The Outstater

July 25, 2024

Beware of ‘Trustworthy Guys’

I DON’T OFTEN draw parallels between Venezuela and Indiana but when I do they keep me up at night. 

Venezuelan President Nicolas Madura is attracting U.S. investors by fashioning himself as  “pro-business,” reports the Wall Street JournalThis is a Marxist who oversaw the economic collapse of his nation and the exodus of a quarter of its citizenry.

“Your investment is welcome in Venezuela,” he now says in his best Chamber of Commerce voice,  “We can work together toward a different U.S-Venezuela relationship. We guarantee stability, legal security, peace, win-win relations.”

Madura, who is expected to rig his reelection this week, is cutting deals with individual U.S. businessmen offering special government consideration and protection. “I’m a man of my word, a trustworthy guy,” he pronounced.

In this way Madura’s new strategy is the same as that of the Indiana Economic Development Commission (IEDC) — that is, to use the favors of government to reward select businesses. 

Does it matter than in neither case the society in general benefits, the profits going elsewhere while the public debt increases? Not at all. Amoral international corporations want those “win-win” deals that only government can ensure. But if Madura has discovered the benefits of capitalist enterprise why doesn’t he extend it to his country at large? 

Well, you wouldn’t need a dictator then, would you?

Here in Indiana, if tax breaks, rebates and sweetheart bonding help big corporations why not offer them to every Indiana business? Is it because the “trustworthy guys” who run the IEDC think like tinhorn dictators, that they and not participants in a free market know best?

The economist Friedrich Hayek said that fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion. That sounds about right. — tcl
 

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REGARDING THINGS that don’t work, consider these recent news items:

— Jade Jackson in the July 18 Indy Star

— John Mozena in the July 18 Reason Magazine



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