Rory Carroll in Caracas Monday November 13, 2006
Another agreeable lunch ended at the Caracas Country Club with a bottle of Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon, the chef's famous flan and a round of espressos served on a silver platter.
From their table in the sun-kissed courtyard the three businessmen could hear only the fountain's gurgle, the murmur of other diners, the clink of glasses and the swish of waiters in wine-coloured waistcoats. A socialist revolution is supposed to be clanging through Venezuela but from this oasis of wealth in the heart of the capital it is inaudible, just like the traffic. "The revolution is blah blah blah. We don't feel threatened," said one of the trio, a shoe factory owner.
Much of the country's elite, it seems, feel the same way. President Hugo Chávez has warned that "capitalism will lead to the destruction of humanity" but seldom has there been a better time to make, spend and enjoy money.
The economy is surging at 9.4% and banks and credit card companies are reporting exponential increases in deposits and loans. Car sales are expected to more than double this year to 300,000, many of them luxury models, and property price rises rival Manhattan. The reason is oil. As the world's fifth biggest exporter Venezuela has thrived as the barrel price hovers around $60.
Unlike previous petro-booms, however, this one is supposed to be different as there is a powerful president who wears a red beret, quotes Che Guevara and praises Cuban communism. Mr Chávez has garnered global attention with promises to "transform the structures of capitalism".
Billions of dollars have been spent on improving health care and education for the country's poor and in the countryside a small minority of sugar plantations and ranches have been turned into socialist cooperatives.
But property rights and the structure of the economy remain intact, largely because the government does not want to impede its revenue, prompting relief from the elite and grumbles from the radical left who want greater redistribution of resources. "If you look at what it has accomplished, it is a neoliberal government," Douglas Bravo, a former Marxist guerrilla who was once close to Mr Chávez , lamented to the daily El Nacional.
Mr Chávez has described his eight years in power as a transition and promised a more radical phase, inspired partly by Fidel Castro's Cuba, if he wins another term in an election next month. Polls predict a landslide.
Alberto Garrido, a historian and leading pundit, said there was revolutionary intent but that an Americanised consumer culture in love with baseball, McDonald's and designer labels obliged the government to tread cautiously.
A notable example is golf. In August the mayor of Caracas and presidential ally, Juan Barreto, threatened to expropriate swaths of Caracas Country Club and Valle Arriba golf club to build houses for the poor.
Three months later Chávismo has not conquered the fairways. The vice-president, Vincente Rangel, scorned the idea and Mr Chávez, not wanting to pick this particular fight in the run-up to an election, said not a word, leaving the mayor to fight a lonely battle against the clubs' lawyers.
Caracas Country Club, founded in 1918 and with 8,000 well-heeled members, went on the offensive last week by claiming the expropriation threat was based on fraudulent documents. "We feel it will be resolved rationally, we are confident in the rule of law," said the club president, Fernando Zozaya. Asked about the revolution Mr Zozaya was wary, not wanting to provoke the government. "Let's say it's a very special type of socialism."
The three businessmen lunching in the courtyard were more explicit in mocking it as empty bluster. "It hasn't touched my work, I'm left alone," said one.
That did not stop them loathing Mr Chávez, whom they blamed for inflation, crime, corruption and a climate of intolerance which blocks government critics from state jobs.