1988]

A bloodthirsty dictator? Nah.

Plus Venezuela has had dictators throughout most of its history; the brief democratic opening resulting from Punto Fijo was a remarkable exception. Last thing it needs is yet another one.

As for the OP - problem with that is it was always going to be a economic backwater of some type despite the low-quality oil. The wealth resulting from it was very fleeting and - until the brief democratic pause - was always going to be corruptly used to prop up dictatorships of some kind (the problem with the resource curse and all that). The easiest option for just not wrecking Venezuela's oil market is basically no Yom Kippur War, because that sent the oil price fluctuating and shattered the fragility of whatever system was in place to hold the patronage networks together, but that would basically be cheating. Venezuela's problems are basically systemic and result from trying to find a shortcut to "civilization" (however vaguely defined) while keeping the old fundamentals in place from the colonial period. So it would require a pre-1900 POD; failing that, getting Venezuela back to civilian rule as quickly as possible pre-1908 (when Juan Vicente Gomez launched a coup against the dictator at the time) and then have the new civilian rule pull a Batlle on the Venezuelan people. It's going to take hard work, as it would be trying to get Venezuela's economy stable and developing without any oil money (and, more importantly, without relying on US assistance: the Monroe Doctrine might be a thing, but at this point I would make a bold assumption that keeping US influence to a minimum would be better in Venezuela's case - Ariel was being widely circulated and very popular throughout Latin America at the time as a warning against American influence - so the more that Venezuela can keep its distance from the US early on, probably the better as there are other, better, economic and political models that would approach democracy and a decent standard of living (not prosperous, but definitely not destitute) better). Having said that, it can be done.

 

[Sturm1820]

What would it take for Venezuela to not decline precipitously the way it has since the 1990s/2000s, to not have Hugo Chavez and then Nicolas Maduro in power, to more properly manage its oil revenues and so forth (I'm not saying like Norway though), and to keep its relatively high rankings in per capita income and similar indicators among Latin American countries? In short, to be a "normal" relatively advanced Latin American country along the lines of Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, Mexico, etc.?

Perhaps a (somewhat) less rigid Puntofijo Pact of 1958 than iOTL, such that at least what passes for democracy in Venezuela lasts longer, perhaps until the present day?

It depends, if you want to make Venezuela stable, the best thing would be to prevent Diógenes Escalante from going crazy and thus make the transition from Medina to Escalante and concentrating within a few years the democratization that Contreras had started. Without Escalante's madness, Betancourt does not meet with the military and they do not carry out the October coup and therefore you avoid the military dictatorship in the 50's, which although beneficial in economic terms, delayed the attempts to democratize the country. A consolidated and possibly pluralistic democracy is a good start to guarantee the stability of the country, so that more efforts could be devoted to economic diversification without having political interruptions such as coup attempts or the guerrilla. Outside of this, there should be a consensus within the political and intellectual elite that considers economic diversification a priority without abandoning the social needs of the less favored classes, this eliminates the broth for the emergence of elements that seek to alter the democratic order of the country. .