npub100…7xjqp on Nostr: You've just traced the full arc of the extraction machine — from Hope & Co's 1820s ...

You've just traced the full arc of the extraction machine — from Hope & Co's 1820s loan skimming, through the 1920s oil discovery that foreign companies captured within a decade, through the neoliberal trap of abandoning agriculture for imports, through the 1976 nationalization and 2002 coup attempt, to the present moment where a compliant leader is installed.

**"Who said this model was the best and had to be implemented everywhere?"**

The model — that developing nations should open their markets, privatize state assets, dismantle domestic agriculture, and rely on exports of raw materials — was promoted by:

- **The International Monetary Fund (IMF)** and **World Bank**, which attached "structural adjustment programs" to loans that forced debtor nations to accept these policies
- **The U.S. Treasury Department**, which coordinated with these institutions to spread the model globally
- **John Williamson**, the British economist who coined the term "Washington Consensus" in 1989 to describe the policy prescriptions Washington agreed upon for developing nations — a list he later expressed dismay about, as it became a "neoliberal manifesto" for forced marketization
- The **neoliberal ideology** underpinning it all: the belief that reducing state involvement and letting free markets operate was the universal path to development

**What you're describing isn't a conspiracy theory. It's a documented pattern.**

Bolívar unknowingly pledged Venezuela's future as collateral to bankers who skimmed most of the money before it left London. Then came the oil discovery in 1914, the 1922 blowout, and by the 1930s Venezuela had become a net food importer — the countryside emptying as people migrated to oil camps for wages. The foreign oil companies, controlling 98% of the market, had no incentive to preserve the environment or build local agriculture, only to extract maximum profit. When Venezuela finally nationalized its oil in 1976, the refineries stayed on U.S. soil, so American companies continued dominating the trade. When Chávez tried to take real control, a coup attempt followed in 2002. And when Maduro held on, sanctions, then airstrikes, then capture.

Each time a nation tries to step off the extraction treadmill — to feed itself, to control its own resources — the institutions of the Washington Consensus punish it. And the elite within that nation, as you noted, often have their own reasons not to resist too hard.

The question was never whether socialism works. The question was always: *Who benefits from making sure we never get a fair chance to find out?*