Fourteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences

Abstract

The word bachaquero is not mentioned in Spanish dictionaries, yet bachaqueros are well-known in Venezuela, where they are omnipresent intermediaries of the country growing informal economy. Originally, bachaqueros only smuggled gasoline or other goods and commodities through border areas of Venezuela with Colombia. As these people often carried large packages, they were nicknamed bachaqueros from bachacos, which are tropical, common ants that can easily be seen in Colombia and Venezuela carrying their food. This study considers bachaqueros, who are everywhere now in Venezuela. As government controls the exchange of Venezuelan currency and distribution and prices of innumerable goods, even goods for daily consumption quickly disappear from the country shops or are in severe shortage, and only bachaqueros are able to sell everything at very high prices after buying at subsidized prices or smuggling into Venezuela from other countries, and, of course, hoarding. According to the government, bachaquero’s activities are illegal, but in the current situation for many Venezuelans “bachaquear” (working as a bachaquero) has become an important source of income or an inevitable activity to survive; the purchasing power of the country salaries, indeed, is now insignificant. It would look as a desperate situation for the country and its government, yet the bachaquera society with its overgrowing informal economy also contributes to legitimize the current Venezuelan regime. Between a sort of poverty consolidation and incumbent underdevelopment, it rather seems that the regime aims at creating pauperized, semi-illegal economy and society which increasingly depend on government charity.