Venezuela has been in a death spiral for years. The country have been devastated by political repression and economic depression; its people suffer from huger, malnutrition, shortages of food, medicine and, perhaps worst of all, opportunity. The numbers tell the story: 9 million malnourished, 90% of the country’s 28 million live in poverty, and more than 5 million have fled.

David Smolansky, our guest for this episode of New Thinking for a New World, is one of those who have fled. He was chased from his elected post of mayor of El Hatillo municipality and avoided jail only by seeking political asylum in the United States. Listen as he imagines how his country can—he believes, will—go from a failed, kleptocratic state to a prosperous democracy.