Politics and wealth

Photo: EFE By Alexis Alzuru Zohran Mamdani and the Democrats who have promoted the so-called "affordability" agenda force us to reflect on Venezuela. Not because that proposal should become a doctrine to follow, but because it unearths an ancestral consensus: when wealth captures political power, democracy begins to disappear and transforms into oligarchy. Opposition figures and dissident Chavistas built powerful economic alliances while publicizing the impossibility of agreeing on a way out for Nicolás Maduro. Leaders, businessmen, and intermediaries from these blocs participated in cross-cutting financial networks, while arguing that their ethical, ideological, and partisan differences prevented them from agreeing on a project for the transition. The investigations that have been carried out on this type of network do not point to the existence of a single shared patrimonial network, nor do they authorize turning every contact into a corrupt partnership. However, they demonstrate something different: the wall that separated Maduro-era Chavismo from the opposition was pierced by leaders, businessmen, bankers, lawyers, intermediaries, and lobbyists. This, in turn, produced the transformation of political access into economic value. Politics failed to reach an agreement, money did not The historical trail goes back a long way. In 1975, P. Duno sounded a first alarm with his text: The Twelve Apostles. Later, J. C. Rey, H. Sonntag, and M. Caballero, among others, described the progressive subordination of political elites to economic ones and, moreover, warned of the imminent collapse of a development model that was dependent on the State. The truth is that until the mid-nineties one could speak of the subordination of political power to economic power. The businessman financed, while the other obeyed and opened the doors of the State. Then something truly different happened: the leader wanted to take the businessman's place. From then on, the politician ceased to be merely a scribe for the economic elites and aspired to become a partner, consultant, facilitator, manager, or a key node in a business and financial network. That transformation is what allows us to reinterpret the last three decades: politics progressively became a link in a gear capable of producing, maximizing, and protecting personal and group wealth. Certainly, not every relationship between politics and business was a corrupt dance. However, political access began to function as a factor in the production of private wealth. That transition completed the metamorphosis of politics that had begun earlier: the parties and their decisions became personalized. The programmatic dissolved into hoaxes, the ideological into prejudices, and economic business came to occupy the place that political agreement once held. It was no coincidence that office, party, information, and the ability to open doors came to have economic value. Perhaps that shift has greater explanatory power than other conjectures about the opposition's failure. After all, while its leaders renounced political consensus, they were forging financial alliances with Chavistas and Maduro supporters. This is hardly surprising, because when financial resources are at stake, political allies, precisely, become very dangerous partners. Not because they think differently, but because they are the ones who can occupy the space, control the relationship, and administer the capital that another network needs to survive. The power that demands obedience A pact to expel Maduro never required businessmen and politicians to live in isolated universes. Nor did it require leaders to punish themselves for having economic ambitions. It required something more elemental: that politics and the production of private wealth not become the same activity, since it is that distinction that makes it possible for politics to prioritize the collective interest over the appetites of the groups competing for the State's rent. Consensus becomes impossible when politics is transformed into infrastructure for producing the wealth of certain economic groups. The most complete and emblematic representation of that principle occurred when the U.S. captured Maduro. That fact demonstrated that the objective of that leadership that suspended politics had to be carried out by another government: a foreign power that not only demands obedience and submission from that leadership that turned its back on politics, but also demands time to extract the country's riches. Is it not the case, then, that part of Venezuela's prostration is explained by the fact that politics was converted into infrastructure for producing and protecting private profit, while the parties and leaders emptied themselves of all ideological and programmatic content? *** The opinions expressed in this section are the sole responsibility of their authors. From the same author: It's politics, not obedience