Venezuela’s wage hike amid hyperinflation reflects systemic currency devaluation and extractive economic policies, not fiscal responsibility

Venezuela’s wage hike is a symptom of a deeper crisis rooted in 40 years of neoliberal structural adjustment, U.S.

sanctions, and the collapse of its oil-rentier economy—a model replicated across the Global South but rarely interrogated by Western media. The IMF’s role in imposing austerity in the 1980s-90s created the conditions for Chávez’s rise, yet the state’s continued reliance on oil rents and extractivism ensured that structural inequalities persisted, now exacerbated by financial warfare. Indigenous and Afro-Venezuelan communities, whose economies operate on principles of reciprocity and ecological balance, are systematically excluded from these policy debates, while informal workers—disproportionately women—bear the brunt of hyperinflation. Alternative models from Vietnam (food sovereignty), Bolivia (lithium nationalization), and Cuba (communal economies) demonstrate that post-extractivist transitions are possible, but require dismantling the geopolitical and economic structures that prioritize global capital over local well-being. The path forward demands not just wage adjustments but a radical reimagining of Venezuela’s political economy, centered on reparative justice, South-South solidarity, and the restoration of sovereign financial systems.