(And, please, don't blame it on communism/socialism; people have interests and I believe so do people in Venezuela - including those working in the government.)
It's not that they don't know how to produce oil. It's that the oil company has been so heavily mismanaged and used for political purposes that it has become extremely inefficient.
http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21607824-venezuelas-l...
> IN 2003 Venezuela’s then president, Hugo Chávez, fired more than 18,000 employees, almost half the workforce, of the state-run oil corporation, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). Their offence was to have taken part in a strike (pictured) called in protest at the politicisation of the company. Their punishment was to be barred from jobs not only in PDVSA itself but also in any company doing business with the oil firm. The axe fell heavily on managers and technicians: around 80% of the staff at Intevep, PDVSA’s research arm, are thought to have joined the strike. At the stroke of a pen, Venezuela lost its oil intelligentsia.
Obviously, this wouldn't have happened in a free market. But even other state-run oil companies haven't made this kind of blunder.
… Communism!
If Venezuela has an incompetent authoritarian rule, but had a free market for oil companies and didn't harass the employees of oil companies? Then they'd still be drilling with a state-of-the-art technology & workforce today.
my point is its the incompetence and authoritarianism that caused the problems.
> my point is its the incompetence and authoritarianism that caused the problems
A lot of people believe there's a causal road from Communist governing philosophies to incompetent authoritarianism (though you're right, it certainly wouldn't be the only way to get there).
All of those other systems I've mentioned also have high functioning, efficient, non-corrupt versions of them as well. Look at Singapore for an example of a high competence, low corruption form of Authoritarian government.
So I'll just say it one more time. Communism is orthogonal to competence/corruption of government. The fact that so many people implicitly believe they're linked is evidence of the century long propaganda campaign against anything socialist that has been waged by the powers-that-be in the capitalist system.
I can't readily think of an example of a high functioning authoritarian Communism, but maybe there's one out there like those other forms... but I'm not sure counterexamples would go very far anyway.
I maybe said "cause" earlier, but I'm thinking "cause" in the sense that smoking causes lung cancer. You can smoke and not get cancer, and you can get cancer without smoking, but we still say they're causally related.
> The fact that so many people implicitly believe they're linked is evidence of the century long propaganda campaign
Eh, I dunno. Mostly the smart people I know who have studied economics and 20th century history seem to think there's a strong relationship, and they can provide plausible theories to explain why Communism would be particularly prone to these sorts of disasters.
Namely feedback systems... in democracies, when things go horribly wrong, the officials tend to lose power. In capitalism, when there's horrible mismanagement, those responsible tend to lose most of their capital, reducing their influence in turn. They might not always lose proportionate to the damage they caused, but the feedback is comparatively sharper than under authoritarian communism.
There are some other bits about the theory of prices as an information system, but I think feedback systems are the main issue.
Maybe those people that I think are smart are really part of a global disinformation campaign, but it seems pretty unlikely. And if all my friends are loading me up with propaganda, I'm probably screwed anyway.
Also, quoting from The Economist is one sided considering their position regarding Venezuela during and after Chavez.
You see, media is biased and I don't want to trust them, no matter how "respectable" they are. (eg. NYT in the eve of 2003 Iraq invasion)
I'd like to hear from people who live there (or from less biased reporters) about causes for this situation in which an oil rich country must import oil from its major adversary, in which the whole society dissolves.
EDIT: User nnq asks the same questions as I do.
Why would Chavez do such a thing? I suspect (OK, guess) that when you have a theory that you are so committed to that anything that doesn't conform is regarded as enemy propaganda, it becomes amazingly easy to do really stupid things. (Note that this does not depend on what the theory is; any theory, disconnected from any counter-evidence, is prone to this.)
If anyone is curious what The Economist's "bias" against Chavez looks like, here's a good article: http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573106-appeal-populi...
This statement shows that you fundamentally don't understand the problems a socialist (or communist) economy runs into. People obviously have interests and incentives; people in Venezuela are people, just like people in the US.
But you can have an economic structure which helps align those incentives with productive work -- in a market economy, those running the oil industry are heavily incentivized to actually _produce oil_ and get paid for it.
When you have price controls and rampant shortages because of them, you can make far more money using your federal money to buy supplies and sell them on the black market, instead of fixing your oil rigs (because (1) you don't own the output and (2) the gas you sell is price controlled to ridiculously low levels).
If you have a government which turns a blind eye to rampant theft and cronyism, you're not even taking risks by doing the above -- it's practically condoned.
Russia, China, and Norway know that the government of Venezuela is just as likely to turn their kleptocratic ways on them, as soon as the going gets even tighter. The "state" oil industries in those countries are actually semi-private, and have actual financial incentives to not get screwed over.
I suspect the US has a strong interest in Venezuela not going belly-up and is selling oil just for cash, perhaps turning the wheels on Maduro a bit by having your "enemy" take care of you in a time of need. I imagine Maduro is getting a good price as well. Suddenly all that Socialist talk doesn't make sense when your once wealthy country is dirt poor and the "evil" capitalist neighbor is the guy getting you out of trouble. We don't need anything political or strategic from them, but China and Russia certainly do. Venezuela would be in no position negotiate with these powers and history has shown them how getting into bed with Russia in the Americas tends to end badly.
I imagine more civilized and less expansionist countries like Norway want none of the hot mess that is Venezuela and have no problems finding buyers of their oil. It would also be incredibly controversial to Norwegians who believe in human rights and Norway, being a democracy, would bow to the pressure of its people. I don't know why you think Norway would automatically approve such a sale. Just because both countries are 'not the USA' doesn't mean they are bosom buddies or somesuch.