How Socialism Destroyed Venezuela

Daniel Di Martino speaks at events all over the United States connecting his personal story growing up in Venezuela with our reality, discussing topics like:

• How socialism destroyed his home of Venezuela
• The importance of free enterprise for our prosperity
• How high-skilled immigration is key for U.S. supremacy
• Why gratitude is the antidote to Western political troubles
• Foreign policy and why freedom is worth defending

Daniel Di Martino was born in 1999 in Venezuela to a middle-class family. His grandparents escaped poverty in Italy and Spain in the 1950s, seeking a better future in the then fourth-richest country in the world, Venezuela. Italy was destroyed by fascism and World War II and Spain by the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime’s autarkic economic policies. Yet, despite not having a high school education and some having to learn a new language, his family started businesses and prospered under Venezuela’s relatively free market and strong democracy in the second half of the 20th century. But Daniel was born in the same year that Hugo Chavez was sworn in as president and saw how his socialist policies transformed the once prosperous nation that welcomed his grandparents into a poor and dangerous place. His family’s income was drastically reduced due to inflation, blackouts and water shortages increasingly plagued much of his life, and he was forced to line up for food and basic necessities for hours.

Tickets can be picked up at the Colket Center Information Desk beginning Feb. 7.

The David L. Guy '75 Lecture Series is presented by the Center for Economic Freedom and the Young America's Foundation.