Isaias Lobão

As government control expands, the space for individual freedom contracts. This is not a historical accident, but the result of decades of planning and social engineering, where the autonomy of the average citizen is sacrificed on the altar of an omnipresent state.

Socialist regimes tend to follow the same playbook: promise much, deliver little, and, in the end, blame capitalism. Venezuela is the latest socialist entity to enter the Failed State Hall of Fame.

Government officials cannot stand to be mocked, but Brazil's finance minister and his tax plans have made the regime the target of a new wave of mockery.