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Alternative Globalizations In Latin America: Bolivia and Venezuela
By Jerry Harris

The State and Change from Above

The most exciting example of change from the top is the government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, which has pushed a radical agenda at home and abroad. Chavez was elected with the overwhelming support of the countries’ poor, which constitutes 80% of the population. His party, the Fifth Republic Movement (MRV), has won a large majority in congress and most of the provincial governors and local offices throughout the country. One of the government’s important first acts was to rewrite the nation’s constitution. While private property was protected, the constitution extended fundamental political, social and economic rights in favor of the poor. In a campaign of political education, committees were formed throughout working class barrios to study the new constitution. This was an important opening in the political culture of Venezuela, convincing many that they held a personal stake in the government.

When Chavez was overthrown in a coup it was the massive mobilization from the urban barrios that saved his government and brought him back to power. A radical awakening of consciousness over questions of democratic inclusion and defending the constitution propelled people into the streets. Rather than overthrowing the state, (the model of twentieth century revolutions), people fought to defend the state and save legally structured democracy. This experience is mirrored in Bolivia where the demand for a constituent assembly to rewrite the countries’ laws and create a new democratic framework is a strategic aim of the social movement. People’s aspirations for social justice are being articulated through structural participatory democratic forms that create institutional positions of strength and act as a convergence point for a new historic bloc. This should be noted as a characteristic of the new revolutionary left in the twenty-first century, a marked departure from the model of vanguard parties where platforms were pronounced in party manifestos that assumed to speak for the entire working class.

The temporary coup, followed by a hard fought two-month strike in the oil industry, radicalized Chavez and his movement. This process was similar to the effect of the US sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion that radicalized Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Revolutionary paths are always defined in part by the opposition, the two opposing sides linked in a process of action and reaction. It was only after the failed invasion that Castro declared a socialist direction for Cuba, as Chavez did after three attempts to oust him from office. His intent was made clear at the World Social Forum in Brazil where Chavez stated, “We must reclaim socialism as a thesis, a project and a path, but a new type of socialism, a humanist one that puts humans, not machines or the state, ahead of everything.” (Ellner, 9-05, p. 24) But the process in Venezuela is significantly different from the Cuban experience. Most capitalists have not fled the country but continue to operate their corporations and make profits, and Venezuela is firmly linked to the transnational economy rather than niched into some socialist bloc. In fact, Chavez signed a new contract with Chevron-Texaco in the middle of the oil strike by his pro-US opposition. Furthermore, there have been no nationalizations nor is socialism mentioned in the new constitution.

As Latin American scholar Steve Ellner explains, the “approach envisions an extended process of revolutionary change which is without precedent in history and which some claim may take several decades to complete. The end result will be a complete replacement of old structures created by the Chavista government and movement…replacing the current capitalist system with a mixed economy or association of medium-sized cooperatives.” (Ellner, 4- 05, pp 171-72) Ellner adds that the Chavistas are committed to a “peaceful democratic revolution (and) have ruled out the suppression of the existing institutions controlled by their adversaries in economic, political and state spheres and instead opted for parallelism.” (ibid, p.187)

But the opposition has plunged the country into repeated crises, initiating confrontations that they continue to lose. In response, participation and mobilization have been keys to the continuing battle for change, with an expansion of programs and goals after every major confrontation. In consolidating the transformational process, radical forces in state positions have united with social movements to help build revolutionary space throughout civil society. This is where the PT and ANC failed, causing political contradictions to develop between the state and organized social sectors. But in Venezuela the link between the state and social movements creates a revolutionary character and potential lacking in countries where autonomist power remains isolated from the government.

Of course autonomist activists have cause for caution, twentieth century revolutions used unions, community organizations and peasant associations as transmission belts for state led projects and party control. As University of Havana professor Jorge Luis Acanda Gonzalez explains, “With the advent of the ‘institutionalization process’ (civil society) was transformed into a paternalistic top-down political system based on the all-embracing presence of the state. The state occupied nearly all aspects of social life: livelihoods were inextricably linked to its presence, and it played a key role in ideological production displacing the (church and the market).” (Gonzalez p. 35) As in Cuba, there is a danger that the Venezuelan state may come to dominate and consume the independent role of the social movements. But the main thrust of the revolutionary project so far has been to decentralize state power into the hands of civil society, using the state to guard and guide the process.

One good example of this dynamic is to compare the autonomist cooperative movement in Argentina with the state facilitated cooperative movement in Venezuela. When the Argentine economy collapsed after being looted by neo-liberal speculators there were protests and mobilizations by almost every sector of society. One result was the takeover of about 200 factory enterprises turning them into worker-run and managed cooperatives after they had been abandon by their owners. In addition, self-managed neighborhood and food cooperatives arose in different communities as a means of survival in an economy that had all but ceased to function. All toll the various autonomist cooperatives encompassed over 10,000 people. While workers quickly proved they could profitably operate their factories the former owners and government challenged their efforts. Some enterprises won legal recognition from the state, but this was never an easy process. Other worker cooperatives had to defend themselves from police attacks and fought to remain operating their factories.

As examples of courage, initiative and solidarity the worker cooperatives have been inspiring, but they have failed to develop into a widespread movement within the working class. When anarchist activist and intellectual Michael Albert interviewed the president of a glass manufacturing cooperative about the possibility that workers in traditionally owned plants would take over and run their factories the president “without hesitating said no.” Pursuing the point by asking members of the cooperative council why they couldn’t convey their experience and motivate others to act, Albert writes, the president “shrugged, he didn’t see it as likely. Worse, it wasn’t on his agenda. His horizon of interest was his own plant and not beyond. Others agreed.” Albert, who visited many of Argentina’s enterprise cooperatives, writes “Perhaps the weakest feature of the Argentine movement, is the insularity of each firm and the workers’ seeming lack of desire to organize non-recuperated firms by demanding changes in them too.” What Albert found was not a mass autonomist movement for revolutionary change, but worker’s turning to each other and relying on their mutual efforts in their common fight for survival. (Albert, ‘05)

On the otherhand, in Venezuela there are 83,769 cooperatives active in every sector of the economy with some 946,000 members. The new constitution defines cooperatives as key economic institutions for mass participation and state decentralization. Taking advantage of state run educational missions over 195,000 students have been trained in technical and managerial subjects and upon graduation created 7,592 new cooperatives. These cooperatives join together to design projects and become part of Endogenous Development Zones where they receive credit, technical support and physical space. Newly formed lending agencies such as the Women’s Bank and the People’s Bank help to facilitate this process. As of 2005 there were 115 active zones covering 960 cooperatives, 75 percent in agricultural, 15 percent in industrial enterprises and ten percent in tourism. The cooperative enterprises are not state run employment programs, but are expected to make profits and pay-off their loans. While most production is geared towards providing for a stronger and sustainable internal market, the Ministry of Popular Economy facilitates the integration of cooperatives with small and medium size companies to create production chains that can contract with foreign buyers. Thus a parallel economic structure is being created alongside the traditional market. (C. Harnecker)

In addition to the new cooperatives in the Development Zones, many state run industries have moved to co-management or cooperative management forms. Efforts have also included urban neighborhood organizations in the planning and decision making process over municipal public services. This includes supervision, prioritizing projects and hiring cooperatives to carry out the work. To promote the social economy the government also hands out land titles and work contracts to those who self-organize into cooperatives, promoting collectively owned production capacity. All this is directed towards generating wealth in an egalitarian and internally sustainable fashion in a country where oil makes up 30 percent of the GDP, 50 percent of the state income and 80 percent of exports.

Oil wealth, as in many countries, created a corrupt political culture in Venezuela. Although owned by the state, the petroleum industry only benefited the elite, wealth flowing into the hands of those who controlled the industry and government. As Jorge Giordani, Minister of Planning and Development noted, “Everything has been ‘Mama State, Papa State, give me oil money.’ To organize people is extremely hard.” (Parenti) Creating a counter-hegemonic culture will be a long transformative struggle that must be based in an alternative economic project. The strategy of the Bolivarian revolution is to support the cooperative movement to build economic strength and develop a counter ideology and culture. From this position of strength the popular movement can contest and eventual replace the neo-liberal capitalist model with a decentralized system based on a social market economy. Those who believe the Chavez government will fall when oil prices drop fail to perceive the rich web of organizations sinking roots in civil society.

Of course there are many old habits in both the state and market that can undermine the revolutionary process. The state may turn the cooperatives into a cliental relationship demanding political support in return for economic support. Easy credit and poor technical and managerial skills may lead to economic failure or state support that turns into debt and deficits. And problems of unlawful accounting, undemocratic decision-making and managers excluding members from their share of profits have occurred. (Ibid) Such internal contradictions are not uncommon in the history of cooperative movements. And debates always exist over internal organization, membership and market strategies.

But what is also evident in Venezuela, as throughout Latin America, is a strategy by social movements to become producers rather than just groups marching to demand more services. Both social and state actors have made the market contested territory to develop an alternative model. Counter-hegemony needs to be based in a different set of labor relations as represented in the cooperative movement and by economic democracy. Not only is there a need to build an alternative economic vision, but practical alternative economic activities that generate new social relations. Social movements need to go beyond the political struggle between civil society and the state to include the market, while state actors need to use their institutional power to decentralize economic decision making into a participatory democratic process.

Given the difficulties of autonomist, state and market strategies for social transformation we can see that no easy answers exist, no silver bullet, in the quest for a just society. The relationships between state, civil society and market are deeply complex, each having its own dynamic while interconnected and modifying the others. The idea that any one theory or strategy can encompass and account for the whole of these complexities assumes a narrow and reductionist approach. Only views that recognize the constant interchange and overdeterminations of social forces can hope to offer the tools for a fruitful analysis. Once we recognize the dialectical character of the relationships we can begin to develop political strategies that make room for historic transformational processes that encompass broad social forces that condition each other. This allows us to see the necessary ebbs and flows between institutional structures and social movements, each with strength and weaknesses, each with their historic moment of influence and importance. The democratic dialectic is recognition of this process.

References:

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Albert, Michael. “Argentina’s Occupied Factories, Practicing Participatory democracy in the workplace.” Z Magazine On-line. Dec. 2005, Vol. 18, #2.
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/curTOC.htm

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Ellner, Steve. Venezuela: Defying Globalization’s Logic.” NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. 39, No. 2. Sept/Oct. 2005.

Forero, Juan. “Coca advocate Wins Election For President in Bolivia.” Dec. 19, 2005. www.nytimes.com/2005/12/19/international/americas/19bolivia.html

Gonzalez, Jorge Luis Acanda. “Cuban Civil Society, Reinterpreting the Debate.” NACLA Report on the Americas. Vol. 39, #4. Jan/Feb. 2006.

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Gutierrez-Aguilar, Raquel. 2004. “The Coordinadora, One Year After the Water Wars.” Cochabamba! Water War in Bolivia. South End Press, Cambridge.

Harnecker, Camila Pineiro. “The New Cooperative Movement in Venezuela’s Bolivarian Process.” May 12, 2005. http://mrzine.monthlyreveiw.org/harnecker051205.html

Harvey Harvey, “Inclusion Through Autonomy: Zapatistas and Dissent,” NACLA Report on the Americas 39, no. 2 (September/October 2005): 14.

Linera, Alvaro Garcia. 2004. “The Multitude.” Cochabamba! Water Wars in Bolivia. South End Press, Cambridge.

Olivera, Oscar. 2004. Cochabamba! Water Wars in Bolivia. South End Press, Cambridge.

Parenti, Christian. “Hugo Chavez and Petro Populism.” March 24, 2005. www.thenation.com/doc/20050411/parenti/8

Ramirez, Vladimir Escalante. 2005. “Why Does the PRD Lose?” http:// db.uwaterloo.cal/~alopez-o/politics/prdlose.html

Schultz, Jim. “Bolivia’s Unplanned Elections.” Nov. 2005. www.democracyctr.org/newsletter/vol67.htm

Stedile, Joao Pedro. “Memories of Struggle in the MST.” NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. 38, No. 5, March/April 2005.

Jerry Harris
Professor of History
DeVry University, Chicago
gharris234@comcast.net