Viewpoints within the opposition
For Trino Márquez, sociologist and academic director of CEDICE —Venezuelan think tank pro-free capitalist market—, in his opinion article Venezuela: does private property exist?, in Venezuela something very different happens with respect to what the Constitution says regarding private property. Márquez assures that private property is subject to "permanent harassment" by the Government that has "seriously reduced its efficiency and importance" through "numerous and serious restrictions", which has prevented, according to him, the disposal of assets, as indicated in article 115 of the Venezuelan Constitution. Márquez also states that the exchange control established through CADIVI forces companies to "a relationship of submission and absolute dependence on the Executive."[19].
In the work of the Venezuelan lawyer Luis Alfonso Herrera Orellana Venezuelan Legislation and Private Property Cost-Benefit Analysis, the Organic Law of the Communal Economic System proposes "to establish a centrally planned economy", the Law of Fair Costs and Prices "liquidated the price system and, with it, economic freedom, property rights, labor rights and the freedom of consumers and users to choose goods and services according to their preferences", the Law Emergency Organic Law for Land and Housing "allows the plundering and invasion consented by the National Government of privately owned properties with the excuse of sheltering and implementing housing solutions in favor of those who have been affected by the rains in recent years in Venezuela."[20].
José Miguel Pérez Gechele in his article Venezuela: the 1999 national constitution is shit recalled a past text of his where he invites people to ignore the constitution and stated that "Venezuelans are a zombie, without identity and without property rights." He criticized some articles of the Venezuelan Constitution in Chapter VII of "economic "rights" since he considered it "more important and timely given our current economic crisis." For Pérez Gechele, the right to property is “being able to do with my life and the fruit of my work what I want, as simple as that” and he goes on to say that “it is not something that can be reduced to simply being able to have my car, my house or my business. The right to property begins with the right to life, to your own life. He says that although Article 115 states that the right to property is guaranteed, when property is subject to expropriation because it is a "public utility asset" it is no longer truly property and is not really guaranteed. Regarding article 212, he states that “if they are telling me that I am free to dedicate myself to whatever I want and then they tell me that I will be limited by public officials, what kind of freedom is that? Yes, the answer is: no freedom. It continues with article 113 which «says that “monopolies will not be allowed” which, by the way, can be imposed only in collusion with the law. To demonstrate that this is true, the same article closes by stating that "when it comes to the exploitation of natural resources, the State may grant concessions for a certain period of time" which states that monopolies in Venezuela can only be those that the State grants arbitrarily through a concession. Finally, he criticizes that by "restricting your production" by price control, by the "specific allocation of products to produce or simply getting hold of your merchandise" makes you not "owner of your business."[21].
For the former presidential candidate of the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable coalition and governor of Miranda, Henrique Capriles, "private property is not a whim, it is the law",[22] on the other hand, his government program for the presidency would include "a State that promotes and respects private property."[23] In the 2012 Unity Roundtable primary elections, the presidential candidate María Corina Machado proposed popular capitalism and stated that when asked Take away a person's property, that action is stealing.[24].
For the historian Margarita López Maya, the constitutional reform sought to weaken private property because "it had been proposed to change the verb "guarantee" to "recognize."[25] Industrial unions, non-governmental organizations, academics and representatives of the affected sectors have denounced that the regulatory measures taken by the Venezuelan Government during the Bolivarian Revolution not only threaten private property but have also not generated the results offered. They affirm that the national shortage of raw materials and finished products – and the collapse of the Venezuelan economy by 4.5% in the third quarter of 2009 – are due in part to the Government's nationalizations, which have weakened the economy by driving away private investment and further restricting the supply of goods and services.
In June 2009, two civil organizations, CEDICE and Asoesfuerzo, began a media campaign in defense of private property, denouncing that the new laws and recent expropriations constituted clear proof that property in Venezuela was at risk.[26] The media campaign was banned days later because the authorities considered that it caused anxiety in the population.[27] Representatives of both organizations initiated a prosecution procedure for this. reason.[28].
Other sectors, on the contrary, considered that private property was defended in Venezuela, and that the government of Hugo Chávez rather benefited business sectors with "compensations", and that what their economic measures had done was seek to regularize those most savage schemes of capitalism, the exploitation of workers, uncontrolled profits, the imposition of speculative prices. They maintained that what was proposed was to partially regulate private property, to give the "bourgeois State" itself mechanisms to influence in some way its dynamics and promote a promised “national development” with doses of the so-called “social justice”: that is why it was limited to controlling – and not entirely – secondary aspects of the development of capital, such as the prices of some products, access to dollars, nationalizing/buying the odd company, etc., while maintaining all the fundamentals of the capitalist exploitation, bourgeois property and its social system. This scheme of lukewarm state regulation of private property is what was in crisis.[29].