Venezuela’s Descent: Least Safe Country in the World, by Julie Ray.

Venezuela’s score on Gallup’s Law and Order Index — its annual global gauge of how secure people feel — continued to follow the country’s descent into chaos in 2016. The country’s index score of 42 out of 100 was the lowest in the world last year.

Ten years earlier, in 2007: Venezuelans Tend to Prefer Socialism Over Capitalism, by Particia Guadalupe.

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez this week announced Venezuelans will be limited on the amount of luxury goods they can import, citing his countrymen’s consumption of foreign whiskey as an example of consumerism’s ill effects on society. …

Chavez’s efforts at curbing consumption of high-end items are just one example of what he calls “21 st-century socialism,” a populist brand of governance based more on socialist principles than on capitalist ones. Since his re-election last year, Chavez has also worked toward nationalizing key industries, establishing worker-led business firms, and changing Venezuela’s constitution and education system. A Gallup Poll conducted at the time of Chavez’s re-election reveals Venezuelans tend to perceive socialism more positively than capitalism on key issues affecting day-to-day life, governance, and economics.

On many issues affecting day-to-day life, Venezuelans are nearly twice as likely to associate socialism with positive outcomes, as they are to associate them with capitalism. When Gallup asked respondents whether “more freedom to think the way one wants” better describes socialism or capitalism, 43% say socialism, compared with 26% who say capitalism.

Venezuelans share similar views about under which system there is more peace and social calm (44% for socialism vs. 23% for capitalism), and under which system there is less crime (42% for socialism vs. 22% for capitalism).

Have they learned? Are others paying attention? Our lefty friends of course ascribe it to bad luck, that socialism wasn’t done right (when was it?). Now they studiously avoid the topic of Venezuela.

A bunch of left-wing Australians publicly extolled Chavez and his economics, and invited him here in 2007. The ABC’s Philip Adams, one of those left wingers, still gets a major spot on government media in Australia.

hat-tip Adrian