Monday,May 9 2005, 09:28:06 PMPart Two Revolutionary Transition Designs

CHAPTER TWO:

 

“Capitalism leads us straight to hell…The idea of a “Third Way” as a solution to capitalism: capitalism with a human face, is like trying to give the monster a mask… But this mask has fallen to the floor shattered by reality”.
 -=- (2) Chavez on Socialism:  http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/chavez_opposition_capitalism.htm
 
             Join A Life of Revolutionary Democracy:
  

 

A STATEMENT ON NEW SYSTEMS AND NEW POLICIES FOR THE STRUGGLE OF SOVEREIGNTY AGAINST NEO-LIBERALISM AND THE SLAVERY DEMANDED BY USA IMPERIALISM

 

 

National and Global movements need to coordinate their strategies around building a Global Anti-Capitalist Bloc. The most promising region to support is the Andes including Venezuela. Through coordinated efforts at fundraising, policy proposals, education and political pressure  a worker-student vanguard in the rich countries can help the mass of poor Third World people to take over their (South American) governments and build up the Global Anti Capitalist Bloc. As we grow stronger and more independent of the USA and world markets,  the momentum for a Revolutionary and Anti-Capitalist Democracy will cascade across the planet.
 
For every reason in the world you should be fighting capitalism. We fight Capitalism because it concentrates wealth and power at the international level (USA-UK, Exxon-Mobil, Citi-Bank, Wal-Mart) and also at the national or even the local level) 300 USA billionaires, the Colombian Narco-Oligarchy, the millionaire death squad and foreign ranchers throughout the Amazon).   We fight capitalism – especially the globalization of a savage corporate capitalism –because it makes a joke of democracy by taking away most economic decisions from communities and nations. This globalization replaces our options, debate and culture with un-elected WTO tribunals and capitalist legalisms of a powerful corporate design.

 

 USA-UK capital is violent to the environment and the poor. It is always backed up by an obscene military-espionage apparatus – and so we fight it.

 

 We fight for the possibility of options and open experimentation in designing sustainable systems of living.
The pace and methods chosen by different cultures and regions may vary, but only by placing the social – the people – at the center of development can humans achieve peace or sustainability.
                                                

 

Section One

 

MER ECONOMIC MODEL for a Revolutionary Democracy:

 

Ecuadoran/Bolivian Crisis Advice

 

The MER approach rejects the capitalist notion that you simply socialize and train people to fill jobs determined by the market forces of big business and their government cronies. Without the old market forces to tell us what to learn and what attitudes to develop, we have to have a plan for the kind of world we are fighting for and what kinds of skills will be needed in that world that we must win.

 

The experiments in Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua are valuable investments that help us in designing better systems of participation for a people-centered development program. This economic program is also a philosophy of change, a description of a solidaristic society and macro-economic policies for a new economics. MER is expanding the scope and detail of its analysis of Venezuela, Bolivia and Peru. We seek collaborators and have considerable projects for interns or interested people to engage in. 

 

The social and economic problems in the world arise from a structural inbalance of political, economic and social power between the countries in North and those in the South. This imbalance in power translates into unequal trade patterns, unequal access to resources and most importantly the increasing desire of certain economic, social and political elite (the oligarchy) to impose their will on the rest of the people. The effects of these are poverty, hunger, malnutrition, natural disasters, economic, social and political upheavals in countries in the south. The most effective way to combat these social evils in a sustainable way is to fight against the power relations at all levels. Stronger organisations from the civil society and more importantly membership-organisations of peasant farmers, women, workers and rural communities are the building rocks to effect changes. These organised bodies need to participate in the decision-making process affecting them and also embark on countervailing power process.

 

Section Two:

 

Emergency Self Organization of Cities, Regions and Rural Areas

 

Original April 25 Draft ( Chapter One) at:
http://print.indymedia.org/news/2005/05/1905.php
www.zorpia.com/venezuela1

 

Chapter Two , at:  http://www.bcz.com/members/blog/revolucionarias/

 

 

For logistics, self defense and the development of many poles of leadership we recommend that in Ecuador and Bolivia people should divide the countries up into 3 or 7 sectors (regions/states) of autonomous action and responsibility for command and control of self defense forces and negotiations. Certainly these separate governments should cooperate and execute joint maneuvers or actions as appropriate. Further, we recommend that in each new sector that the ideology and plans for action and national reconstruction be discussed openly, in detail and stated clearly. We would hope that the vast majority in each region would support the final document. People who have a strong disagreement with a majority position should either move to a region that more closely reflects their views or work where they are and patiently extol the virtues of their particular program.

 

Venezuela and other revolutionary groups can facilitate, support, share experiences and information, and build strong relations of solidarity with organised groups of marginalised people in the Andes to improve their power relations. Such unequal power relations affect life on local, community, provincial, national and international levels. Those who want to assist can build and enhance the capacity of these organisations so that they can respond effectively to the needs of their stakeholders and other aligned groups in their country or region.

 

Taking control of their own development processes means having the power over resources and translating these means into ends. Therefore, we recommend that at the Revolutionary Assemblies to decide the future of Ecuador and Bolivia, that an uncompromisable position is the nationalization of all land and resources above or below the land. From this beginning groups and states can decide how much land a person or family can lease back from the government and whether these rents are paid locally, regionally or nationally (or a mix of them).

 

We must seek to improve the working, delivery, transparancy, accountability and participatory role of the organisations concerned. Sustainable improvement of the lives of people can be done by the people themselves. Local organisations and assemblies should have significant control over resources, investments and policies. All banks should be locally owned and run as people’s cooperatives with audits done by outside groups.

 

Membership organisations like peasant farmers' organisations, cooperatives, trade unions, women’s groups and community-based organizations should be favored and be represented at assemblies both local and national. The economic and social problems in the South are caused by the conditions there (lack of resources, lack of capacity & management skills, natural disasters and political woes) and by an inadequate preparation for local self defense against  the machinations of the capitalists of the North and the local elite.

 

Globalisation, liberalisation, and open market economic doctrine are causing massive problems in the South. Trade exploitations, aid policies, agricultural policies, impositions of structural adjustments policies, tied-Aid, debt issues and environmental pollution require a whole new approach to social and economic development. To rebuild Ecuador or  Bolivia all current trade and investment deals should be abrogated without recompense. High tariffs on luxuries and products that can be grown or produced locally should be installed. Fair trade deals can be introduced and several countries in the region can be expected to offer assistance and equitable trade deals. In both countries possession of dollars should become a criminal offense and new currencies should be issued to capture losses from counterfeits and the black market.

 

Problems:
Things that prevent us from achieving an equitable society where all socially based voices can work toward a sustainable system.

 

Examples: Capitalism, the rich, the USA, the commercial-military-espionage forces that the USA and EU maintain around the planet (Imperialism), activists who can't or don't believe in studying and outlining their goals, strategies and tactics; Trivial or insufficient critiques. (10) [ Critiques of Capitalism and Activism ]; the disease of a selfish materialistic obsession (11).
It is divisive to focus on the problems when the entirety of the system is bankrupt and the reform movements can no longer comprehend the degree or the time that would be required to patch up such a collapsing and degrading system as the world suffers under today...  Will Tomorrow be another story? We have to overthrow capitalism and demolish USA hegemony before we can establish real education which is necessary before a real democracy.

 

Solutions:                                                        

 

National and Community development should focus on production and marketing of farming products and small-scale industries.  Attention to input factors and the input and output linkages, both locally and regionally, can enhance and accelerate the program to move toward solidarity and productivity.

 

 

Section Three:  APPLYING POLICY to the Reality of Global Struggle

 

 

MER Does the Following: Educate through Writings, Workshops, Curriculum and Films the Policies that Are Changing the World in Cuba, Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and everywhere that People Fight Capitalism and the US-EU Empire to Build a People-Centered Solidarity Society that Prioritizes Women and Children; Revolutionary Education; Dignity for the Indigenous and Workers; Pure Food; Heath for All Including the Environment; and an Economics of Agrarian-Based Community-Owned Worker-Managed Market Socialism.

The rise of commodity prices will accelerate farm income growth and the need for national food sovereignty. These increases in commodities are the first sustained growth in a century. The increases come from global income growth ( which causes increased demand for animal products) and soon  these commodity prices will rise further from energy price increases and the chaos and uncertainty of global warming. Poor countries can protect themselves and prosper with an agrarian and peasant based economic focus.

 

The world economy has entered a monopoly capitalist phase dominated by a US-EU empire and US militarism. Change in the empire is unlikely and the annihilation of alternative experiments by the US coupled with the confusion on the left makes organizing opposition difficult. A crisis of overproduction threatens the capitalist plan and so wars, economic growth and creating consumer markets in China and India are pursued.  The continued destruction of the environment is guaranteed. Trade, the WTO, stock market speculation and technologies such as genetically modified plants and animals are the foundations of the empire’s plan. Efforts to change the global economy from the top down through the UN or a Fair Trade WTO are unlikely. Global warming threats in the third World are severe, with coastal cities and drought prone farming areas especially vulnerable.

 

In the MER economic program there is a market economy but the government at all levels – directed by the people’s budget prioritizations – intervenes in the market to create sufficient basic goods and to satisfy basic needs within sustainability guidelines. Efforts at regional cooperation and integration (ALBA, Mercosur and PetroSur) offer some aid to the MER project goals.

 

 

The key policy areas that a new system or economic order naturally embraces:

 

A Comprehensive National Education Program for A Solidarity Society that Prioritizes:
Women and Children; Dignity for the Indigenous and All Workers; Health for All Including the Environment;
and a Participatory Economics of the Local: Land and Liberty.

 

 

BOLIVARIAN REVOLUTION AND THE TRANSITION TO SOLIDARITY ECONOMICS

 

The Venezuelan economic program has channeled wonderful increases in spending for education, the poor, health and nutrition programs among a few of its accomplishments. However, the government has not significantly entered the market to employ people and to protect the economy for the poor. Instead Chavez relies on the market, on the business community and the underground economy to employ people and provide most of the goods. Chavez uses global conflict/revolution as the necessary vision rather than relying on the power of the local and a New Economic of the local. Several of his programs will help build momentum toward a solidaristic society and greater changes.

 

II. A NEW POLITICAL ECONOMY – Structures and Guides

 

Capitalism pretends that all needs are provided for by maximizing corporate profits. But despite huge expensive bureaucracies the rich countries still have serious social problems concerning health, education and crime. The MER Solidaristic Policies model maximizes food security; health and well-being; participation; a practical education; the values and benefits of cooperation; and a goal of many equalities. We are sure that such policies can produce enough (social) profits to satisfy basic needs for development: the people empowered.

 

 

Examples from the Program of MER:

 

1. Extreme taxation of all foreign and elite owned businesses, bank accounts and resources to accomplish state takeover at the lowest cost and minimal disruptions.
2. Extreme tariffs on all non-aligned nations' imports.
3. Extensive programs for the relocation of urban people to rural areas for production and for defense.
4. Education for solidarity and revolutionary economics, society and consciousness.

 

 

What Kind of Economy Do We Want ? - What Kind of Economy Can We Have?

 

We observe that capitalist-oriented market systems are inefficient from moral, social, environmental and sustainability perspectives. Rather than maximize output and then support government bureaucracies and complex legal systems in order to compensate for all the externalities and problems of a growth oriented market system, we propose a new orientation called Agrarian Based Socialism, Solidarity Economics or the  Social Economy of Christian Socialism.  More profits stay inside the country when trade – or imports are reduced. Mercosur could help Bolivia and Peru –  under new governments and new constitutions –  by charging no tax on their agricultural exports to other countries. The alternative to the US – designed Western Hemisphere Free Trade plans (FTAA/ALCA/AFTA) is Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA ). These plans would have more power if they required the members not to belong to any individual trade or aid agreements not sanctioned by the group – MERCOSUR/ ALBA.

In the Solidarity Economics model the neoliberal fixation on growth and maximizing output are a low priority. Those capitalist goals are replaced with a priority to invent economic policies that provide for the sustainable production of the basics of life: food, housing, education, health and dignity. In the Solidarity model social equity, community self-reliance and sustainability are maximized first. This is accomplished through import substitution at the national then the regional and finally the community level. A nation gradually replaces its imports starting with the easiest first and through education and investment moves up to other goods and services. Simultaneously this program prepares for regional and community import substitution.

 

The goal of Solidarity Economics is to increase the availability of basic needs goods and to accomplish this with a declining impact on the environment. The real choice that people have is: Do they want a sustainable and just economy that is kind to people and neighbors or do they want the US to destroy the planet and debase humanity fighting ugly resource wars? An economic system is only as complex as a people allow it to be. People can have the sustainable economy that they want. It will be different and poorer in many ways than the late 20th Century US economic model. But it will be understandable because it is local, open (transparent) and decided by the people themselves.

 

The problem with markets is that corrupt governments write the laws to benefit the wealthy, the big companies and growth. These are corporate subsidies and state socialism for the rich.(30) The invisible hand of government policies shapes the production costs and the prices that consumers are willing to pay. If people want a country with many small farms producing organic products then they will be able to employ many people in a labor-intensive program. But people will pay more for food in the short run than they would if they continued to let rich people gobble up farmland and poison it with chemicals, pesticides, herbicides and GMOs. Prices are only lower in the corporate farm system because so many of the externalized costs are not paid by the corporation. These costs include slave labor, child labor, cheap loans, social suffering from the displacement of small farmers, repression of farm workers and impacts on the environment.

The safest way to improve the social benefits of markets is to keep all the market players of similar size, knowledge and security. Complex markets or complicated choices for a democracy make it likely that prudence is lost among poor information and the rush of events. Venezuela's development of Community Councils shows that people want to participate and direct their lives.  The experiments with participatory budgeting in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil (a state of 12 million people) suggest that average people can solve these problems simultaneously. The problems encountered in Brazil also show how difficult any program is when the government has to pay half its budget to foreign bankers for debts caused by previous corrupt governments.

 

Instead of a profit maximizing and export-based decision-making criteria Solidarity Economics would create a long-run soil conserving and biologically diverse system of farming where inputs - especially imported inputs - were not needed and expensive machinery would be replaced with labor, local resources and ingenuity.

 

 

VII. Agrarian-Based Localization: Directions of Priority

 

Prioritizing the basic needs of any society, results in an eventual transformation of a society. A new type of economic structure is then born along the lines of a green local-socialist decentralization program.

 

People should organize and reprioritize state and local policies for:
Women and Children; Education for a Solidarity Society of Pure Food, Dignity for Indigenous People and All Workers; and Health for All Including the environment.

 

Any country or region that seeks to provide these basic needs in a sustainable way will have little additional funds to waste on militaries and corporate subsidies. In parts of Latin American one can see a new world being born. It’s a world where people create the space and freedom to be themselves and care for themselves and their families. New economic structures can accomplish this in ways that build thriving, sustainable communities.

 

The sciences of Agro-Ecology and Watershed Management can guide localization planning with prioritization for sustainability and equity.

 

With common sense, lessons learned from the past and citizen empowerment through participation, all aspects of this world will evolve differently than the chaotic and cruel dictates experienced when international capital and the powerful elite force rapid change and modernization on every corner of the planet.

 

 

A Structure for Solidarity, Local Power and Sustainable Economics

 

Solidarity Economics argues for a bias toward rural areas and a policy structure of localization where local resources are used sustainably to produce most of the basic needs goods and a surplus for trade with its nearest neighbors first

 

This structure solves the problems of bureaucracies, political conflict and concentration of wealth. Markets are used locally, but trade is regulated beyond regions through toll roads and high fuel taxes. Toxic chemicals, genetically altered organisms (GMOs) and the weapons trade would be banned. Combined with ecological guidelines and additional restrictions on trade and land ownership, the market would create economic conditions that support small, medium and cooperative-based farms and rural enterprises. The importance of political democracy beyond a locality will eventually decline because most of the decisions over public policy are set in a well-biased (science-based) constitution or made locally.

 

 

Agrarian Reform: The Unfinished Revolution

 

Even poorly endowed places must take advantage of whatever will grow. Trees and riparian areas protect the water and biological resources. Some food, fish or export crops are necessary output from all places. Protecting renewable resources like the soils, forests, estuaries and fisheries is a duty and the basis of natural wealth.

 

The “Who owns the good farmlands” determines the wealth distribution of a region. The “What is farmed” determines the food dependency/food sovereignty of a place. The “Where” of farming determines the impacts on the ecology and the longrun productivity of the country. Overproduction near rivers or steep hills has a potentially large impact. Light grazing rotations and tree crops would be chosen by a community if it exercised control over the use of its resources. The “Why of farming” – or the Why Subsidize Small Farms and rural communities - determines the importance of culture, respect, sustainability and the connections of the people to the land and the ecology that they live in and depend on. The “How” of farming is connected to and grows out of all of these factors. Investments and trade polices accelerate or control trends in production and growth and thus affect all aspects of rural life and the well-being of the whole country. For decades investments in Latin America have been capital intensive (with an urban – industrial bias) thus creating greater unemployment and a rural exodus to mega-city slums.

 

Government commissions and scientific research panels (drawn from local and regional experts, students and faculty) will draw up detailed lists of each region’s resources: grazing lands, farmlands (in several categories of richness and environmental sensitivity), damaged lands, forests, special wildlands or habit zones, erosion zones, fishing zones and tourist or recreation areas.

 

After these studies are completed lands would be redistributed for free to competent farmers and ranchers.

 

Compensation for seized lands will not be possible in most places because of a lack of funds and the revolutionary perceptions that will accompany these drastic changes. Current owners of land could retain twice the standard limit that is set locally for a particular land type (typically 5 to 10 hectares for the highest quality lands and 20-40 hectares for marginal or grazing lands). Adults over 21 can only own the land that they live on and their vehicle license plate must be from that parcel’s address.(35)

 

Initially land is redistributed to three sectors: small holders, coops and locally owned lands held for distribution to newcomers and population growth.

 

Next the government would analyze imports and exports at national and regional levels.
A plan or recommendation is drawn up that considers priority for basic needs goods and the national and regional production advantages: resources, skills, interests and existing complimentary infrastructure. From this point in the process the popular assemblies and research panels devise the final plans for land use, investments and subsidies.

 

 
VIII. Ideas for Local Solidarity Projects and Import Substitution with Value Adding

 

 

MISC REVIEW OF PROBLEMS –

 

 Force the USA – EU – OECD to Consume and Pollute Less.
a. Reduce USA Corporate Profits Through Trade Barriers (Tariffs and Quotas), Embargos, Debt Erasures, Boycotts and the Expropriation of USA Corporate Holdings. Expel Everything and Everyone Connected to the USA and Seize Their Stolen Possessions.
b. Make the USA-EU Empires Pay Higher Oil Prices With Oil Embargos or by Utilizing Most of the Oil Within the South. Charge the USA Surcharges for Oil Purchases (& other products) and Require Them to Use Ships and Refineries in the South.

 

Defend and Build up the Revolutions in the South
a. Prepare Strategies to Resist USA Imperialist Attacks. The Best Defense is a Strong People with a Clear Ideology, Decentralized Economy and Decentralized Mobile Armed Forces.

 

 Build a Personal and Social Consciousness of the Importance of the Environment to Self Reliance, Solidarity and National Defense
a. Solidarity Economics: A Solidaristic Decentralized Cooperative and Local-Oriented Economy.
b. Education (Latin America) for Solidarity and Eco-protection/ Sustainability.

 

 

Important Links (Enlaces)

 

http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=30658

 

Alan Woods and William Izarra stress need to leave reformism behind

 

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_16899.shtml
Venezuela's National Assembly (AN) passes Land Law reform bill.

 

                                                                                                                         

 

 

Ecuatorianos, un abrazo desde Venezuela ; From carlos acosta – Abril 21

 

Hermanos Ecuatorianos, revolucionarios y concientes; reciban un abrazo solidario y mil felicitaciones por su valentía y su nueva y energica decision en pro de la justicia y de la unidad de nuestro continente suramericano. Desde Venezuela les saludamos y aplaudimos su clarisima vision. Aqui seguimos con Chavez y alla, con el pueblo ecuatoriano.

 

Desobediencia, rebelión, paro, acción directa, construcción, debate, reflexión, son palabras que en una dialéctica de encaminar futuro se han entremezclado, y que exigen que se potencie organización que surja desde abajo, y que practiqué una democracia directa para el desarrollo de su agenda política propia y sus formas de lucha a emprender.

 

Para cambiar el Ecuador no basta que se vayan todos hay que “destruir el capitalismo para construir el socialismo”, como proclamaba una pancarta difundida por un bloque autónomo en el pasado paro de la ciudad de Quito.

 

Estrategias anticapitalistas - Eduardo Campillo 22.Apr.2005 16:45

 

Congratulations to all the ones that fight for the change.  I hope that we do not only throw out Gutierrez and his group ... we should also throw out all the politicals, the courts and make changes in the Ecuadorian democratic system.  These things no doubt occur to me some but I expect that to you they occur themselves more and better:  To call Civic Assemblies and to have them become Constituent Assemblies;  To dissolve the old political parties;  To govern through an Assembly of Citizens that represents each one of the sectors of workers of the country, chosen by the votes of their companions;  To direct the security forces through the Government of the Civic Assembly;  To judge the corrupt;  To carry out an "economy of solidarity", supplying materials and services to the weak and exchanging them among businesses; and To expropriate businesses and to become many cooperatives of the workers. 

 

Enhorabuena a todos los que luchan por el cambio. Espero que no sólo echéis a Gutierrez y compañía de todo poder político sino que sean juzgados y se realicen cambios en el sistema democrático ecuatoriano. Se me ocurren algunos pero espero que a vosotros se os ocurran más y mejores.
-Convocar Asambleas Ciudadanas y convertirlas en Constituyentes llegado el momento.
-Disolver los antiguos partidos politicos.
-Gobernar desde una Asamblea de Ciudadanos que representen a cada uno de los sectores de trabajadores del país, elegidos por los votos de sus compañeros.
-Dirigir las fuerzas de seguridad desde el Gobierno de la Asamblea Ciudadana.
-Juzgar a los corruptos.
-Llevar a cabo una "economía de solidaridad", suministrando materiales y servicios a los débiles e intercambiándolos entre empresas.
-Expropiar empresas y convertirlas en cooperativas de trabajadores.