In Venezuela, there is a misconception that there is too much reliance on control, especially in economic matters where it would be more efficient to reduce controls and increase competition.

The most obvious example is price controls. Faced with the hypothetical question of what should be done if the price of any item goes up, the vast majority of Venezuelans would answer "price control".

The problem is that these controls lead to shortages and in the end, things become more expensive instead of cheaper. To solve the problem of the high price of any item, it would be better to think of "increasing the production of that item" or "increasing competition in the market for that item" or both. One could even think of "importing the item" or perhaps "reducing the barriers to importing the item".

In other words, the solutions would not be more control but more production and fewer controls (reducing import barriers). The problem with this consensus on the supposed benefits of controls is that these are the policies that are ultimately implemented in the country. For example, despite how much consumers could benefit if at some point the border were to be opened up to import the cheapest goods from Colombia or Peru, there would surely be many protests.

In a hypothetical time of high prices for the industry, if the border were to be opened to free imports from anywhere in the world, the big winners would be consumers, but the protest would be unbearable. It would certainly seem that local producers cannot stand the competition and that they are going to be out of work and that the state should support the producers and give them subsidized loans and so on and so forth. In the end, controls would be re-established, prices would rise again, producers would be happy and consumers would lose out. Typically, it would highlight the problems of competition and not its immense advantages. And so everything tends to be controlled: school pensions, interest rates charged by banks, the price of popular bread and many other things.

In a society accustomed to price controls, when economic laws impose order, there is often a dispute over whether these controls should be phased out (gradualism) or "in one fell swoop". In this case, we are basically faced with two options: to maintain control and to wait for the goodwill of the rulers, without it being known whether they will ever put an end to control, since it was in the first instance because of their intervention that the restrictions were placed, or to eliminate control and at the same time, to deregulate the rest of the market in order to allow an early economic recovery. Once again, the decision is to eliminate or create the controls. At this point, the decision must be the first: direct elimination of all obstacles and regulations on the economy to allow a faster recovery, and accompany the release with a comprehensive package of political reform (reduction of bureaucracy to reduce the public budget) and targeted attention to the most vulnerable people.

The problem is that in this world of controls, the only lucky person is the one who controls the controller.

Today the fight is not about being more efficient (producing potatoes, making bread or giving loans) but about influencing the rule maker. And then countries stop working, because energy is not used to be efficient but to win the favor of those who make the rules. Why should a company invest and be more efficient if it can earn much more by obtaining an import restriction on products that compete with its own?

But that's the world we live in now. World of controls and not efficiency.