Things Fall Apart
Sep 1, 2026 · 23 min · 9 segments
Episode 21 | When Nicolás Maduro inherited Venezuela, the country was already dangerously fragile. Then came empty shelves, blackouts, spiraling inflation, rampant violent crime. This is the story…
Sep 1, 2026 · 23 min · 9 segments
Episode 21 | When Nicolás Maduro inherited Venezuela, the country was already dangerously fragile. Then came empty shelves, blackouts, spiraling inflation, rampant violent crime. This is the story…
Crime was only part of the collapse, though.
The shelves were emptying, the lights were going out, money was losing its value.
And less than one year after Malito came to power, the country Hugo Chavez left behind was beginning to fall apart.
Maluto didn't inherit a healthy economy that was suddenly destroyed by falling oil prices.
But he didn't inherit a fully formed catastrophe either.
He inherited a trap.
During the oil boom, Chavez had created an economy that appeared much stronger than what it really was.
Record oil revenues allowed the government to spend enormous sums of money, expand social programs, subsidize consumption, and import almost anything that Venezuela failed to produce.
For a time, the results were felt.
Poverty fell.
Millions of Venezuelans who had once felt excluded from the country's oil wealth gained access to food, education, healthcare, and consumer goods.
He had built a system that required oil prices to remain extraordinarily high, forever.
His government expropriated farms, supermarkets, food processors, and other productive companies.
They were handed to administrators chosen for their political loyalty rather than their competence.
Production declined, but the oil bonanza disguised the damage.
By the end of the Chavez years, the country imported roughly 70% of what it was consuming.
The government then sold many imported goods at heavily subsidized prices.
Venezuelans paid only a fraction of their true cost, while the state absorbed the difference.
But this was abundance on borrowed time.
Price controls created another illusion.
The government could decree that food was cheap, but it couldn't decree that producing it was inexpensive.
When the official price of milk, flour, or eggs fell below the cost of producing and transporting them, companies faced a simple choice.
Sell at a loss, reduce production, or leave the market entirely.
Crime was only part of the collapse, though.
The shelves were emptying, the lights were going out, money was losing its value.
And less than one year after Malito came to power, the country Hugo Chavez left behind was beginning to fall apart.
Maluto didn't inherit a healthy economy that was suddenly destroyed by falling oil prices.
But he didn't inherit a fully formed catastrophe either.
He inherited a trap.
During the oil boom, Chavez had created an economy that appeared much stronger than what it really was.
Record oil revenues allowed the government to spend enormous sums of money, expand social programs, subsidize consumption, and import almost anything that Venezuela failed to produce.
For a time, the results were felt.
Poverty fell.
Millions of Venezuelans who had once felt excluded from the country's oil wealth gained access to food, education, healthcare, and consumer goods.
He had built a system that required oil prices to remain extraordinarily high, forever.
His government expropriated farms, supermarkets, food processors, and other productive companies.
They were handed to administrators chosen for their political loyalty rather than their competence.
Production declined, but the oil bonanza disguised the damage.
By the end of the Chavez years, the country imported roughly 70% of what it was consuming.
The government then sold many imported goods at heavily subsidized prices.
Venezuelans paid only a fraction of their true cost, while the state absorbed the difference.
But this was abundance on borrowed time.
Price controls created another illusion.
The government could decree that food was cheap, but it couldn't decree that producing it was inexpensive.
When the official price of milk, flour, or eggs fell below the cost of producing and transporting them, companies faced a simple choice.
Sell at a loss, reduce production, or leave the market entirely.
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