By Miguel Ernesto Salazar – Aug 24, 2026
“and the sea, the sea,
suspended aroma,
sound salt choir,
meanwhile,
we men
by the water,
fighting and waiting,
by the sea, waiting.
The waves tell the mainland:
Everything will be fulfilled”.
— Pablo Neruda, Ode to hope
“The people, and the people alone, are the driving force that makes world history.”
– Mao Tse-Tung, Selected Works, Vol. III.
The narrative of “recovery” and immediate prosperity that Washington and its spokespeople have deployed regarding Venezuela is not a mere public relations whim. Following the escalation of aggression and foreign intervention in the country, an attempt is being made to promote the idea of inevitable prosperity stemming from the unrestricted opening of national resources. However, the most complex phenomenon lies not in the arrogance of the emissaries from the North, but in the resonance these promises find among sectors of the working population and in impoverished neighborhoods.
Why would a salaried worker or a family suffering daily hardships in Caracas, Zulia, or the east of the country consider a magic solution from outside to be feasible?
The answer lies not in naiveté, but in the realm of aspirations and material hardship. Even under Commander Chávez, when the country achieved a high level of prosperity, we experienced this. When daily life becomes an exhausting struggle for basic survival, any promise of stability, consumption, or economic recovery understandably becomes appealing. Assuming that the majority reasons based on abstract dogmas is a diagnostic error; workers seek certainty regarding their children’s food, access to healthcare, transportation, and a salary that won’t be eroded.
This phenomenon is not unique to Venezuela. Throughout the region and the world—from electoral shifts in Latin America to the rise of neoliberal options in Europe and North America—millions of people have supported political projects openly contrary to the interests of the people and the working class. They don’t vote for or sympathize with the figure of the magnate in his private jet or the rhetoric of the oppressor, but rather with the expectation—often desperate—of breaking free from the previous economic strangulation. The trap lies in transforming a legitimate aspiration for progress into a blank check for dispossession.
Reducing this scenario to a single leader or a temporary administration in the White House weakens the analysis. The faces in power change, but the architecture of imperial and corporate domination remains the same. What is underway in Venezuela is not the isolated will of a ruler, but the coordinated offensive of international Big Capital.
Central thesis: anatomy of transnational capital
The foreign policy of Big Capital moves strictly in terms of guaranteeing cheap energy, strategic reserves, raw materials and new areas of investment with a high rate of return… The supposed «aid» always translates into an enclave model: bubbles of profitability for corporations and subordinate local elites, while labor guarantees are dismantled and public income is privatized.
Contemporary history offers irrefutable lessons, from the devastation of Iraq and Libya to the economic pressure exerted on allied nations in Europe and Asia. The foreign policy of industrial powers has never pursued the sovereign development of nations. A recent example suffices: until recently, Trump threatened to bomb Oman if it interfered with the control of the Strait of Hormuz. The foreign policy of Big Capital operates strictly to guarantee cheap energy, strategic reserves, raw materials, and new areas of investment with high rates of return.
The supposed “aid” or “reconstruction” touted by global financial centers always translates into an enclave model, high-profit bubbles for transnational corporations, investment funds and subordinate local elites, while employment becomes precarious, labor guarantees are dismantled and public income is privatized, a recipe they would like to apply to Venezuela.
While the US domestic economy is burdened by monumental debt, inflation that punishes its own workers, and an unprecedented crisis of political legitimacy, the export of aggression and control of other countries’ resources serves as a safety valve for its own financial and military complex. Trump’s approval rating plummeted to a record low of 32%.
The political and communication challenge is not resolved by judging or blaming the people for wanting a better life. The central task is to demonstrate, with data and class-based arguments, that transnational capitalism does not come to enrich neighborhoods or democratize wealth, but rather to extract it and transfer it to the headquarters of large corporations.
Organizational principle: integration with the massesAs Mao pointed out, integrating with the masses requires listening to them, understanding their real needs, and raising collective consciousness without adopting a position of moral superiority. Sovereignty cannot be an empty slogan in the face of wages that vanish into thin air as they fall into workers’ bank accounts; it must translate into communal organization, real production, and tangible responses to the crisis of services and wages.
The true alternative to the mirages of imported prosperity will not come from those who have historically coveted the riches of the Global South. It is forged in organized resistance, in the rigorous analysis of the global economy, and in the conviction that the well-being of the majority will only be sustainable if it is built and defended by the working people themselves.
Miguel Ernesto Salazar is professor of Social Sciences at the Pedagogical Institute of Caracas (IPC) and member of the editorial team of the Venezuelan digital magazine puebloenarmas.com.
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