Ricardo Morin Untitled #5: The Paradigm of Extraction 10″x12″ Watercolor 2003
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The story of artificial intelligence is usually told as one of endless promise—a technology meant to transform economies and redefine human potential. Yet beneath the optimism lies an older reality: the conversion of human creativity into concentrated wealth. What is presented as progress often repeats the oldest economic pattern of all—the extraction of value from the many for the benefit of the few. The language surrounding AI hides this continuity. It turns innovation into a spectacle of inevitability, a vision of boundless gain that distracts from its unequal foundations.
The spectacle depends on persuasion. Words like manifested intelligence, the next trillion-dollar frontier, and inevitable transformation are not descriptions; they are marketing. They frame profit as destiny and invite participation not in discovery but in speculation. Numbers such as “$80 trillion” and “25,000 percent returns” echo through news cycles like prophecies, and turn investment forecasts into moral certainty. This rhetoric reshapes public imagination. AI stops being a tool for solving human problems and becomes a financial phenomenon—a story about wealth rather than understanding.
These promises do not mark a new beginning. They repeat the same cycle that accompanied every major invention. The Industrial Revolution produced machines that changed work but deepened social divides. The digital revolution spread information but concentrated ownership. AI now enters that history as its newest expression. Its power to expand knowledge and serve the public good is real, but its first allegiance remains to profit. Within existing systems, it accelerates the accumulation of capital instead of correcting its imbalance.
The mechanisms of this concentration are easy to see. Proprietary models fence off knowledge behind paywalls and patents. Data collected from the public becomes private property. The cost of computing power and specialized expertise limits who can participate. The outcome is predictable: the majority will experience AI not as empowerment but as dependency. Far from leveling inequality, it builds it into the infrastructure of tomorrow.
This direction grows more troubling when placed beside the world’s most urgent needs. Billions of people still live without reliable food, healthcare, or education—conditions technology could transform but rarely does. The most profitable uses of AI instead optimize advertising, influence behavior, and extend surveillance. These are not accidents. They are the logical results of a system that values profit over human welfare. When progress is measured only in shareholder value, technology loses its moral compass and society loses its claim to wisdom.
A newer and equally dangerous use of these systems has emerged in the political sphere. The same tools that target consumers now target citizens. Governments with autocratic tendencies have begun using generative models to flood public discourse with persuasive content, to blur the boundary between truth and fabrication, and to cultivate obedience through simulation. Recent reporting shows how executive offices deploy AI to craft political messages, to amplify loyal media, and to drown out dissenting voices. Such practices transform intelligence into propaganda and data into domination. When a state can algorithmically manage perception, democracy becomes performance. The concentration of wealth and the concentration of an engineered belief reinforce each other, both materially and mentally.
We have seen this pattern before. In every technological era, wealth has turned into political power and then used that power to protect itself. Railroad barons shaped monopolies in the nineteenth century. Oil empires steered foreign policy in the twentieth. Today, digital conglomerates write the rules that sustain their dominance. AI follows the same gravitational pull, guided less by human vision than by financial gravity.
In the present order, the union of technological power and financial speculation no longer produces discovery but dependence. Wealth circulates within an enclosed economy of influence and rewards those who design the mechanisms of access rather than those who expand the reach of knowledge. What appears as innovation is often a rehearsal of privilege:an exchange of capital between the same centers of authority, each validating the other while society absorbs the cost. When creativity becomes collateral and intelligence a lease, progress ceases to serve the public and begins to serve itself.
The most seductive illusion sustaining this order is the myth of inevitability—the belief that technological advance must produce inequality, and that no one is responsible for the outcome. It is a useful fiction. It spares those in power from moral scrutiny by turning exploitation into fate. Yet inevitability is a choice disguised as nature. Societies have always shaped the use of technology through their laws, values, and courage to intervene. To accept inequality as destiny is to abandon that responsibility.
Rejecting inevitability means reclaiming the idea of progress itself. Innovation is not progress unless it expands the freedom and security of human life. That requires intentional direction—through public investment, fair taxation, transparent standards, and strong international cooperation. These are not barriers to growth; they are the conditions that make genuine progress possible. Markets alone cannot guarantee justice, and technology without ethics is not advancement but acceleration without direction.
Measuring progress differently would change what we celebrate. If an AI system reduces medical errors in poor communities, strengthens education where resources are scarce, or helps citizens participate more fully in democracy, its worth exceeds that of one that merely increases profit margins. The true measure of intelligence—artificial or human—is the good it brings into the world. Profit is only one form of value; human dignity is another.
At the center of this order lies a quiet hypocrisy. Wealth is praised as the reward of discipline and intelligence, yet it depends on the continuous extraction of value from others—the worker, the consumer, the environment. What appears as merit often rests on inequality disguised as efficiency. The same pattern defines artificial intelligence. Built from shared human knowledge and creativity, it is enclosed within systems that sell access to what was freely given. Both forms of accumulation—financial and technological—draw their power from the very resources they diminish: human labor, attention, and imagination. In claiming to advance society, they reproduce the inequity that turns vitality into stagnation—the inversion of what progress is meant to be.
The fevered talk of trillion-dollar opportunities belongs to an old vocabulary—the language of extraction mistaken for evolution. The real question is whether intelligence will continue to serve wealth or begin to serve humanity. Artificial intelligence offers that choice: to repeat the logic that has long confused accumulation with advancement, or to build a future where knowledge and prosperity are shared. That decision will not emerge by itself. It depends on what societies demand, what governments regulate, and what values define success. The window to decide remains open, though it narrows each time profit is allowed to speak louder than conscience.
The preceding observations concern the consequences of extraction. The institutional logic that produces these consequences belongs to a wider historical pattern in modern economic development. That pattern is examined separately in “The Logic of Extraction.”
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By Ricardo F. Morín, Oct. 2025, Oakland Park, Florida.
The documentary “Melania” unfolds within the ceremonial landscape surrounding Donald Trump’s return to the presidency. Melania Trump’s voice carries the narrative thread. She begins with an account of inheritance. She credits her mother’s strength and devotion to family with shaping the person she has become. She presents that inheritance as the ground of her public role.
That account of her origin is set within settings that unfold its meaning. At St. Patrick’s Cathedral a priest offers his blessing. The moment enters the language of national ceremony. Melania declares that she will use her influence and power to defend those in need. She links that promise to the discipline that guided her earlier career in Paris and Milan, where high personal standards first shaped her ambitions.
From the cathedral the narrative moves to the transfer of authority. President Joe Biden and Jill Biden escort Donald Trump and Melania Trump toward the White House. The procession advances through the familiar choreography of inauguration.
At that moment a reporter breaks through the press line and shouts a question: “Will America survive the next president?” Its resonance lends the sequence an unexpected candor.
The narrative then returns to Melania’s voice as she enters the Capitol’s Rotunda. She describes the moment as the meeting point between national history and her own journey as an immigrant. She speaks of rights that must be protected and of a humanity shared across different origins.
As the ceremony moves toward the swearing of the presidential oath to the Constitution, Jill Biden remains centered in the camera’s view until Trump’s daughter Tiffany steps forward and blocks her from sight.
Donald Trump then takes the oath. He announces that a golden age begins immediately. He promises national flourishing, international respect, and the restoration of impartial justice under constitutional rule. He names peace and unity as the marks of his future legacy.
Although the production bears Melania’s name, the material before the camera consists of ceremony, prepared language, and public display. Under such conditions a portrait cannot reveal a private figure. It records the symbolic role assigned to her within the spectacle surrounding Trump’s return to power.
Donald Trump tells her that she looks like a movie star. The camera returns to her face. The attempt to soften her beauty does not succeed. Her eyes narrow. The line of her mouth tightens into a strain that refuses the ease of a ceremonial smile.
The recurring presence of stiletto shoes of approximately twelve centimeters becomes part of the visual composition. The effect suggests an effort to augment physical presence in a setting where stature is already symbolically constructed.
Seen in the second year of Trump’s second term, the promises heard throughout the documentary: constitutional fidelity, respect for rights, pride in the immigrant’s contribution to national life, and the assurance that plurality remains united within one civic community, stand in contrast with the conduct of governance that followed.
The montage preserves more than a portrait of Melania Trump. Ceremony frames power with language drawn from inheritance, constitutional duty, and civic unity. When events test the promises attached to that language, the ceremony remains while the substance weakens.
Beauty, piety, and patriotic symbolism stand in the foreground of the ceremony and lend the moment dignity and continuity. When the record of governing enters the frame, those same elements remain after the promises attached to them have failed. The documentary leaves the image of the surface on which those promises were written.
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Epilogue
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The documentary does not construct a language capable of recognizing its own artifice. The ceremony remains at the level of presentation. It does not become conscious representation.
Artistic precedents in the documentary genre and in the exercise of governmental power have shown that power can be exposed through its own theatricality. When that language is established, the spectacle becomes legible as construction. Artifice no longer conceals itself and becomes part of the meaning.
Here the opposite occurs. The staging, the wardrobe, the choreography, and the discourse are presented without distance. There is no register that allows them to be observed as construction. The result is not an interpretation of power, but its reiteration.
The very condition of the the work contributes to this result. It is a commissioned production. Its cost, at approximately forty eight million dollars, intensifies the presentation of the surface without expanding the field of language.
That condition alters the meaning of what is seen. The ceremony retains its forms, but loses the capacity to produce awareness of itself. Language continues to assert legitimacy, but does not reach the point of examining it.
The production, without intending to do so, exposes this limitation. It does not reveal the artifice of power. It shows, instead, a form of power that lacks the language necessary to recognize itself as artifice.
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Ricardo F. Morín, March 10, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida
This installment of Unmasking Disappointment presents the first part of Chapter XII, “The Fourth Sign.” It covers §§ 1–9 under the heading Autocracy and lays out the conceptual and institutional framework necessary for the sections that follow. The chapter continues in subsequent installments, which address Venezuela (§§ 10–25) and The Asymmetry of Sanctions (§§ 26–34).
Ricardo F. Morin, December 29, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida.
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Chapter XII-Part 1
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The Fourth Sign
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Autocracy
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1
The justification for a discussion of autocracy and democracy arose from ideas that emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries, which provided insights into the foundations of contemporary governance. John Locke, in his Two Treatises of Government [1689] argued that legitimate political authority derived from the consent of the governed. Locke’s emphasis on natural rights (life, liberty, and property) and his concept of a social contract—in which government’s primary role is the protection of those rights—laid the groundwork for modern democratic governance. He offered a contrast with autocracy in his advocacy of the rule of law. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract [1762] contributed to democratic theory with his concept of the general will, in which he posited that sovereignty resided with the people and that governments should be accountable to their general will, understood as civic responsibility. By contrast, Rousseau analyzed autocracy as a kind of tyranny that violated the principles of popular sovereignty. Thus, he anticipated the move from monarchical rule to participatory democracy.
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Montesquieu’s The Spirit of Laws [1748] asserted that democratic governments were based on popular sovereignty, whereas autocratic governments were founded on fear and obedience. Montesquieu introduced the idea of the separation of powers, which became a foundational principle of democracy. Montesquieu’s emphasis on checks and balances, within a tripartite structure (executive, legislative, and judicial), contrasted with autocratic regimes in which power was concentrated in a single ruler or institution. His work influenced later constitutional designs, particularly in the United States and France.
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The 19th century was marked by political revolutions, the rise of nationalism, and the spread of constitutional monarchies. While important developments occurred, such as the expansion of suffrage and the evolution of representative government, the philosophical groundwork had largely been set in the previous century. The 19th century was more focused on the application of these principles rather than their theoretical development. Thinkers like Alexis de Tocqueville and Karl Marx have provided critical insights, but their focus on practical analysis (democracy in America or class struggle in general) has been built on earlier theories rather than proposing a new understanding of governance.
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It has been said that in some instances benevolent despots serve the common good, though John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty [1859] (Chapter 1, Introductory, 4-5) has clarified for us that it was only true in the context of civil liberties when benevolence was in favor of participatory democracy:
By Liberty was meant protection against the tyranny of political rulers. . . . Their power was regarded as necessary but also as highly dangerous. . . . The aim, therefore, of patriots, was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty.
Mill argued that from antiquity civic liberty has been defended to prevent the tyranny of the majority, or the abuse of power. Thus, he believed that autocracy was flawed because of its concentrated power without responsibility.
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In the 20th century, Robert A. Dahl’s Polyarchy [1971] introduced the concept of polyarchy to describe systems of government that, though imperfect, have provided higher levels of citizen participation. For Dahl, democracy was not just the presence of elections; it also required pluralism that allows citizens to participate. This feature distinguishes democracy from authoritarianism. Dahl’s analysis examines the functioning of democracies and introduces measurable elements that distinguish democratic governance from autocracy.
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In the 21st century, Juan J. Linz and Larry Diamond have continued this lineage by exploring the conditions under which democracies fail and autocracies rise. Linz’s work, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes [2000], has focused on the breakdown of democratic regimes and the concept of “authoritarianism.” He has explained how this antagonism is fundamental in understanding the fragility of democracies and how democracy can devolve into autocratic rule under a single leader. Similarly, Larry Diamond’s The Struggle to Build Free Societies Throughout the World [2008] and In Search of Democracy [2015] have focused on “democratic backsliding,” where democracies have been in decline and given rise to authoritarianism. Both Linz and Diamond emphasized the importance of institutions, civil society, and the rule of law in maintaining democracy.
The constitutional principles outlined in the preceding discussion establish a framework in which authority is distributed, constrained, and made accountable. Yet the operation of that framework introduces a different question: how systems designed to limit power adapt when confronted with conditions that require decisive action. The transition from monarchical rule to representative government did not eliminate the need for decision. It relocated that necessity within a structure intended to contain it. The tension between rule and decision therefore persists, not as a defect, but as a condition inherent to governance itself.
This tension becomes visible in moments of crisis, when the pace of events exceeds the capacity of procedure. In Venezuela, states of emergency and economic exception have been repeatedly invoked in response to political and economic instability, granting the executive expanded authority to act without ordinary legislative mediation. These measures have been justified by reference to external threats, internal disorder, and the preservation of national stability. In such instances, decisiveness does not stand outside the constitutional order; it operates within it, but under altered conditions. The exception begins as a response to necessity.
What begins as a response to necessity can, through repetition, assume a different character. Measures introduced under conditions of urgency do not always recede when those conditions stabilize. In Venezuela, the repeated use of enabling laws and emergency decrees has allowed governance to proceed through executive decision in the absence of sustained legislative agreement. Over time, the exception has shifted from a temporary response to an available instrument. The language of necessity extends beyond its original scope, and the exception becomes a method through which governance proceeds.
This shift does not require the formal suspension of law. Institutions remain in place, and procedures continue to operate. Yet their function begins to change. Administrative and judicial bodies participate in this reorientation, as interpretations of constitutional authority permit the continuation of exceptional measures beyond their initial scope. The law persists, but its application becomes increasingly contingent on executive direction. What emerges is not the disappearance of legality, but its reconfiguration, in which the distinction between formal authority and practical implementation grows less stable.
The extension of the exception as a governing method introduces a limit that arises through use. The distinction between the ordinary and the exceptional gives the exception its meaning. When the language of necessity is invoked repeatedly across domains, that distinction begins to lose its clarity. Measures once justified as temporary responses appear with increasing frequency, and their recurrence alters the framework within which they are understood. What was introduced to address interruption becomes part of regular practice. Discretion expands, but its criteria become less discernible. The exception diminishes through extension, as the condition it was meant to identify becomes indistinguishable from ordinary governance.
This internal limit carries implications that extend beyond institutional design. When the exception ceases to be temporary, the constraints that once governed its use begin to weaken. Decisions justified in the language of necessity no longer refer back to a stable framework capable of evaluating them. In such conditions, practices introduced under claims of urgency—such as the restriction of civil society, the expansion of security measures, or the concentration of administrative authority—can persist without clear criteria for limitation. What follows is not an immediate transformation, but a gradual reorientation in which the concentration of decision becomes easier to justify and more difficult to resist.
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Another thinker, Timothy Snyder, has emphasized the role of trust and transparency in the functioning of democracy. In The Road to Unfreedom [2018] and On Tyranny [2017], Snyder has argued that the waning of institutional trust, both in the judiciary and the media, is a tactic common in authoritarianism. He explains how autocratic leaders manipulate societal institutions by turning them into instruments of propaganda with merely a façade of governance.
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The relationship between an autocratic ruler and the people can be described as transactional: the autocrat provides security and stability in exchange for the people’s loyalty and their freedoms. Citizens become instruments for the maintenance of power. The leader cultivates an image that invites devotion and reinforces dependence, often in the language of protection and national necessity. What begins as reassurance in moments of uncertainty gradually diminishes accountability, as the concentration of decision is accepted as the condition for order.
9
A democracy remains viable only when the State is capable of constraining itself from taking advantage of its own power and privilege. This brings us to the topic at hand, which is the challenge faced by countries such as Venezuela, where political leaders have diminished the authority of the law by exempting themselves from its strictures. The framework designed to contain power is not formally abandoned. It is gradually reinterpreted, until the distinction between rule and exception no longer operates as a limit, but as a justification.
Ricardo F. Morín Infinity 32 13 “ x 15 ¾” Oil on linen 2009
Religious belief and democratic life often meet within diverse societies where traditions, rituals, and outward identities differ, even as individuals share deeper ethical concerns. People turn to religion for meaning and conscience, while democratic life asks them to live alongside others whose practices and expressions vary. Tension becomes visible when superficial distinctions shape perception more than shared ethical ground, and when claims of moral authority seek to govern the shared civic space of others.
Plurality is a constant feature of democratic life. Individuals speak, listen, and respond in public meetings, civic gatherings, online exchanges, and everyday encounters where limits and freedom of expression meet. Expression that invites response, allows disagreement, or makes room for reconsideration can sustain coexistence, while expression framed as accusation, exclusion, or moral finality can narrow it. Political life adjusts to shifting advantage and immediate circumstance, while religious conscience often draws individuals toward standards held to endure across conflicts. Individuals move between these two demands, rarely able to resolve the tension between them. Religious and political judgment can align while remaining open to disagreement, even as individuals draw from moral frameworks that shape their conduct and traditions.
Religious expression often appears in public life through appeals to fairness, responsibility, and the dignity of persons. Such expressions shape how individuals frame their claims without requiring agreement on doctrine. When religious language enters public conversation as part of a shared ethical vocabulary, it can widen recognition without demanding uniform belief. People may not agree on belief, yet they may recognize common ground in the use of moral language. At times, religious communities identify ethical similarities across traditions, allowing plurality to remain workable within that recognition. When partisan pressures reframe difference as threat, markers such as creed, race, or culture become dividing lines, and shared ground recedes from view.
Difficulty emerges when religious identity becomes inseparable from partisan alignment and when public language becomes structured around accusation rather than mutual examination of ideas. Under such conditions, freedom of expression is interpreted less as civic difference and more as personal rejection. Expression itself is treated as evidence of allegiance rather than as an invitation to examination.
Another condition appears when citizens continue to recognize one another as legitimate participants despite differences that remain unresolved. Religious conviction shapes conscience, while democratic life maintains a space in which competing claims can exist without coercion. Individuals move between these spheres, sometimes comfortably and sometimes with strain, as they adjust boundaries, widen or narrow participation, and renegotiate coexistence over time.
People continue to move between religious conviction and democratic participation without resolving the tension between them. Some draw boundaries more firmly; others widen the space for coexistence, and many shift between both over time. The tension remains visible not as a problem to eliminate, but as part of how individuals understand themselves, claim authority, and live alongside others within a shared civic world.
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Ricardo F. Morín, February 16, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida
Ricardo Morin Silence III 22’ x 30” Watercolor, graphite, gesso, acrylic on paper 2010
Rethinking Identity and Entitlement in Civic Life
The phrase “my people” draws lines. It signals allegiance before argument begins. It may express familiarity, shared memory, or recognition. Yet the same words separate one group from another. A boundary forms, often without intention. Those inside feel affirmed; those outside may feel unseen.
Such moments rarely begin as acts of exclusion. They arise from ordinary human impulses: the desire to protect what feels familiar, to defend what has been wounded, or to claim space where one has felt overlooked. But when identity becomes the primary language through which claims are made, conversations change. Disagreement becomes personal. Listening becomes strategic. The space where people meet as equals contracts.
Group identity has long provided people with strength and protection. It helps individuals recover dignity when they feel ignored or misunderstood, and it offers language through which shared experiences can be recognized. Yet the same force can also narrow perception. When group identity becomes the main lens through which people judge one another, ideas are weighed less on their merit and more on the speaker’s affiliation.
When ideas begin to be judged primarily through identity rather than merit, the change is often subtle. An exchange that begins openly can become defensive as participants look for signs of alignment or opposition. Words are weighed for allegiance. Questions are interpreted as challenges rather than invitations to examine ideas together. Over time, dialogue shifts from exploration toward defense of positions. Judgment shifts from the merit of an idea to the standing of the speaker.
Many people carry an expectation into public life that they will be treated consistently. Uneven rules are recognized quickly. When identity determines whose voice counts before ideas are heard, trust weakens not only among those excluded, but also among those unsure whether they are seen as individuals or as representatives of a category.
Problems deepen when identity stops being one part of a person’s experience and begins to overshadow all others. Public debate narrows. Arguments are interpreted as attacks on identity rather than disagreements over ideas. People feel compelled to defend positions not because they are persuaded by them, but because reconsidering publicly may be treated as betrayal. The result is not stronger community, but increasing rigidity, where listening carries risk and reconsideration feels unsafe.
People turn toward simplification and absolutism to reduce uncertainty and relieve the strain of complexity. This tendency does not permanently define human interaction; it marks moments when ambiguity feels intolerable and certainty appears easier to sustain. Certainty offers relief, but it reduces the space in which plurality can endure. The tension itself does not disappear; only the way people attempt to manage it changes.
Contemporary communication technologies accelerate the circulation and visibility of opinion. Expressions that promise certainty or provoke fear travel farther and faster; expressions that sustain ambiguity move more slowly. This circulation amplifies tendencies toward simplification, reinforcing what attracts attention rather than what withstands examination.
When identity becomes the basis for deciding who others are before dialogue takes shape, examination gives way to labeling. Nuance is set aside. Individuals become symbols of larger struggles, and ordinary encounters carry the weight of broader conflicts. Under these conditions, disagreement resembles confrontation even when intentions remain sincere.
Public life rests on an expectation that the same rules apply to all. Uneven application becomes visible when some voices are heard more readily than others or when identity determines credibility before ideas are considered. Under these conditions, conversation shifts from exchange toward competition for recognition, and the possibility of shared judgment becomes more difficult to sustain.
The tension does not belong to one group alone; this situation affects everyone who participates in public life. Each person seeks recognition while fearing misinterpretation. Attempts to resolve disagreement through persuasion alone often reach limits beyond individual control. Listening, under these conditions, does not erase distance but allows interaction to continue despite it.
Differences remain, and disagreement persists. The lines that divide do not disappear; they shift, harden, or soften as people respond to one another in ordinary encounters. Living together does not remove tension; living together reveals tension. No shared answer resolves the matter. Each person must decide how to respond and how to live alongside others within limits no one fully controls.
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Ricardo F. Morín, February 15, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida.
Ricardo F Morín Window I 8” x 10” Watercolor and ink on paper 2003
1 Most people first recognize vulnerability not through abstract reflection but when ordinary functions change. Sleep becomes fragmented. Movement requires calculation. Attention shifts toward signals that once remained unnoticed. Human life begins not from stability but from exposure. The body exists within conditions it does not fully control and must continuously adapt to forces that exceed intention. Vulnerability is not an exception. It is a structural condition of being alive. Wellbeing does not remove this condition. It reorganizes how one lives within it.
2 Attempts to explain healing often rely on simplified narratives of control, positivity, or emotional purification. Such narratives overlook the complexity through which biological systems regulate themselves. Hormones, neural pathways, immune responses, and behavioral patterns operate through feedback rather than command. The organism adjusts through interaction, not through absolute mastery. Understanding this distinction allows healing to be viewed less as conquest over illness and more as participation in an ongoing process of regulation.
3 Mental practices such as meditation, visualization, or structured breathing may influence physiological states. Their value lies not in eliminating difficulty but in altering how perception interacts with bodily response. Attention can change tension, breathing patterns can modify autonomic responses, and emotional framing can influence how stress signals are interpreted. These practices do not replace biological realities. They operate within existing physiological processes.
4 Many discussions of emotional life rely on familiar language about resentment or anger without examining how such patterns function in practice. Emotional fixation narrows perception because it reduces the range of possible interpretations available to the mind. When attention becomes rigid, the body often reflects that rigidity through muscular contraction, altered breathing, or disrupted sleep. Recognizing this does not deny legitimate grievances. It clarifies how sustained cognitive patterns shape physiological experience. What appears biologically as regulation appears conceptually as participation.
5 Healing must also acknowledge limits. Not all illness can be traced to emotional origin, and not all suffering yields explanation. Biological variability, environmental exposure, and genetic inheritance create outcomes that cannot be reduced to intention or belief. Humility recognizes that the absence of explanation neither invalidates the search for meaning nor guarantees it.
6 Contemporary medical technology introduces a further dimension into this landscape. Adaptive systems capable of measuring neural activity and adjusting stimulation in real time demonstrate that regulation is inherently dynamic. The nervous system functions through continuous feedback loops. Closed loop neuromodulation technologies reveal this principle by making adjustment visible and measurable. Rather than blocking pain entirely, such systems alter how signals are transmitted and interpreted, and allow the body to reorganize patterns that have become fixed through chronic strain.
7 Technology in this context does not replace the organism. It participates alongside it. The device measures electrical responses, modifies stimulation within clinical parameters, and supports gradual adaptation rather than immediate elimination of discomfort. This reflects a shift in how regulation is understood. Healing increasingly involves collaboration between biological systems and external adaptive tools. The boundary between internal regulation and technological assistance becomes relational rather than oppositional.
8 Because of this shift, improvement may appear indirectly. Functional changes such as more consistent sleep, increased movement, or reduced hesitation in daily tasks often emerge before subjective perception of pain changes significantly. The nervous system learns through repetition across time rather than through instant resolution. Observing patterns over days or weeks becomes more meaningful than evaluating isolated moments.
9 The language of self healing therefore requires revision. Healing does not imply independence from vulnerability. It involves learning to inhabit vulnerability with greater precision, supported by practices, relationships, and technologies that expand the range of possible responses. Faith, meditation, medical science, and personal discipline may each contribute, not as competing explanations but as complementary modes of engagement with the unknown.
10 Experience itself does not provide ultimate meaning. Meaning arises from how experience is integrated into awareness. When experience is treated as proof of certainty, rigidity follows. When experience is held as information rather than identity, adaptation remains possible. The aim is not to silence the mind or eliminate difficulty, but to allow perception to remain flexible enough to respond to change.
11 Healing, then, is neither purely psychological nor purely technological. It is the ongoing negotiation between organism and environment, perception and physiology, vulnerability and adaptation. Modern tools may refine this negotiation by providing new forms of feedback, yet the underlying condition remains unchanged. Human beings continue to live within limits while developing new ways to respond to them. The task is not to escape vulnerability but to regulate within it.
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Ricardo F. Morín, February 18, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida.
Pragmatism is often introduced as realism. It presents itself as sobriety, maturity, and an aversion to illusion. It speaks in the language of what is workable rather than what is desirable. In doing so, pragmatism claims distance from ideology while it reproduces those outcomes.
Over time, pragmatism ceases to describe a method and begins to function as a posture. It becomes a way of signaling seriousness. Principles are reframed as luxuries, and conviction is recoded as rigidity. Ethical limits are not rejected outright. They are treated as impractical.
Following resilience, pragmatism completes the turn from endurance to acceptance. Where resilience asks subjects to adapt, pragmatism asks them to agree that adaptation is reasonable. Acceptance is praised as intelligence rather than surrender. To object is to misunderstand how the world works.
As pragmatism takes hold, alternatives begin to narrow. Choices are reduced to what can be implemented immediately. The possible gives way to the manageable. What cannot be implemented within existing constraints is dismissed as irrelevant.
Pragmatism does not deny ethics. It postpones them. At the level of justification, it becomes a way of saying not now. Delay substitutes for refusal. Deferral replaces judgment. Both shift limits from decision into timing.
The consequences of this posture are unevenly distributed. Those insulated from outcomes are most often positioned to define what counts as pragmatic. Those exposed to the effects are asked to live with the decision. Pragmatism travels downward, while consequence does not travel upward.
Pragmatism governs by tone rather than by argument. It favors calm over urgency and composure over insistence. Passion is treated as disqualifying, while restraint is taken as evidence of reason. In this way, pragmatism closes debate without explicitly doing so.
What pragmatism is, then, is a method for choosing among constrained options. It is a response to limitation. It is a tool.
What pragmatism is not is an ethic. It is not a justification for abandoning limits. It is not evidence that what is available is sufficient.
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Ricardo F. Morín, January 5, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida.
Ricardo F. Morín Golden Ratios Each 22″x30″= 66″h x 30″w overall Watercolor on paper 2005
Contemporary financial structures increasingly present themselves in ways that are difficult to follow in clear terms. Mechanisms grow more layered. Explanations become more technical. Yet the basic logic governing value, risk, and consequence becomes harder to see. Confidence continues to be expected even as intelligibility diminishes.
A financial system remains intelligible when certain realities stay visible. These include how value is produced, how money moves, where risk accumulates, and under what conditions failure occurs. When these elements require specialized decoding, explanation loses grounding. Language multiplies detail without reducing uncertainty. Distance replaces understanding.
Appearance and substance begin to separate. Elaborate vocabulary, institutional endorsement, and technological framing signal sophistication without necessarily clarifying outcomes. Terms such as “innovation,” “efficiency,” or “algorithmic design” circulate widely while underlying mechanisms remain indistinct. Repetition of familiar language gradually replaces demonstration. Recognition begins to replace examination.
Opacity aligns with structural incentives. Systems that are difficult to interpret shift decision-making power toward those who design, structure, or mediate them. As clarity diminishes, authority migrates toward interpretation rather than transparency. The process does not require explicit coordination. It emerges through incentives that reinforce one another. Complexity generates fees. Early positioning captures advantage. Intermediaries profit from activity regardless of long-term result. Institutions convert technical difficulty into legitimacy. Political actors attach themselves to systems framed as progress. Reducing opacity would redistribute power and reward, so opacity persists.
Regulatory structures and deregulation cycles play a central role in enabling this condition. Periods of financial liberalization encourage innovation in securitization, transferability of debt, and layered ownership structures. Oversight frameworks often lag behind new instruments. Documentation practices adapt to speed and scale instead of clarity. Legal enforceability remains intact even when transparency weakens. Over time, financial rights become separated from the original lending relationship, allowing obligations to survive in fragmented or redistributed forms.
Within this environment, financial artifacts may continue to circulate long after their original context appears settled. Mortgage debt provides a clear example. Loans may be bundled, transferred, securitized, or reassigned many times. Documentation fragments across institutions. Legal rights remain active even when practical awareness fades. In some cases, dormant liens or secondary loans re-enter enforcement through resale or reassignment. These are sometimes described as “zombie mortgages.” The mechanism itself operates within legal frameworks, yet its effects can remain largely invisible to property owners who believed obligations were resolved or inactive. As market values shift, investors may revive these claims to extract value embedded in historical contracts. Financial stability becomes vulnerable to instruments rooted in past transactions that are difficult to trace or reconstruct.
This pattern reflects a broader dynamic. Financial markets explore value through instruments that can outlive the clarity of their origin. Securitization and repeated transfer chains allow ownership and enforcement rights to separate from direct relationships between borrower and lender. When opacity governs the movement of such instruments, consequences may appear disconnected from visible cause. Security becomes contingent not only on present circumstances but also on layers of financial history that re-emerge when incentives align.
This pattern recurs across periods of financial expansion. New instruments appear. Language expands around them. Legitimacy forms before comprehension stabilizes. Technologies change. The structural rhythm remains. Explanation grows while clarity recedes.
Certain signals accompany this shift. The source of value becomes difficult to trace to tangible activity. Profit aligns more closely with expansion than with endurance. Compensation rewards timing or position rather than sustained outcome. Reputation substitutes for explanation. Risk disperses into technical language, making consequence harder to locate.
Authority increasingly rests on prestige rather than clear explanation. Definitions shift when questioned. Simplicity is treated as misunderstanding. Explanation becomes something that must be accepted rather than understood. Confidence remains even when clarity is missing.
The effects are visible. Profit gathers where control over structure exists. Those who design or manage complex financial systems capture most of the gains. Others experience the system through its consequences rather than through direct participation in its design. Extraordinary wealth accumulates among a small number of actors while financial insecurity spreads more widely. This concentration is often defended by the belief that gains at the top will eventually benefit everyone else.
Some structures are intentionally built as pyramids, relying directly on new inflows to sustain earlier gains. Others arrive at similar dynamics without explicit design. Incentives reward expansion, early positioning, and continual growth. Over time the system begins to depend on upward concentration and continued inflow to maintain stability. The result resembles pyramidal logic even when it was not formally constructed as a pyramid.
This resemblance rarely appears openly. It adopts familiar language. It presents itself through accepted financial forms, technical explanations, or narratives of innovation and progress. Repetition of these forms makes the structure appear natural. Recognition replaces scrutiny. The underlying dependence on continued expansion becomes harder to see because it looks like what has come before.
Opacity and scale reinforce this movement. As financial instruments move across institutions and markets, the connection between cause and outcome becomes harder to trace. Old obligations reappear. New risks emerge from past transactions. Gains concentrate. Losses disperse.
The gap between explanation and understanding remains. Confidence continues to be expected even when clarity is uneven. The structure continues to operate within that gap.
*
Ricardo F. Morín, February 9, 20026, Oakland Park, Florida.
Ricardo F. Morín New York Series, Nº 11 54″ x 84″ Oil on canvas 1989
The work began within a relationship marked by companionship and solidarity. Attention to language, discipline, and restraint developed through shared effort rather than assertion of authority. Standards were learned through proximity, conversation, and time. Whatever shape the writing later assumed did not arise in isolation; it took form within sustained exchange oriented toward craft.
For a time, that arrangement held. Growth moved in a common direction. Guidance clarified rather than constrained. Correction sharpened rather than narrowed. At that stage, there was no reason to imagine that continuation would require anything other than more work.
As the writing developed, friction appeared without a clear source. Questions emerged that did not settle easily. Revisions accumulated without resolving what they were meant to address. What had once felt like refinement began to feel like adjustment, though the difference was not immediately clear. The work continued, but with more hesitation.
Gratitude complicated recognition. What had been received was evident and could not be denied. To question the present form of the relation felt premature, even ungrateful. Endurance seemed preferable to interruption, especially while uncertainty could still be explained as part of growth.
Over time, small signs accumulated. Decisions were postponed. Directions shifted after agreement. Suggestions were acknowledged but returned unchanged. The writing slowed. Nothing dramatic occurred, but progress no longer felt proportionate to effort.
Attempts were made to restore balance. Clarifications were offered. Adjustments were accepted. The hope was that refinement of terms might recover the earlier ease of movement. Instead, the same tension reappeared, differently framed, without resolving what had prompted it.
At a certain point, the difficulty could no longer be treated as temporary. Continuing began to require forms of accommodation that altered how judgment operated while writing. Choices were made to preserve the relation rather than the work. What was being protected became harder to name.
Recognition did not arrive as certainty. It arrived as a limit. There were things the work could no longer do without distortion. There were directions it could no longer take without resistance that did not diminish over time.
Rupture followed hesitation, delay, and resistance. It did not resolve anything cleanly. It ended a form of continuity that had once been formative. What was relinquished was not gratitude, but dependence. What remained was the work itself, now proceeding without mediation.
The cost of rupture was not conflict, but exposure. Standards had to be held without reinforcement. Decisions could no longer be deferred. Failure, if it came, would no longer be shared.
Nothing in the rupture erased what had been learned. It marked the point at which learning could no longer continue in the same form. What followed was not freedom in the abstract, but authorship in the strict sense: judgment carried without shelter.
*
Ricardo F Morín, January 1, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida.
“Geometric Allegory” digital painting 2023 by Ricardo Morin (American visual artist born in Venezuela–1954)
*
Author’s Note:
The preceding chapters established a standard by which political life may be assessed. They did not propose an ideal government as a program, nor did they advance virtue as a moral aspiration detached from circumstance. They articulated, instead, a set of constraints—justice, restraint, and judgment—without which governance loses proportion and language loses meaning.
The chapters that follow examine how those constraints were displaced. They do not proceed from intention or ideology, but from accumulation. Political resentment, once mobilized as a source of legitimacy, became a governing instrument rather than a condition to be addressed. Military authority, long embedded in Venezuela’s institutional history, ceased to function as a stabilizing force and assumed a constitutive role in political identity. Party structures, rather than mediating between society and the State, hardened into asymmetries that neutralized opposition and converted pluralism into fragmentation.
These developments did not arise in isolation, nor were they the product of a single figure or moment. They emerged through a convergence of affect, coercion, and institutional design. The disappointment examined here is not emotional in nature. It is structural: a consequence of ideals retained as symbols after their operative limits had been removed.
“Part II” traces these mechanisms in sequence. What appears is not a rupture from the ethical geometry outlined earlier, but its progressive distortion. Virtue persists in language while constraint disappears in practice. Governance continues to speak in universal terms even as power concentrates and accountability dissolves. The result is not merely authoritarianism, but a political order in which disappointment becomes systemic—produced, sustained, and normalized.
*
Ricardo F. Morín, December 12, 2025, Oakland Park, Florida.
Chapter IX
~
The First Sign
*
On Political and Social Resentment
1
From the ashes of Venezuela’s fractured democracy arose a bitter sentiment:a resentment that reshaped the political and social fabric of the nation. Political and social resentment, born of inequality, historical grievances, and unfulfilled promises, became the primary currency of Hugo Chávez’s rhetoric and policies. This undercurrent of discontent allowed Chávez to rally the dispossessed under the banner of his Bolivarian Revolution, which reframed a nation’s despair as the foundation of his movement.
2
Chávez’s speeches evoked the memories of colonial exploitation and 20th-century corruption; they cast the elite as Venezuela’s oppressors. The enduring inequality between rural and urban areas, the oil-rich elite, and impoverished communities was central to this narrative. Through fiery oratory, Chávez positioned himself as the voice of the marginalized, promising economic justice and empowerment. [1]
3
Yet, behind the veneer of inclusion and equity lay policies that ultimately betrayed these ideals. The social programs known as Misiones, though impactful in the short term, were not sustainable. Funded by volatile oil revenues, these initiatives addressed symptoms rather than structural causes and ultimately deepened Venezuela’s dependency on oil wealth and the state’s centralized control. [2]
4
Despite their initial popularity, these policies created new inequalities. Access to state benefits became contingent on political loyalty and fostered division and mistrust among the very populations Chávez had vowed to uplift. Corruption and inefficiency plagued these programs, leaving many promises unfulfilled and further polarized Venezuelan society.
5
The Cult of Personality
*
Chávez’s charisma played a critical role in channeling resentment into political capital. His larger-than-life persona blurred the boundary between leader and nation; he transformed dissent into perceived betrayal of patriotism. This cult of personality, portraying critics as enemies of progress, allowed him to centralize power with little resistance.
6
As Chapter VI, Chronicles of Hugo Chávez, demonstrated, Chávez presented himself as the champion of the people, while his approach undermined pluralism and fostered a climate of fear and conformity. This dynamic cemented his control but weakened democratic institutions. His frequent invocation of historical grievances acted as a smokescreen for growing authoritarianism.
7
Exploiting Division
*
The Bolivarian Revolution thrived on cultural division, deliberately stoking class, racial, and regional tensions to consolidate power. Amplifying resentment and ensuring loyalty among his base, Chávez’s rhetoric of “us versus them” weaponized existing fractures in Venezuelan society. By cultivating distrust, his regime inhibited collective action across class or political lines and fractured the potential for broad-based scrutiny by a legitimate opposition.
8
This strategy also extended to the private sector. Expropriations, price controls, and the vilification of business leaders dismantled private enterprise and reinforced dependence on the State. These actions exacerbated economic decline, displaced blame onto perceived enemies of the revolution, and perpetuated cycles of resentment. [3]
9
Its Allure
*
Chávez’s manipulation of resentment was not simply a response to inequality but an exploitation of it. By harnessing historical and contemporary grievances, he galvanized a movement that promised to heal Venezuela’s wounds while simultaneously deepening its divisions. The promise of unity and progress became a pretext for authoritarianism; it left behind a legacy of mistrust, unmet expectations, and fractured institutions.[4]
10
When resentment is allowed to govern a nation, it may consume the very structures meant to protect it. Although Chávez offered hope to the disillusioned, his revolution ultimately amplified the very injustices it claimed to address.
~
Endnotes—Chapter IX
[1]Luis Vicente León,Chávez: La Revolución No Será Televisada (Caracas: Editorial Planeta, 2008) 112-127.
[2]Luis Vicente León, Misiones Sociales: Un Gobierno de Dependencia? (Caracas: Editorial Alfa, 2011) 45-59.
[3]Michael F. A. Sargeant,The Venezuelan Military Under Chávez: Political Influence and Militarization(New York: Columbia University Press, 2013) 150-165.
[4]Gustavo Coronel, Venezuela: The Collapse of a Democracy (Miami: Editorial Santillana, 2015) 203-220.
~
*
Chapter X
*
The Second Sign
~
Emblem of the Bolivarian Army.
The Solid Pillar of Power: The Military Force
1
The dynamics outlined in earlier chapters reveal how the military functioned not merely as an institution but as an axis of political identity. Military rule has shaped Venezuela’s identity since its independence in 1811—see Appendix: 19th and 20th-century Constitutions. This endurance stems not only from political necessity but from a deeply ingrained belief in military dominance—a force that has long stifled Venezuela’s progress. For nearly two centuries, from the early republic to the present, the military has been the backbone of Venezuela’s governance, shaped by a succession of caudillos—each with distinct ambitions yet bound by reliance on military authority. Long cast as the steady hand in political turbulence, the military remains a rigid scaffold encasing Venezuela’s political landscape. Chávez’s rise and his reconfiguration of military influence must be understood within this context. As his predecessors had done, Chávez sought to harness military power within a new vision of State control and to intertwine military and political authority in ways that reinforced Venezuela’s autocratic rule.
2
In the wake of independence, Venezuela grappled with instability as military leaders—at times disciplined and at times opportunistic—imposed order in a fractured State. The first decades were marked by struggles between competing factions, from the rivalry between Simón Bolívar and José Antonio Páez to later military-led conflicts, including the struggles of the Blue Federalists in the 1860s and Cipriano Castro’s rise at the turn of the 20th century. Yet, the military’s rigid hierarchy and capacity for decisive action secured its position as the nation’s dominant force. Soldiers dictated national policies and shaped Venezuela’s fate from barracks and battlefields, not from parliamentary halls. Civilian governance, fragmented and short-lived, repeatedly failed to unify the country amid ongoing strife.
3
This legacy endures in General en Jefe Vladimir Padrino López and General en Jefe Diosdado Cabello, who embody the military’s entrenched presence in Venezuela’s political structure. Padrino López, as Minister of Defense, represents the continuity of military influence within the State. His strategic alliance with Nicolás Maduro, grounded in unwavering loyalty and ideological alignment with Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian revolution, cements his role as a linchpin of the regime’s survival. Diosdado Cabello, who straddles both military and civilian power, leverages his military background to reinforce the government’s authority. Together, they embody the enduring fusion of discipline, ambition, and coercive power.
4
Vladimir Padrino López is widely regarded as a highly disciplined and pragmatic individual. He combines the traits of a loyal military officer with the political acumen necessary to navigate Venezuela’s volatile political landscape. He presents himself as a defender of institutional order and frequently emphasizes the military’s role as a stabilizing force in Venezuela. However, beneath this outward professionalism lies a figure integral to the Maduro regime’s political survival. Padrino López’s loyalty to Maduro has been central to the regime’s endurance. His calculated diplomacy, unlike the confrontational style of other officials, positions him as a pragmatic actor, particularly in dealing with international actors. He balances his public military role with behind-the-scenes influence and leverages his position to navigate internal power struggles. His emphasis on anti-imperialism and nationalism solidifies his standing within the military and political elite.
5
Padrino’s alleged role in the regime’s repression has made him controversial. He has been accused of involvement in systemic military corruption and illicit activities, including drug trafficking and illegal mining. These allegations raise concerns about his complicity in the regime’s criminal activities. His actions reflect calculated pragmatism: he presents himself as a pillar of stability, yet his actual influence remains ambiguous. Some analysts suggest that he could emerge as a power broker in times of crisis.
6
As we analyze the present power structures and their ties to Chávez’s legacy, we must examine the broader historical forces at play. Though often regarded as the architect of Venezuela’s autocratic system, Chávez both emerged from and reinforced the country’s longstanding traditions of militarism and populism. His rise was not an isolated event but the culmination of nearly two centuries of political and social currents. To focus solely on him is to overlook the historical forces that enabled and shaped his rule. Understanding Venezuela’s path to autocracy requires recognizing its political evolution—see Appendix: Constitutional Evolution in the 19th to 20th Centuries.
~
*
Chapter XI
*
The Third Sign
~
The Asymmetry of Political Parties
1
Since the late 20th century, Venezuela’s political landscape has undergone significant transformation, driven by persistent socio-economic instability that disproportionately affected the middle and lower classes. The democratic system established in 1958 was initially defined by a two-party duopoly—Acción Democrática (AD) and Partido Social Cristiano (COPEI)—instituted under the Pacto de Punto Fijo to stabilize democratic governance through alternating power-sharing (see item 26—Constitution of 1961—Appendix, A-1). [1][2][3] Over time, however, this duopoly increasingly monopolized the political arena and marginalized other voices, especially those of socialist and leftist groups. This exclusion not only suppressed pluralistic participation but also deepened discontent among Venezuela’s disadvantaged populations—a factor that ultimately contributed to the system’s collapse. [4]
2
Economic mismanagement, inequality, and political corruption during the 1980s and 1990s further discredited the two-party system. A widening debt crisis, coupled with falling oil prices, exacerbated social inequalities.[5][6] The Caracazo riots of 1989 marked a decisive rupture by exposing the growing gulf between the ruling elite and the general population and signaling the end of the old political order.[7] These riots, which erupted in response to austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund, revealed deep political and social fractures in Venezuelan society. [8]
3
In the aftermath of these systemic failures and societal fractures, Hugo Chávez’s Movimiento V República (MVR) emerged in 1999 as a dominant force, offering populist rhetoric and pledges of wealth redistribution fueled by oil revenues. The Movimiento V República eventually transformed into the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) in 2007. This transition not only solidified the political left’s dominance but also reduced internal factionalism that could more effectively enforce its policies. [9][10][11]
4
Chávez’s death in 2013 left a power vacuum, and Nicolás Maduro’s rise to power was contested within the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela. Factionalism, particularly between military and civilian wings, complicated governance. Maduro’s consolidation of power relied on autocratic legalism—a practice involving the manipulation of the constitution, judicial subversion, and the exploitation of elections to sustain a democratic façade. Extralegal tactics, however, (such as repression, media censorship, and the co-optation of all branches of government) became essential means by which the regime maintained control. [12][13][14]
5
Though new opposition parties emerged, the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela continued to dominate the political landscape. Fragmentation became a defining obstacle for opposition parties, with internal disagreements over strategy and competing visions for engagement with the regime. The Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela‘s strategy for weakening opposition parties persisted through judicial and electoral manipulation and the promotion of splinter groups, which led to a continued weakening of democratic resistance.
6
The opposition parties struggled to present a united front: a vulnerability that both Chávez and Maduro’s governments actively exploited. This partly explains the opposition’s failure in presenting itself as an effective alternative. Pivotal moments in Venezuela’s political crises were the 2004 recall referendum (when Chávez narrowly survived his recall) and the Ruling 156 by the Tribunal Supremo de Justicia in 2017 (which stripped the opposition-controlled Asamblea Nacional of its powers)—events that further deepened political tensions.[15][16][17]
7
As the political landscape became increasingly fragmented, opposition leaders attempted to develop alternative strategies, and new opposition parties emerged. Altogether, at one point, there were 49 parties (see Appendix: Item B). Despite this expansion, the ruling party has maintained its dominance, while the opposition is still in disarray. Political splintering has become a defining barrier for the opposition in mounting a challenge against the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela and has led to repeated failures in electoral and non-electoral arenas: internal divisions over strategy mean that some factions advocate dialogue while others push for more confrontational approaches. The Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela has played a role through its policy of “divide and rule.” By co-opting certain opposition leaders, creating splinter groups, and using judicial and electoral mechanisms to weaken opposition parties, the regime has effectively neutralized potential threats to its dominance.
~
Endnotes—Chapter XI
[1] Martz, John D., Acción Democrática. Evolution of a Modern Political Party in Venezuela, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966). Provides a detailed history of the Democratic Action (AD) party in a PhD thesis on Venezuela. https://doi.org/10.1215/00182168-46.4.468 .
[2] Ellner, Steve, “Venezuelan Revisionist Political History, 1908-1958: New Motives and Criteria for Analyzing the Past” (Latin American ResearchReview: The Latin American Studies Association, 30, no. 2, 1995), 91-121. This article offers critical context for the history of the Social Christian COPEI Party. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2503835 .
[3] Handlin, Samuel Paltiel, “The Politics of Polarization: Legitimacy Crises, Left Political Mobilization, and Party System Divergence in South America” (PhD diss., Political Science: University of California, Berkeley, Fall 2011), 8, 39-48, 54, 59, 73, 79, 81-86, 91-93, 95, 116, 168, 172.
[4] Myers, David J. “The Struggle to Legitimate Political Regimes in Venezuela: From Pérez Jiménez to Maduro” (Latin American Research Review: Cambridge University Press, October 23, 2017). DOI: https://doi.org/10.25222/larr.240 .
[6] Corrales, Javier, Fixing Democracy: The Venezuela Crisis and Global Lessons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), 99-133.
[7] López Maya, Margarita “The Venezuelan Caracazo of 1989: Popular Protest and Institutional Weakness,” Journal of Latin American Studies, 2003), 35, 117–137. DOI: 10.1017/S0022216X02006673
[10] Marta Harnecker, Understanding the Venezuelan Revolution: Hugo Chávez Talks to Marta Harnecker (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2005), 45-7.
[11] Barry Cannon, Hugo Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution: Populism and Democracy in a Globalised Age (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), 101-3.
[12] Gregory Wilpert, Changing Venezuela by Taking Power: The History and Policies of the Chávez Government (London: Verso Books, 2007), 102-04.
[13] Javier Corrales, and MIchael Penfold, Dragon in the Tropics: Hugo Chávez and the Political Economy of Revolution in Venezuela (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2011), 19-24, 30-34.
[15] Gustavo Delfino and Guillermo Salas, “Analysis of the 2004 Venezuela Referendum: The Official Results Versus the Petition Signatures,” (Project Euclid, November 2011). DOI: 10.1214/08-STS263
Observations On Perception 