Turning Yesteryear's Bullshit into No-Joke Reality, a Communist Achievement

For years, chavismo fed the old canard about poor people being forced to eat dog food before the revolution came. It was a lie...until they made it true.

Original art by @modográfico

The news is out, y qué arrecho: Venezuelans are eating dog food!

Well, to be precise, we’re now eating some type of sausage made of chicken cartilage, skin, bone and feathers. Needless to say, this flavor bomb is not apt for human consumption.

The reason people do it, though, fits in a tweet: procuring the cheapest 2000 daily calories for a single person (eating nothing but yuca) costs more than twice the minimum wage. If you want to get all fancy and eat some protein and fat, you are left with very few options.

The idea of eating Perrarina has always been anti-economical vis-a-vis the cost of alternatives apt for human consumption. So how is it that the old story about “en la cuarta se comía Perrarina” became so prevalent? Well, those who went ahead and did the research couldn’t find any evidence at all of people doing it back in the day.

So, knowing this, allow me to rant: the idea of large numbers of Venezuelans eating dog food was nothing but a mal mojón, a filthy lie invented by chavismo to feed their communist narrative with misplaced indignation about our –definitely imperfect– past. Filthy lies and false narratives that communists abroad have been happy to reproduce, as long as it helps protect their petrodollar patrons.

But above all, it was a filthy lie that only they were able to turn into a reality.

Maldito comunismo…

José Ramón Morales Arilla

I work in development economics for countries with governments that want to deal with (some of) their issues. I think I'm a fiscally-responsible progressive. I've thought a bit about the Political Economy of oil in Venezuela, and I worry about the politics of the things that need to happen. I think Rómulo Betancourt, Adolfo Suárez and George Washington were exemplary politicians. What I miss the most about Venezuela: My family, my friends, my weather, my food, my band, and teaching in my university.