Supermarket shelves in Venezuela are chronically bare, and power shortages are so severe that government offices are now open only two days a week. The health care system has collapsed, the crime rate is one of the world’s worst, and inflation is rapidly eroding what remains of the currency’s value.

“The economy has gone from bad to worse to horrific,” said Jason Marczak, director of the Latin America Economic Growth Initiative at the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, part of the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research organization. “The Venezuelan government is doing a good job of leading itself into chaos.”

Here are some basic questions and answers on how Venezuela got to this point under President Nicolás Maduro and what could happen next.

How could this happen in a country that has the largest reserves of oil in the world?

The price of oil, Venezuela’s only significant export, has plummeted, which means revenue could fall by 40 percent this year. The government’s huge borrowing, partly a legacy of the years when oil prices were far higher, has helped bring the crisis to a head because Venezuela now has far less money to repay its foreign debt, forcing Mr. Maduro to slash imports in order to avoid default.