As Venezuelan socialism descends into tyranny, hunger, and chaos, a milestone came in July when a government ministry announced Resolution No. 9855, under whose provisions, quoting CNBC, “workers can be forcefully moved from their jobs to work in farm fields or elsewhere in the agricultural sector for periods of 60 days.” Amnesty International says the decree “effectively amounts to forced labor.” Strongman Nicolas Maduro has likewise imposed harsh legal penalties on businesses that close down their operations.
It all echoes the Directive 10–289 (all workers “shall henceforth be attached to their jobs and shall not leave nor be dismissed nor change employment,” with businesses similarly bound) from Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged. Readers may assume that Rand based her fictionalized directive on the track record of the sorts of dictatorships that outlaw political opposition. But in fact elements of forced labor have cropped up in socialist experiments even in nations with strong track records of constitutional government and civil liberties, such as postwar Britain.