AP Photo

What ended this week, with the death of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, was a continent-wide experiment in the transformation of human life through politics. Outside South America, Mr. Chavez was a polarizing figure: His outspoken anti-Americanism and alliances with the dictators of Iran, Libya and Iraq led him to be demonized by many as a Cold War-style threat. For others, he was a hero: a dark-skinned child of the slums who beat down rapacious corporations and gave his country’s oil money to the poor and championed the marginalized.