It is remarkable to observe. An economy as robust as Venezuela's used to be takes a great deal of stubborn, systematic damage over time to be brought as low as it has, and they've managed it. Every single step along the way was a product of Chavez's socialismo. The expropriations of private property, the nationalizations of corporate property, the tinkering with taxation, the printing of money (until they ran out of money to pay for the paper), the rationing, the insistence on a command economy while the demand economy was staggering, and the death blows in the form of inflation and the government's stubborn refusal to bend its ideological policies in response to the clear evidence of the real world. Maddening to watch, because by the time anyone admits that the past has been full of failure, which they are yet to do, the situation is irrecoverable.
There is a true economy - it is the black market economy and it is Venezuela's only lifeline at the present time. A police state of sufficient rigor and brutality can suppress even that, (excepting those portions that bribe the state), and the Venezuelans have expert Cuban consultants who are hard at work in that regard. This is a long way from its end state, however tragic and unnecessary it is at the moment. If Zimbabwe's model holds, Maduro will soon demand international money with his own people as hostages: "pay me or watch them starve." In Zimbabwe, it worked.
Coming soon to a state near you...... Illinois