[A-List] navarro interview

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/696/36142
Pioneering the new socialism of the 21st century
 
Federico Fuentes
25 January 2007


On January 8, Venezuela's socialist President Hugo Chavez swore in his new
cabinet, including five new members, calling upon them to take an oath that
they would "never rest arm or soul in the construction of the Venezuelan
path towards socialism". One the ministers sworn in was Hector Navarro,
previously higher education minister and now Venezuela's minister of science
and technology. 
Visiting Australia towards the end of last year as part of a presidential
delegation, Navarro spoke with Green Left Weekly about his ideas on the new
socialism of the 21st century. The first part of the interview was published
in GLW #684. 

According to Navarro, this "new socialism" is posing a real alternative to
"what some authors have called 'hegemonic global imperialism'". 

The early imperialist system, as analysed by Lenin during World War I, had
several rival developed capitalist powers. "But now, there exists one sole
empire which is both global and hegemonic", Navarro argued, adding: "It does
not recognise the UN, instead it does what it wants." 

This US-centred empire is in its "terminal phase". Pointing to the chronic
and permanent trade deficits of the US as one example of this, he noted that
in essence what is occurring today "is not just a crisis of capitalism, but
of its very essence, which is capital". 

"Capitalism has a logic, which is the logic of capital. It is the logic of
the pursuit of maximum profit, which automatically means that there is no
respect for the environment, because, if you want to maximise profit, the
environment is not important for you. If you are going to maximise profit,
human beings don't matter to you. What is important is maximising profits,
and under the logic of capital, the market is what regulates everything." 

Drawing out the irony of all the talk about the virtues of the "free market"
under corporate capitalism, Navarro said that what really exists is a
"market that is manipulated by the mass media, which induces people towards
consumerism, towards buying new things. The result is that there is no such
thing as a free market, there only exists manipulation." 

Navarro argued that in the end all this does is "draw us into a vicious
cycle where we are simply destroying the environment. This is a limiting
factor which impedes capitalism from being able to continue existing after
this final phase. 

"After global hegemonic capitalism there is no other phase of capitalism.
There is the death of humanity, the disappearance of the human species and
the disappearance of life on this planet - or the alternative, which is to
replace the logic of capital with the logic of labour, a totally different
logic, because now it is not maximisation of individual profit, but rather,
it is based on benefiting the collective." 

Navarro said that this is the type of society that the Bolivarian revolution
is trying to build today, based on the "logic of labour" rather than
capital. For Navarro, this "logic of labour" is the basis of "a new
socialist project that rescues the real origins of socialism, of that
socialism with is filled with humanism". 

Navarro said this was a break with the "old socialism" exemplified by the
Soviet Union. "I take Cuba out of that because the Cuban socialist project
is different to other socialist projects", he added. 

This "new socialism" is based on "a new type of democracy where the workers
have to take up a protagonistic role. Everyone has to take up the work of
the state so they need time to not just carry out their functions, they need
creative time." 

Recalling some of the experiences and discussion he had in his visit to the
Soviet Union in 1982, Navarro stated: "The USSR failed among other things
because it did not understand that humanity evolves and that human beings
need other spaces. Humans do not live by just satisfying their material
necessities, such as housing, clothing, etc. 

"As well as material needs - which are important, indispensable - there are
other elements, which have to do with the mind, with the spirit, that have
to do with the nature of humans as opposed to animals. Animals can live by
just satisfying their material needs. Humans cannot. Humans needs a space to
project themselves, and that space to project themselves, socially and
politically, is contained with the Bolivarian constitution." 

Perhaps one of the clearest examples of this is Article 62, which states,
"All citizens have the right to participate freely in public affairs, either
directly or through their elected representatives. The participation of the
people in forming, carrying out and controlling the management of public
affairs is the necessary way of achieving the involvement to ensure their
complete development, both individual and collective. It is the obligation
of the State and the duty of society to facilitate the generation of optimum
conditions for putting this into practice." 

Navarro commented that "the Soviets though they were the end of history -
you can see here a coinciding of idea put forward by the Soviet leaders and
by the neoliberals - the end of history, the end of ideologies. The Soviets
also came to believe that they were the end of history and that there was
nothing beyond the way things were in the Soviet Union. 

"But things are not like that because humans are permanently evolving. They
began to maximise benefits, but it was the state that appropriates it, not
society - not a state where everyone is a part of the state, rather a state
formed by a few elites." 

He noted that the Venezuelan constitution "guarantees that petroleum revenue
is used for the benefit of all Venezuelans", unlike how it was used by
previous neoliberal governments to enrich the wealthy elite. "Moreover, it
indicates in what things revenues from petroleum can be invested -
education, health, etc. 

"This marks a clear difference with any capitalist vision because it is
saying that what is socially produced is socially used and that is a
socialist concept. What is socially produced, what is the product of our
collective labour, cannot be taken advantage of by the owners of capital,
but instead it should be for the use of the collective. 

"So petroleum is a collective good, everything that is underground is a
common good that belongs to society as a whole. The term collective means
not only for Venezuelans, because at the moment Venezuela's foreign policy
is focusing on an important part of petroleum resources to be used to help
other peoples in obtaining education, health etc. 

"This is something the Cubans also did and continue to do. They continue to
do it with us, for example, through the Cuban doctors and the literacy
campaign" in Venezuela. 

Navarro said that "we cannot commit the same error those who led the Soviet
Union did. We cannot think that within 151 years, three months, two days and
three hours, we will have constructed socialism and that once we get there,
that's it and we are all happy. 

"Socialism is constructed each day permanently, just like happiness is
constructed permanently. Happiness does not exist in isolation. What exists
is being on the path towards obtaining happiness, constructing it. You feel
happy when you know that you are on the path to obtaining happiness. But
absolute happiness cannot exist. Socialism cannot exist as a static
phenomenon, because it is like a grand goal that is over there, but what has
to happen is that we as humans have to be travelling towards that goal each
day, constructing socialism. That is the real socialism."