Under Venezuela's five year old exchange control regime there is a Commission for the Administration of Foreign Currency, (known as CADIVI for its Spanish acronym), whose bureaucrats decide who can and who can't buy foreign currency at the official exchange rate.

CADIVI yesterday announced it has temporarily suspended almost 48 thousand people from its electronic system, which means this people can no longer buy foreign currencies at the official exchange rates and will be forced to go to the parallel exchange market.

What crime did these 48,000 people committed?

None. At least no crime that CADIVI can prove. In Venezuela when the state deals with foreign exchange issues, you are guilty until you prove you're innocent, contrary to centuries long established legal tradition.

When a Venezuelan citizen buys foreign currency, which is assigned to him or her by CADIVI, this person is required to prove he used the money in the proper way, i.e., in the way prescribed by the state.

Even if you concede, for the sake of argument, the expediency of the exchange control, the procedure should be the other way around. The state should prove beyond reasonable doubt that the person committed a crime with the foreign currency he bought before being forbidden to buy any more.

But what are legal traditions for revolutionaries? Nothing, since every socialist revolution has only one principle: the end justifies the means, and in this case the end is to have absolute control over the flow of capitals and avoid that uncomfortable tendency of the people to protect their savings with foreign currency, when their own national money is being mercilessly debased.

 Venezuela, Politics, Economics