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It was a transformation that was achieved in record time. What could not be
obtained in agricultural-exporting Venezuela, was achieved in sixty years with oil-
exporting Venezuela. However, the country did not go through this process
unscathed, contrary to all social and economic law: society became dependent on
the State and, the latter, on oil revenues.
The State, as the sole recipient of oil revenues, has become the center of national
life. Both the economy and society depend on it and this has made them
susceptible to strong instability: prosperity in times of high prices —especially in
periods of war in the Middle East— and deep restrictions during times of low
prices, unable to opt for other measures than external debt, the adjustment of the
price of the national currency and the reduction of public spending, for example. All
these measures, it is worth noting, come from the State because it has not been
possible to improve the productivity of the few non-oil economic activities or labor.
The national culture has been recreated around oil activity. The image that the
population has of the State is due to the power that capturing the oil income gives
them; the perception of a rich country derives from the national oil reserves; The
idea of the country exploited by the empire, had its origin in the animosity that the
intellectual and political class of the 40s, professed to the foreign oil companies;
the national frustration of not doing anything other than exporting oil is due to the
fact that in the face of such a powerful activity —among other factors, economic
diversification has been impossible and, finally, clientelism, vivacity and corruption
are evils that morally afflict the society derived from the political management of oil
revenues.
Meanwhile, a crucial fact stands out: oil became the second factor that has favored
social cohesion in the country, in other words, the formation of an idea of nation. In
this particular, all united around a wealth of common property that must be made
the most of and of which, all must receive a portion