Barbie dolls for the masses as Venezuelan president orders price cut

Venezuelan socialism has embraced Barbie, just in time for Christmas.

Mothers, grandmothers and beaming little girls are grabbing armfuls of the dolls in toy stores across Caracas, taking advantage of the government's order that large chains sell the plastic figurines at rock bottom prices during the holiday shopping season.

No sooner had saleswoman Crystal Casanova begun mounting a display of gleaming pink boxes recently weekday than a horde of women descended. Soon, she and her colleagues were letting customers grab the Barbies straight out of the Mattel-stamped cardboard cartons.

Within minutes, the entire stock was gone, with the dolls selling for as little as 250 bolivars (HK$19 at the widely used black market conversion rate.)

Venezuela's socialist government has long imposed price caps on essential products, from milk to laundry detergent, and threatened merchants who hoard goods or sell them at unfairly high margins with jail.

Now President Nicolas Maduro is making the Barbie doll, often derided by leftists as a training tool for capitalist consumerism, a highlight of this year's "Operation Merry Christmas", which he presented as an effort to prevent speculators from ruining the holidays.