Oil wealth advice: Don’t be a democracy if you can help it

Venezuela and Saudi Arabia have the biggest oil reserves in the world and about the same population. But one country is rich and one is poor. Why?

A Venezuelan anti-government protest in February 2014. Protests have heated up again recently in the face of food shortages.Photo courtesy of Nelson Dordelly-Rosales

Opinion

BY GWYNNE DYER

June 29, 2016

LONDON, U.K.—On June 20, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans began the time-consuming process of validating their signatures on a petition demanding a recall referendum on the elected president, Nicolas Maduro. Food riots are breaking out all over the country, and the capital, Caracas, has the hi...

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