“My generation doesn’t know freedom firsthand inside the borders of Venezuela” liberty activist and LOLA Venezuela Chapter Founder, María Amaré, shares. As LOLA of the month, Maria shares how she escaped Venezuela’s socialist regins to seek refuge in the U.S. and the insights and experiences that have shaped her journey towards advocating the ideas of liberty.

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Fleeing from Venezuela

Moving to the United States made me realize how many of the things that I thought were normal should not be considered normal at all.

In Venezuela my daily worries were that the electricity would run out, the Internet connection would fail, or that food would become scarce at any moment. I lived in constant worry and always had to be on alert, with no certainty of what would happen tomorrow or where I would go if something tragic happens.

After moving to the United States, I realized that my everyday concerns in Venezuela varied greatly from my everyday concerns in the U.S. In Venezuela, I lived in constant fear of how I was going to get my next meal, or whether the electricity was going to work today. Here in the U.S., my old fears are replaced with opportunities to do things like build and save my money, become financially independent, search for a place to live, and add to my professional and personal growth. All things Venezuelans would dream of doing today.

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My Wake-Up Call

Growing up in Venezuela, I noticed there was something wrong with a society centered around the idea of taking from one to give to another. I started sympathizing with the ideas that protected life, liberty, and private property, but at the time I did not know much about classical liberalism.

I noticed how leftist and socialist institutions monopolized the marketplace of ideas, censoring any ideas related to individual liberty, free markets, or limited government. Instead, these institutions were trying to solve a problem that they helped create. It’s a vicious cycle that socialists are trapped under.

I knew that things needed to change and I felt a responsibility to learn more about libertarian ideology and take on leadership roles in order to bring the ideas of liberty to the table for more people to hear and learn. People need to see and decide for themselves which ideas have proven to bring prosperity and freedom and which ones bring poverty and destruction.

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Common misconceptions I hear about Venezuela

There are two common misconceptions I hear about Venezuela from outsiders:

1)Everything in Venezuela is cheap because the monthly minimum wage is less than $13 an hour.

2) Social programs are good for the poor.

I have noticed how the socialist regime maintains a strong communication strategy that has allowed them to sell a false image of the ‘necessary’ socialism that exists today while ultimately concluding that there is no crisis in Venezuela. In reality, it is because there is no free market or competition in Venezuela that many people still live in extreme poverty. Meanwhile, socialists from different countries react skeptically when I use Venezuela as an example of where socialism fails. They believe that socialism has just not been properly implemented there.

I hear from people all the time that social programs are necessary to lift people out of poverty. They say that these programs are necessary and how else will we be able to lift people out of poverty? But these people fail to understand where this money comes from or what the cost, or fine print of implementing welfare programs into a society is. In reality, the cost to pay for social programs is very high, especially because they do not solve the problem but instead create individuals dependent on the state and on other people’s money. This is not a stable structure to lift people out of poverty. In the long run, it will take away the incentive for people to get ahead, and it will not be sustainable.

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LOLA’s impact inside Venezuela

When I joined Students For Liberty Venezuela, in a team of more than 15 activists, only 3 of us were women. Over the course of hosting events and the application process to join the organization, I realized that women did not consider pro-liberty organizations to be a safe space for them. They felt that it was something exclusively for men or that capitalism was a system of oppression. I decided to start LOLA Venezuela to debunk these myths and involve more women in the liberty movement. The LOLA Venezuela Chapter promotes critical thinking and continues the debate on how feminism goes hand in hand with the ideas of liberty.

LOLA is helping women who do not feel represented by the modern waves of feminism that have distorted their struggles in the public eye. They now are part of an amazing community of liberty-minded women across the globe thanks to LOLA. That’s what makes LOLA so special.

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Lessons learned

From my experience, I have learned that socialism and social programs may seem attractive in theory, but they do not solve the problems at hand and become unsustainable. The principles of competition, free markets, and liberty help individuals realize that they, not the government, control their own destinies.

As a Venezuelan, I have learned the hard way that freedom is something that must be fought for and protected. Hopefully, by sharing my story, more people, and especially more women, will realize the importance of liberty and join the cause towards a freer and more prosperous world with LOLA.