Reaction paper of Ideoligy explore in venezuela - Essay Example

Why the poverty in Venezuela? Venezuela is a country found in the northern part of South America bordering Columbia Brazil and Guyana. The country enjoys a highly beautiful Caribbean climate and all the features that make the Caribbean a darling for tourists. It sits on 912050 square kilometers and is home to about 312,196,517 people (Morley, Samuel and Carol 2). Venezuela enjoys a coveted position by many countries at the OPEC. The beautiful country has oil consisting 80% of its total exports.

Venezuela has enjoyed this position for quite a number of years, having discovered their first oil well in 1912. Given its huge oil resources Venezuela should ideally command a lot of respect internationally as a economically stable state. This however doesn’t seem to be true with the larger percentage of it’s population living below the poverty line. At the time president Chavez took over the rains around 70% of the population was below the poverty line. It was expected and hoped that this condition would change.

This however did not happen largely due to the ideologies adopted by the government. The gap between the rich and the poor is just too big considering the massive capabilities that the country has. The very thing that should generate prosperity seems to be driving the disparity. Oil should be good for any given country but when combined with corruption which is rampant in the country then the effects can be catastrophic as they are in this country. The oil industry is controlled by the rich and affluent political class.

This class is well known for the greed with which they want to line their pockets with more wealth. They rarely consider the poor. The oil industry is very labour intensive which contributes for the high unemployment rates. Another factor that fuels this state is the fact that the country for the most part is dependent on imports which has never made it easy for any economy. Add to this the fact that every citizen is always trying to enrich themselves. Hoarding of these imported goods is rampart driving inflation in the country high (Dunaway 55).

The high prices cause the government to try and rectify this and the most popular way for them is to make more money fuelling inflation. This inflation seems the poorer even poorer. One would argue that the best way to cure this would for a total overhaul the ideologies prevalent in the political class. Them being the main stakeholders in both the economy and the social level they are the ones who would drive any change in the country, ideological or otherwise. They need to work hard to ensure equitable distribution of the countries resources.

The people need to start feeling and getting a fair share of the countries resources since they do in reality belong to the nation as opposed to the chosen few. This class however is more interested in playing power games with the likes of the United States who are already self sufficient. The leadership should concentrate on development instead of concentrating on proving that they are self reliant which unfortunately they aren’t as much as they may want to believe they are (Psacharopulos 11).

If they concentrated less on proving this and more on actually making it a reality then maybe things would be different. Some people however may consider this as an ideological change that is not necessary. This type of person would actually chose to believe that these other countries are actually to blame for their problems. If one were to suggest this type of change they might actually be considered as an enemy of progress. One would think that this notion would be prevalent only among the rich political class but even among the poor the reasoning is somewhat similar.

The wellbeing of Venezuela depends on the rich as well as the poor but ultimately there sould be continues efforts towards change in the way people think.Work cited.Psacharopulos, Giōrgos. Poverty and Income Distribution in Latin America: The Story of the 1980s. Washington, DC: World Bank, 1997. Print.Morley, Samuel A, and Carola Alvarez. Poverty and Adjustment in Venezuela. Washington: Inter-American Development Bank, 1992. PrintDunaway, Wilma A. Emerging Issues in the 21st Century World-System.

Westport, Conn: Praeger, 2003. Print.