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Author Topic: Analysis of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560

posted 26 June 2008 04:25 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I thought that this could be a general discussion topic since there are a lot of Venezuela threads, but most of the "general" ones discussing the political change that has happened there are full and closed.

Book review: "Changing Venezuela by Taking Power"


quote:
But Wilpert has not just produced a comprehensive look at the social, economic and political transformation that has shaken the foundations of Venezuela over the past decade; he has also delivered a sharp rebuke to one of the trendiest, if dubious, political theories to appear on the academic left in recent years. Wilpert's title is an unsubtle blast at John Holloway's Changing the World Without Taking Power, a book that with its theoretical ambition (and pretension) rivals Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's Empire in its attempt to carve out a new radical theoretical manifesto — something that is about the last thing the Left needs anyway, but I digress.

Holloway, a British academic who has been amongst the leading chroniclers of the Zapatista movement in the Mexican province of Chiapas which announced itself dramatically with an armed uprising on January 1, 1994 (the day NAFTA took effect), makes the case that the Left should abandon the field of struggle for state power. In defense of this recommendation, Holloway points to the historic failures of both state socialism(s) and social democratic attempts to transcend or, in the latter's case, even reform capitalism in any meaningful or permanent way. Elevating some of the success of the indigenous resistance in Chiapas to the level of universal prescriptions, Holloway argues that progressive forces should focus only on building autonomous spaces of "anti-power," organizing on the local level and slowly developing alternatives in every aspect of life and work in order to eventually overwhelm the alienating and violent capitalist system.



From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4140

posted 27 June 2008 06:26 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Canadian Michael A. Lebowitz: Socialism does not drop from the sky. It is not a gift from those who know about socialism to those who do not. It is not a Christmas present to those who have been good all year. When you understand the concept of revolutionary practice, that concept of the simultaneous changing of circumstances and self-change that is embodied in the 1999 constitution, you recognize that the building of socialism is the simultaneous building of socialist human beings. And, you recognize that it occurs through your own struggles, your own practice.

Following the referendum defeat last year, Lebowitz spoke in the Legislative Assembly in Barcelona, Venezuela on
The Only Road is Practice.

Lebowitz notes that the revolutionary goal of the all-round development of the entire citizenry - not just the rich people - is written right into the Venezuelan constitution.

quote:
But human development is more than a goal in the constitution. A key characteristic of the Bolivarian Constitution is its focus upon precisely how people develop their capacities and capabilities—i.e., how overall human development occurs.... Let me stress that point: participation is the necessary way for your complete development, both individual and collective. And, the same focus upon a democratic, participatory, and protagonistic society is present in the economic sphere.

Is Venezuela a socialist country?

quote:
So, is the existing constitution Marxist? Is it socialist? No, because although the Bolivarian Constitution of 1999 focused upon the development of human capacity, it also retained the support for capitalism of earlier constitutions. That constitution guarantees the right of property (Article 115), identifies a role for private initiative in generating growth and employment (Article 299), and calls upon the state to promote private initiative (Article 112). Further, that constitution contained the special condition desired by finance capital’s policy of neoliberalism—the independence of the Central Bank of Venezuela. Why does imperialism want that in the constitution of every country? Because it says that it is not elected governments that should make critical decisions about an economy but bankers and those under their influence.

What about capitalism with a human face, like the NDP version of things?

quote:
... once you understand the logic of capital, you know that it can never lead to the full development of human beings. Why? Because the whole goal of capital is profits. That is what drives the system. To increase profits, capital does everything it can to increase its exploitation of workers by separating them and turning them against each other. It compels people, for example immigrants and impoverished people from the countryside, to compete for jobs by working for less. It uses the state to outlaw or destroy trade unions, or shuts down operations and moves to parts of the world where people are poor and trade unions are banned. From the perspective of capital, all this is logical. It is logical for capital to do everything possible to turn workers against each other, including using racism and sexism to divide them. Marx described the hostility in the nineteenth century between English and Irish workers in England as the source of their weakness: “It is the secret by which the capitalist class maintains its power. And that class is fully aware of it.”

Lebowitz calls for MORE democracy, and not the kind of cosmetic garbage that doesn't move a flea hop closer to socialism, that happens once every five years, that mimics a high school popularity contest, and that changes nothing substantial. Socialism is the expansion of democracy and participation beyond parliamentary cretinism.


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
KeyStone
recent-rabble-rouser
Babbler # 15158

posted 27 June 2008 07:46 AM      Profile for KeyStone     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I find the mainstream media to be absurd when it comes to Venezuela.

Everytime he won an election or a referendum etc - then they decried that he had tampred with the polls and the electoral system.

Then when he loses a referendum, they trumpet that it is proof of the fact that people are tired of Chavez's dictatorial ways.

Do they not realize that dictators don't lose elections? You can not remove a dictator with an election. I think Mugabe has proven this.

Couldn't just one MM give praise for Chavez for honouring the will of the people, despite such a close vote? No, that's not on the North American agenda.

The only thing on the North American agenda is figuring out how to keep LATAM people in their places so they give us all their rescources, and we give them electronic gadgets. The last thing we North Americans want is an educated Latin America that gets a fair price for their natural resources.


From: Toronto | Registered: Apr 2008  |  IP: Logged

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