Things were made worse by a lack of social mobility because of 'crony' capitalism in which politicians and business interests colluded to keep out new entrants to any market. This is a restriction on freedom that favors those who are already in business and politics, but it acts against the common good as everyone else suffers to some degree as opportunity for enterprise is diminished, the overall generation of wealth goes down, prices go up and the choice is reduced. This affects most the poor -  who are at the level of simply seeking the basics of life. And there are more poor because those businesses not involved in the collusion suffer and their opportunity to employ people and pay higher wages is reduced.

Second, this great envy was stoked up by those seeking to manipulate things for their own political ends. A charismatic populist Hugo Chavez was skilled at this. Chavez himself was from a poor background who had risen through the army ranks. From a different social background to the upper classes he did not mix easily with them and was resentful of them. He attracted the votes of the poor with the promise of socialist policies that gave them handouts. He was voted in originally because  not only the poor, but also quite a proportion of the middle and upper classes voted for him. Many of them felt uneasy too about the disparity of wealth and, mistakenly, thought that it was the government's role to sort it out by a misguided form of the redistribution of wealth.

Chavez, from what I can tell, fulfilled some, at least of, his promises, and these policies although they do ameliorate want in the short term, cause more in the long term. The short term fix is always more obvious than the cause of the long term problems that follow. The response to the problems that his policies created was not to reverse them, but to double down on them and seek more short term fixes.

The result of this is more of the same. Price fixing, for example, whether by direct intervention or subsidization (which Chavez was able to do because of oil revenue) does not sidestep the laws of supply and demand. Whatever short term effects there might be for the good, there will be consequences on supply. To use a simple example,  if prices are fixed low, suppliers can't get enough return on investment to make it worth while and so they cease to trade. By all accounts, the policies of Chavez and his successor after he died, Maduro, have been particularly clumsy and inept, even by the standards of socialist economics.

As things got worse, the government started to seize businesses and farms (motivated also by personal greed and moral corruption in some cases) because they won't set the prices etc they want. This exacerbates the problems further because all confidence in private property goes and the motivation to invest disappears. Investors not involved in the collusion, and especially foreign investors start to pull out. This contributed, for example, to the lack of fresh milk: people had stopped farming because farms were being expropriated and so farmers just got out of the business and tried to sell their farms if they could.

Here is another example of how misguided the government was in regard to both economics and enforcing the rule of just law: at one point people started looting televisions and high-end electrical appliances. The response of President Maduro, Chavez's successor and the President for the last two years, was to say that this was justified because the prices of these goods were too high and businesses should supply them at affordable prices. The result was, as anyone else could have predicted, an increase of looting. And the consequence of this was that businesses, some of which were household names that had been in existence for generations, went bust within a week. Now these items are even scarcer. The well being of a society does not depend on its capacity to deliver affordable flat screen TVs of course, but this example of how the economy is run shows us why they cannot deliver basic foodstuffs either.

As frustration increased, people started to protest. The government suppressed the protests with force, freedom was restricted even further. The population was intimidated into silence by gangs of government inspired vigilantes exercising random violence outside the rule of law and ignored by the police and army. Those who oppose the government are imprisoned or just disappear. If they are lucky to reappear later they do so bearing the marks and pain of torture. The result is an oppressive, centrally organized society that cannot deliver basic human material requirements and stifles the human spirit.

                The solution?

The story of Venezuela tells me that the Faith and Catholic social teaching are the greatest safeguards against totalitarianism, poverty and the greatest catalysts for the flourishing of a society (part of which is prosperity in the usual sense of the word - material wealth). What  is always needed is a continual transformation of society by which its people, as baptized Christians are personally transformed in Christ (for more information on this read Jean Corbon's the Wellspring of Worship, or the opening chapter of my book, the Little Oratory).

It is baptized Christians, the people who are part of the transfigured mystical body of Christ, the Church, who partake of the divine nature who will create the culture of beauty and love by which society as a whole is influenced and which is necessary for a free and prosperous society.

A culture that emphasizes the great responsibility of wealth and love for fellow man will reduce the vulnerability of manipulation by demagogues such as Chavez. It is also the one that is most likely to introduce or preserve in a stable way the free economy described as the ideal by John Paul II in Centesimus annus.

I am not saying that only a Catholic society can have the features that allow for a culture of beauty or of prosperity. Rather that to the degree that a society conforms to those ideals of Catholic social teaching, it is free and will prosper, in accordance with God's will. Similarly, it is quite possible for a non-Catholic country to be more prosperous than a Catholic one, which may even have a high level of faith but not the economic policies in place that reflect fully Catholic social teaching. Another point in this regard, Catholic social teaching is an ideal that will promote the flourishing of the society and the people in it as people. This provides all those elements that human person needs to flourish including, but not restricted to the necessary economic prosperity.

Back to solutions: beyond consideration of the evangelization of the culture, what is needed from leaders is an awareness of Catholic social teaching and how it is applied to economics and political institutions, as well as a population that supports and at some general level recognises that this is the route to a true prosperity. While education can have an effect, and all ways of changing things for the good should be followed, the greatest chance of this happening on a large scale is first an evangelization of the culture and of society so that more of its people are interested in looking at Catholic social teaching. I do not imagine for a moment that you are ever going to have huge numbers of people studying Church encyclicals on Catholic social teaching. But it is not unreasonable to hope for a level of understanding that matches the level of awareness and acceptance that the population has now of the flawed Marxist and atheist/materialist assumptions about man, society and economics. These ideas are prevalent in the intelligentsia across the Western world in much of the general population, most of whom would not think of themselves as Marxist. Many would even see themselves as believing Catholics, capitalists and conservatives yet they are not aware of the contradiction in the beliefs that they hold. The way in which these ideas were spread primarily is through an aggressive attack on the culture. Modern Western culture propagates these ideas at every level. We must now do the same and pushback culturally.

There are few great misconceptions to overcome: but these can be replaced with truth, in just the way that the false ideas were transmitted.

One is the exaggerated conception of the power of the government to solve problems. So many people who care about the plight of the poor have ingrained in them - as I once did - the idea that if you care for the poor you must automatically support socialism and centralized economies because this is the only answer. Another assumption is that in a free market economy, those who succeed do so at the expense of the those who do not. So the very presence of any inequality of wealth is seen as evidence that exploitation is going on - people are poor because others are rich. At the root of this is an assumption that the basic economic transaction in which a good or service is exchanged for money for profit is intrinsically exploitative. That the profit is a transfer of wealth from the person who buys to the person who sells.

These are profoundly false assumptions. It is true that all of these things can happen when freedom is compromised in market transactions, but they are not intrinsic to the free economy. The best way of lifting the poor out of poverty is to create the conditions in which more people can create wealth, including the poor.

How do we transform society?

That society, I suggest, will be created first by us. We look to ourselves first so that we become the people who are transformed in Christ and show him to others by our actions and interactions. Only God's grace can do this for us, and it is by prayer, or more precisely, by worship of God that we encounter Christ in such a way that it can happen. When we can be one of those people, then people will be drawn to the Church through us and join us. To the degree that anyone is participating in the divine nature and showing people the transfigured Christ in their daily lives, he is someone who, by grace, will relate to others in properly ordered love. This is what attracts to the faith, and in the sphere of economics this is how the principle of superabundance is invoked that creates prosperity for society.

Benedict XVI describes this ideal for personal interactions in economic activity in his encyclical, Caritas in veritate. It is a network of such personal interactions that in aggregate form a free society and the free economy described by John Paul II in Centesimus annus.

Benedict describes how Christians are transformed in Christ in this life by degrees and by grace - transfigured and participating in the divine nature - through a personal encounter with God in the Eucharist. To the degree that human relationships are driven by concern for the other person, they are in accordance with the Trinitarian dynamic of love that is the model for the loving component of personal relationships. When this Love is present it is always superabundant. Love is superabundant  - fruitfulness without measure - because of the generosity of God who can give beyond all limitations and creates out of nothing. It is by this principle that wealth is generated in properly ordered economic transactions.

Though we may not think of it as such, the ordinary exchange of goods for money that we are daily engaged in does not redistribute wealth, it creates wealth. By this simple exchange both parties have something they value more than before and so wealth has been created (otherwise they would not both choose to make the exchange). There is a caveat. This is true provided that there is personal freedom (understood not simply as lack of constraint, but also full knowledge of the practicable best).

One of the beauties of the free market is that if I am dealing with someone in such a transaction who is genuinely free to choose whether or not he trades with me, then even if I am driven by selfish ends I am forced to consider his needs and what is good from his point of view. If I don't then the chances are that he will choose not to trade with me because he is free not to do so. So provided that freedom is present, even the selfish like me are forced to some degree at least into loving action. Even in this minimal form of love there is superabundance. In practice, rarely is someone wholly driven by selfish interests, just as rarely is someone wholly loving in action and thought. Superabundance is maximized to the degree that both parties are genuinely interested in the well being of the other as they engage in the transaction. This is when all the aspects for which a price cannot be paid - at a simple level a genuine care and attention, for example are given freely too. To the degree that the loving component grows then people relate to each other so that the other flourishes. When the conditions exist that allow for this to happen, people will naturally seek out others who interact in this way and the complexion of the economy gradually changes. Economic prosperity is maximized to the extent that the activity that creates it is in harmony with a flourishing of the society of human persons. When people are transformed in Christ, then they are more naturally inclined to consider the other in what they do and go beyond the simple contractual elements of trade, and create an economy that is rooted in a love which goes beyond the minimum requirement of justice.

One might refer to this as a covanental economy, one that is ordered to mutual giving, rather than one that is purely contractual and relies on the alignment of self-interest alone.

John Paul II pointed out in Centesimus annus that the market is the most efficient and best way to distribute goods for which a price can be paid. He then stated that this also defines the limitations of the market, it cannot distribute those things for which a price cannot be paid which are also vital in life and the flourishing of the human person. Benedict in Caritas in Veritate connects the two much more directly in each economic transaction and says that unless those aspects for which money is not paid are present there too, he calls this additional element one of gratuitousness - then there is no superabundance. In fact he goes on to say that gratuitousness must be present if wealth is to be created.

When freedom is lacking - as it would be even in an otherwise free society in the case of an addict buying illegal drugs for example, the result is not the superabundant creation of wealth, but an enforced redistribution of wealth that favors one party more than the other inequitably. The party that gains is not just taking advantage of the other person in the exchange, but is parasitical upon society as a whole , drawing from it, rather than contributing to it; one only needs to look at a neighborhood in which drug dealing is rife to see the effects. Similarly, government taxation directed towards paying for activities that go beyond the natural role of government (which  should be limited to the regulating for and protecting personal freedom) are also acts against the common good that go against freedom, are contrary to what a government's role should be and will have the stultifying effects on society as whole that we see in Venezuela today and saw in the Eastern bloc countries of the past so markedly.

                How is the person transformed?

Benedict describes how the personal transformation, by which a person is capable and inclined to interact lovingly with his neighbors, will occur. It is through prayer: a liturgically centered piety (his was the model for our book on prayer, the Little Oratory). As I mentioned, not all prosperous societies are Catholic societies (whatever we mean by that) and not all Catholic societies are prosperous. But it is to the degree that any earthly city and its people participate in those ideals of the City of God, Catholic or not, that it is prosperous and stable.

It is the beauty of the culture, and especially the culture of Faith that will inspire Christians to pray well, and non-believers to pray at all. This is important. So when, for example, we see even our cathedrals, which should be the absolute pinnacle of beauty in architecture that have no greater beauty than a public mall or lavatory, it matters. Consider the cathedral that the locals in San Francisco call 'Our Lady of Maytag' due to is similarity to a washing machine component, see below: this ugliness is not just a matter for precious aesthetes to whinge about. Whatever forms our worship forms our culture and whatever forms our culture shapes the whole society. Our cathedrals influence profoundly the pattern of worship in a whole diocese, for good or ill. If these are ugly and bear the forms of an aggressively anti-Christian, secular culture, we gain no respect from our foes for ourselves and it tells them nothing of the beauty that worship ought to be. Rather, it tells them that we are giving up the fight and adopting their values and is actively promoting them.