Chavez has been reforming Venezuela again, empowering the people in the Bolivarian Revolution. And by people, I mean himself:

Many of the changes expand presidential power and weaken the remaining institutional checks on it. But officials argue that the creation of grass-roots “communal councils” amounts to a big devolution of power to “the people”. At the heart of the reform is an increase in the presidential term, from six to seven years, and the removal of term limits. First elected in 1998, under the current constitution Mr Chávez would not be able to stand at the next presidential election, due in 2012.

The reform also allows the president to dispose of the country’s international reserves as he sees fit, and to declare any part of the country a “federal territory”, ruled directly from the presidential palace. Another change will allow the president to declare an indefinite state of emergency and suspend the right to information and to elements of due process.

Scattered throughout the new draft are references to the “socialist state” Mr Chávez is planning. Elections, for example, are described as “for the construction of socialism”, while the central bank’s job will now be to contribute to the “socialist economy”. What that means is not spelled out. But the new charter will weaken property rights, for example by allowing expropriations before rather than after a court ruling. The government will have specific powers to take over farms and food factories if “food security” is threatened.

Now, haven’t we had commenters at this blog over a long period of time telling us that everything Chavez was doing was in order to help the people of Venezuela, and not all in the interest of being a dictator?

Now, I know the Chavistas will be out in force, as usual, declaring that all that Chavez is doing is wonderful for the people of Venezuela. And in some respects, they have a point. It’s easy to throw money around to the poor when oil’s at $93 a barrel. But as usual, the Economist boils it down to the important point:

And the reform includes two crowd-pleasing measures: a cut in the working day to six hours and the granting of social security to informal workers, though neither requires constitutional change. If and when the price of Venezuela’s oil plunges, socialism looks set to consign the country to constitutionally mandated poverty.

If Chavez doesn’t empower his people through capitalism to diversify the economy, Venezuela will always ride the rollercoaster of oil prices. They’re near the top of a big hill right now, but perhaps Chavez should ask some of the oil men from Texas in the early 80’s how quickly that can change.

Being resource-rich doesn’t prove that socialism works. It simply hides its flaws. Hopefully for the poor people of Venezuela, they won’t feel the pain of an oil bust in the near future, but if they do, we’ll see exactly how much good Chavez has done for them.