In this case, though, the point is that it doesn't actually matter. Maybe the Washington Consensus really is a racket designed to turn underdeveloped nations i

In this case, though, the point is that it doesn't actually matter. Maybe the Washington Consensus really is a racket designed to turn underdeveloped nations into 1%-favoring client states. (Frankly, the least convincing part of Perkins is the claim that this is a formal conspiracy instead of a convenient result of non-conspiracy functioning.) Even if that's true, refusing to deal with PDVSA is far from unreasonable on a practical and moral level. Maduro is running an unsustainable, patronage-based con, to the detriment of his country. Freezing his ability to do that via international finance is a pretty reasonable move, so it doesn't actually tell us anything about the presence or absence of a conspiracy.