Chavez and Bush are really peas-in-a-pod.  Both have significantly concentrated power in the hands of the executive branch in the name of short term necessity and political expediency.  I can just about guarantee that US and Venezuelan voters will rue the day they allowed this to happen.  But I can also guess which country will more easily roll through economic tough times.  (Hint:  it won't be Venezuela.)

I'm not so sure about the anti-free trade crowd.  I think the long term net gains in these agreements are pretty apparent, but I suppose one could question the speed at which they are implemented and the corresponding effect on less skilled workers.  On the other hand, my time in Latin America showed me that the most protected industries were also the least efficient.  Lack of even basic modernization in many industries is exactly the thing that hinders growth in the region.  Chavez would have you believe that if only the USA would not meddle, South American countries would magically begin to grow like gangbusters.  This conveniently deflects blame from the very real problems in the region having to do with a serious deficit of personal responsibility and entrepreneurship.

Chavez rightly points to class conflicts, especially between South Americans of purer European descent and natives, as a prime source of injustice in the region.  In a way, many South American countries are just beginning to confront their own civil rights eras. 

And we're still faced with the reality that there aren't hundreds of thousands (millions even) of us trying to go there but rather so many of them trying to come here. 

One of the biggest myths, I think, was that laissez-faire, neo-liberal capitalism was actually implemented in Latin America during the 1990's.  While the trappings of it were adopted, I could see that actual reforms were subverted at every turn by both the rich conservatives (who had a lot to lose) and by the leftists (who opposed on ideology alone).  Chile and the government-controlled portions of Colombia came closest to adopting a real market economy and - surprise! - they have done better than their neighbors.  Ecuador also moved in that direction and somewhat stabilized an economy that had been near total collapse.  Brazil has done the same with a moderate and sane left-center government.  Chavez, on the other hand, has largely covered up the economy's failure through exchange rate control and lucky timing from global oil prices.  I think there was a lot of fear among the ruling classes that adoption of real market-oriented thinking would

1) lead to the hustle and bustle of a US-style culture thus changing their own (probably true) and

2) that extensive privilege would be undermined by the emergence of a meritocracy or something resembling it.

As a result, exchange rates were floated, but banking practices never really improved.  Ultra-rich farming oligarchs were heavily protected and didn't appreciably improve output.  Import/export corruption reigned free (and continues to do so).  Bloated government payrolls were never reduced, which sucked up money badly needed for infrastructure.  (Did you know that Venezuela still has no interstate highway system for trucking goods and also has no rail system for movement of goods?  Cost of transport alone kills many businesses.)  Government services were and are stuck 20-30 years in the past with poor computer support and thousands upon thousands of employees wasting their brain power pushing meaningless paper.  Just this week, Venezuela lost 6 consecutive days of import/export movement as the main SENIAT servers at the ports were down for that long!  This cost bost local and foreign-owned businesses a small fortune.  All the while, Chavez was sucking up to one of the world's most obvious an unjust dictators in Belarus - a guy who actually makes Bush look pretty good by comparison. 

In the end, I don't know if US-style capitalism would have worked any wonders in South America.  It might have failed as the cultures are indeed different than here.  But to pretend that countries there went down that road and found it a failure glosses over the truth.