Historical trends as revolutionary achievements

Chavista deputy Aristóbulo Istúriz was heard today mouthing off about how Venezuela’s income distribution, the less unequal in Latin America, is a revolutionary achievement, only possible thanks to...

Chavista deputy Aristóbulo Istúriz was heard today mouthing off about how Venezuela’s income distribution, the less unequal in Latin America, is a revolutionary achievement, only possible thanks to Hugo Chávez’s leadership.

Two things about this:

a) It’s probably true that Venezuela has the continent’s least unequal income distribution.

b) It’s pretty much been this way since the mid 80s.

I think the graph speaks for itself. In case it doesn’t, here is a breakdown: the Gini coefficient measures income inequality. The lower the coefficient, the less unequal a society is.

Venezuela has been at or near the bottom of the pack when compared to other large Latin American economies for the last 25 years or so. This has a lot to do with two things: oil, and poor distributional policies in other countries.

Why, notice that in 1993, the apex of neoliberal Venezuela, the Gini coefficient reached quasi-Finnish levels!

If we wanted to fall into this debate with Istúriz, we could point out to him that Chávez’s Venezuela is more unequal than CAP’s.

That’s assuming it’s even worth debating these stooges.

HT: Indexmundi.com