Re: Query from a Venezuelan (reply to Chris B.)

[Grant Lee <grantlee@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From:    Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>

> Coincidentally I was doing a Google search and came across this
> contribution to LBO-talk in October 2001 by Greg Schofield, which seems to
> put the issue well.
> [Unfortunately his email address no longer seems to be working. If anyone
> can forward me his current address, I would be grateful.]

Hello Chris,

Even though Greg and I live in the same city, we had some serious
disagreements during his time at LBO-talk and we would certainly have
disagreed on this issue.

My point was not to lionise free trade. The Venezuelan situation raises many
questions in my mind. I mean, for example, protectionism, like land reform,
is very far removed from a genuinely socialist/communist society, assuming
that _is_ what Chavez and the Bolivarians want to achieve. To me, the
reference to the early 19th C. USA is not enouraging, because even at best,
it seems to assume that "protectionist" strategies can (1) be detached from
the real, historical class relations in which they occurred and (2) used to
achieve a totally different kind of society.

If, in the short to medium term, the Bolivarians _do_ intend predominantly
state and/or worker owned enterprises, the "development" which protectionism
is supposed to nurture will still have a socially destructive
aspect/element, for which the Bolivarians will be blamed, even if they are
no longer in power, and even if they take steps to ameliorate the social
fallout.

In general, I disagree with what I call the "quantity theory of socialism",
which to me was discredited by the Oil Shock, the stagflation which followed
and the neoliberal (counter)revolution. I mean, consider that in the early
1970s more than 50% of the workforce in some OECD states was in the public
sector! Some people thought it would creep onward and upward but they were
wrong. Of course things _can_ turn around quickly, but that level of state
ownership is at present unthinkable in any developed state.

And as Marx predicted, once industrialisation (e.g the establishment of
functioning ISI) is achieved, as far as the bourgeoisie is concerned,
protectionism has served it's purpose, can be dispensed with and the
Venezuelans, English, Australians or Filipinos are no closer to a society in
which "the free development of the individual is the condition for the free
development of all."

regards,

Grant.