The old resource curse. Oil drives out investment in anything else, and when oil drops you are fubar
Better title would have been, Oil's Economic Miracle. A follow-up written today would then be titled, Miracle to Curse: How The Oil Crash Crashed Venezuela.
I really would like to hear what would these people say now.
I bet in: "When the facts change, I change my mind. Don't you, sir?"
Or they'll say what's happening in Venezuela is due to some American scheme to take down their government (like some have ridiculously claimed about Brazil).
The life of Latin American wannabe dictators is so easy. When things go wrong, just blame the imperialists.
On the other hand, the last 150-ish years of US policy in Latin America.
Did you saw that weird thing, saying that CIA was responsible for Mandela's arrest? These people' creativity has no end....
If we don't pretend that macCarthysm is still the main US doctrine against LatAm, would you say the same? Venezuela, together with Brasil, Argentina and other lá countries, are in a atruggle of years with their National bourgeois financed by US elite.
What is a "bourgeois"?
It's a Marxist term for "anyone who has sense enough not to be a Marxist".