An oil cursed country deserves more than "get-rid-of-these-to-have-these-instead”

Sir, in Venezuela in an article I quoted extensively from Tom Burgis’ “Nigeria unravelled” February 14. And I ended with the following:

Friend, compatriot, reading about Nigeria, is seeing our own country. Accept that it is impossible to compete with oil, and so if we don’t do something drastic about it, we are doomed to live from oil, with all the economic and political degenerations that implies.

What shall we do? As you know I have for more than a decade, and before I was censored by the new owners of El Universal, published over 100 articles suggesting that at least to get rid of the political and social curse of oil, we should hand over directly to the citizens their share of the net oil proceeds.

But perhaps what we should do, is simply to destroy 80 percent of our oil extracting ability, so to allow for a nation of free and not subjugated citizens; and whose future would depend on their own personal abilities, and not on the occurrences of their ever always new-rich Chiefs.

Unfortunately, at present, in Venezuela, we lack a plan different from the "get-rid-of-these-to-have-these-instead”

http://theoilcurse.blogspot.com