He actually proposed that public colleges and universities should be tuition free, which is not the same thing.

> On reflection, that's not very comforting. We are at a place politically where "redistribution from the rich" has become thinkable as an independent goal.

Redistribution wasn't what caused the collapse, being more dependent on oil while producing less of it (and thus becoming supersensitive to price was.)

I only mentioned redistribution as an independent policy goal to explain why the narrative social spending -> funding needs -> effort at raising taxes -> expropriation was wrong. That sequence simply didn't occur. Venezuela relied on raising oil prices for revenue, and collapsed when oil prices did; expropriation was adopted early on when things were going relatively well, because of high oil prices, not in desperation over inadequate revenue.