Re: Query from a Venezuelan

[Grant Lee <grantlee@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis,

> So, fine. Malaysia is not the best example. Let's compare Peron's
> Argentina with Menem's Argentina.

Yes, Juan Peron's program was leftist, revolving around state ownership,
tariffs, subsidies and so on. Nevertheless it did not go anywhere near the
vital step of annihilating capital itself --- that is, in Marx's main sense
of a social relation. That is the crucial question in regard to present day
Venezuela and if the Bolivarians fail that test, whatever good work they do
do, may soon be undone.

> A job in the state sector in a
> capitalist country is not the same thing as a job in a society that has
> abolished capitalism. In a capitalist country, there are no
> *institutional* guarantees. Nothing like this has ever happened in Cuba
> or will:

I believe the Italian constitution includes a right to work, for what such
things are worth. There may not have been an "institutional guarantee" of a
job for life in most developed countries during the era of the long post-WW2
boom and Keynesianism, but (with the probable exception of the USA) there
was certainly, by the 1970s, a widespread expectation that that was the
case. Besides which, an institutional guarantee is only as good as the faith
of the public in the regime's ability to deliver. Chavez may have the
support of most Venezuelans now, but that does not mean they are prepared to
believe in institutional guarantees, or will support them politically in the
long run.

> Financial Times (London)
> April 1, 2003, Tuesday Surveys TFI1
>

> Abdullatif Sener, Turkey's deputy prime minister in charge of the
> economy, recently cited Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime
> minister, as his inspiration for vowing to complete overdue
> privatisation which in his country has stalled so frequently as to lose
> credibility.

A very interesting article, which I read as showing a moderate Islamist
party forming an alliance with global capital, to undermine the position of
the strata of national capital which were closely associated with the
previous government.

> > Just because they don't agree with your idea of the best strategy
doesn't
> > make them wrong. Only the future will end that argument.
>
> They have no idea of strategy. They, in fact, have no interest in
politics.

I think the emphasis on praxis has been both a strength and weakness of many
latter day Marxist groups. It has an innate appeal, when compared to the
scholastic lines of academic Marxism. However, I think the compulsion to
"act" at all times also leads many activists into quixotic and even
counterproductive activity.

> The benchmark is not OECD, but countries like Jamaica. Here's another
> movie review to make my point:

I get the point(s), but Venezuela does have the advantage of significant
state-owned oil industries. And if it were about to go down the Jamaican
road, it would take a lot more than "protectionism" to prevent that.

> When working-class
> protests against low wages and miserable working conditions erupted [in
Jamaica], the
> owners closed the shops down and relocated to Mexico, where a more
> docile work force had been found. Of course, the same kinds of migration
> from the countryside into the cities in Mexico was creating the kind of
> reserve army of the unemployed that provides a fertile soil for maquila
> type exploitation.

In other words, just as Marx predicted, laissez faire/export-oriented
development plans are rapidly exposing more and more people, in more and
more countries to pauperisation and increasing class conflict.
State-directed development, whether it is capitalist or socialist, smooths
out and suppresses these things but does not abolish them, especially if
capital still exists as a social relation.

regards,

Grant.