NEW YORK CITY—In his latest column, Ethan Penner examines the collapse of civil order in Venezuela, and talks about how specifics of the societal breakdown could happen elsewhere.

With basic goods scarce and inflation exceeding 50%, mass protests have broken out in Venezuela, only to be met by government violence, Penner writes. Penner believes it is precisely because the government has created a reliant populace—one reinforced through the entitlements of an oil-based welfare state—that a "victim mentality" built off of the "rhetoric about inequality and fair allocation of wealth" has taken root.

While not completely analogous, Penner believes the underlying apathy is dangerously present in the US, and calls for different voices to insist a different approach to address it.