“Venezuela shows that socialism always fails” is perhaps one of the most common and least interesting reactions to the collapse of that country into economic and political chaos.

Without doubt, radical leftism accompanied by massive state intervention in the economy has a terrible record in Latin America, and indeed elsewhere — though whether that constitutes the entirety of “socialism”, given the prevalence of successful centre-left, self-styled socialist parties in western Europe, is highly tendentious.

More interesting is whether progressive redistributive governments can ever succeed in poor countries marked by deep inequality. This particularly applies to those rich in minerals and hence vulnerable to the “resource curse” that unbalances their economies and poisons their politics.