A Forty Year Plan

We barely have 10 years here.  We will take it to 10 more and 10 more and 10 more to construct the new social virtues.
—Hugo Chavez as reported by Mary Anastasia O’Grady in The Wall Street Journal: “Chave’s 40-Year Plan to Conquer Vice.”  December 5, 2011.  A15.

Chavez is expressing his desire to force the same virtues that resonate within the successful communal societies I discussed in a previous post. What he doesn't understand—or more likely, what he doesn't acknowledge—is that these communal societies thrive because the virtues were voluntarily adopted by the residents of those societies (they can leave), and the religious fervor undulating throughout their congregation helps to intensify these virtues, as well as employs god to punish the vices.

A forty year plan is not necessary to Venezuela's resurgence. What is necessary is something Chavez cannot provide.