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Saturday,Apr 23 2005, 01:58:42 AMIf we are to learn from the past, we need...
If we are to learn from the past, we need critical and ruthless analyses of the post-revolutionary societies, their achievements as well as failures.
It should be evident by now that a transfer in class power can make a real difference.
That shows up during the early days of a move to a new social system: elimination of hunger, creation of full employment, the spread of literacy, universal education and medical care for all the people, and an escape from imperialist domination.
These steps toward social justice are not easy. Moreover, booby traps may slow and divert further progressive and radical changes.
A Workable market Socialism for CHavez's Christian Socialist Solidarity
Some of the varied accounts of market socialism given by political theorists and economists do attempt to meet this theoretical challenge (Miller, 1990). But I will argue that it is the work of the American Legal Realists and Critical Legal Studies writers with respect to the nature of the market and property rights that provides the strongest theoretical grounding for the viability of the market socialist project.
Once the market socialist project has been given the theoretical 'green light', I will move on to consider the range of concrete proposals which have been offered. I will argue that the theoretical work of the Realists and CLS writers also give us guidance as to which part of this spectrum to favour--namely the highly decentralised models involving productive enterprises which are democratically run and owned by those who work in them.
Private Property and the Market in Capitalist and Socialist Theory
As we are all aware, capitalism stresses the importance of a free market and private property. The market is seen as a decentralised mechanism for sending signals to economic actors that ensure that resources are used efficiently, and in a way that satisfies the demands of consumers. The market works by trading valued rights, and so it is no surprise that capitalism also stresses that market actors should have a strong bundle of private property rights that they can use and trade as they see fit. The capitalist stress on free markets and private property connects with the stress in classical liberal theory on individual liberty and neutrality regarding conceptions of the good. The market was seen as a neutral mechanism which allowed each individual to pursue his unique conception of the good or worthwhile life. It maximised freedom of choice.
Socialism can be seen historically as a reaction against what capitalism actually produced in the 18th and 19th centuries--for most people it produced great inequality, lack of freedom, harsh living condition, stunted lives, and exploitation. This reaction against capitalism took a number of forms, but Marxism was the dominant variety of socialism from the second half of the 19th century on. Marxism stressed the negation of the essential features of capitalism--private property in the means of production would be replaced by socialised ownership, and conscious planning of the economic aspects of our lives would replace the anarchy and cruelties of the market.
This is the source of the feeling of some theorists on both the right and the left that market socialism is an impossible contradiction. Socialism is understood by them to be co-extensive with the Marxist position that markets and private property rights must be eliminated. If socialism is understood in this way, 'market socialism' is indeed incoherent. But this is a misunderstanding both of the actual history of socialist thought, and of its potential resources. Although Marxism has been the dominant socialist theory for a long time, and although it strongly influenced the communist regimes, it is not the only response that socialism did develop or could develop in response to capitalism.
A much milder socialist response that came into being in some countries was social democracy. Here there is some regulation and shaping of market transactions, especially in the labour market, but the basic approach is to leave the capitalist property rights and market system alone, and allow this system to play itself out. Then a social democratic government changes the resulting end-state to one which better accords with socialist ideas of equality and security of material benefits. This is typically achieved by taxing and redistributing the wealth generated by the capitalist economic system. In social democracies we see that a weak form of socialism is compatible with the market and private property as they are conceived under capitalism.
Here is a different socialist response, although it has not been applied in any country so far. It does not seek to eliminate capitalist markets and private property in the means of production, as in Marxism, nor simply leave them in place but milk them, as in social democracy. The goal of this approach is to keep the institutions of private property and the market, but not as they are realised under capitalism. The goal is to reconceive and remodel them so that they naturally produce results which are more in line with socialist values, without the need for significant ex post facto rejigging by the state. The focus here is thus upon establishing an economic system with socialist-inspired property and market ground rules at the beginning, rather than on altering the end-state achieved when an economic system with capitalist ground rules is allowed to play itself out. If this project could be realised, it would be a more strongly socialist response to capitalism than social democracy because it would focus not just upon altering patterns of distribution, but also upon altering capitalist property rights and the ways production is carried on. This project describes the variety of market socialism which I want to explore in this paper (it is not the only possible variety as we will see). We will have to wait until later to see whether it can be carried out in any convincing concrete way, and even before that there are other conceptual challenges which will have to be surmounted. But at least at this stage we can see that it is a form of market socialism which would be free from the charge of 'impossible contradiction' which is made by those who see socialism as being identical with the Marxist position.
This variety of market socialism has moved a long distance from Marxism by its refusal to seek the negation of the market. Notwithstanding this concession to capitalist orthodoxy, it can expect to meet with further objections from defenders of capitalist market society. First, they may feel that private property and the market are not subject to redesign in the way proposed by this market socialist model. 'Everything is what it is, and not another thing', and so private property and the market cannot be changed much from what they are now without losing their essential natures. The assertion here is that once you accept the basic concept of the market, most of the detailed structure of the market, i.e. its groundrules and dynamics, follow as a matter of course without significant choice on your part.. This assertion lies behind the other capitalist claim that the market is just a neutral procedural device, i.e. its rules involve no political choices or commitment to a particular social vision. Private property and the market have to be realised pretty much as they are now for them to exist at all, because technical efficiency considerations and the logical implications of the concepts 'private property' and 'market' demand this.
Second, they will see the projected redesigning of property rights and the market as just another example of the socialist impulse to get the state into areas it does not belong. As has often been noted, classical liberal political thinking divides social space into public and private zones. It is crucial on this picture to keep the state out of the private zone and confined to its legitimate role in the public zone. But private property rights and the free market belong firmly in the private zone. Any redesigning of them by the state is therefore deeply improper. It would involve the state moving into the private zone to affect relationships and decisions that individuals should be left alone to make. So again we seem to end up with a contradiction. The market is within a private area which the state should be kept out to the greatest extent--that is why it is called a 'free market'. But a 'market socialism' with the goal of reconceiving and reconstructing the market and private property involves the state penetrating deeply into that private zone.
However, I will now argue that Legal Realism and CLS have provided adequate responses to these objections, and have also provided the theoretical foundations for a version of market socialism which seeks to retain private property and the market, while simultaneously reconceiving them in a radically different way from capitalism.
Legal Realism and Critical Legal Studies
Critical legal studies writers such as Roberto Unger (1987:124,129,134,136,160.), Karl Klare (1991:72-81), and Duncan Kennedy (1991) reject the claim that it is not possible significantly to rework the content of 'private property' and 'the free market' from what they are now without moving outside the boundaries of those concepts altogether. They reject the views of conservative defenders of the free market in Anglo-American writings who seem to think that the free market requires, by definition, something quite definite and circumscribed, and something quite close to what already exists in those economies. The CLS argument is that very abstract concepts such as the free market, which is just an economic system where 'a large number of independent agents bargain on their own initiative and for their own account' (Unger, 1987:122), can be made concrete in many different ways, and in many more ways than we have hitherto experienced.
Some indirect support for this position is found in the fact that we can find actually existing private property and free market capitalist regimes that differ substantially from Anglo-American models in places like Germany, Japan, and the four Asian 'tigers' (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea). But the thrust of the CLS argument carries us further than these examples. Consider again that abstract description of the free market: an economic system where a large number of independent agents bargain on their own initiative and for their own account. One foundational question here is: what kinds of entities are these independent agents or market actors to be? Are they to be just individual human beings, or groups of human beings such as partnerships? Are artificial legal entities such as corporations and states to be allowed to participate as market actors too, and if so, are they to have exactly the same rights and powers as human market actors? The choices you make with respect to this one foundational question will produce very different types of free market systems--imagine what it would be like if only humans, not corporate actors were allowed--but they will all fit the definition and be free market systems.
There are many other foundational choices of this kind which have to be made in order to specify or describe any free market system:
(1) What types of things can be owned and traded in the market? For example: can people be owned? Can body tissues and body parts be owned? Can corporations own other corporations? Are some desired things to be outside the scope of the market mechanism entirely (Radin, 1987)?
(2) What bundle of rights does an owner get? Is it the cluster which Honoré (1961) described in his paradigm case, or should some of that bundle be permanently redistributed so that all of those rights can no longer be concentrated in one pair of hands? Should the right to alienate be stripped from the ownership bundle for a larger class of property than it is at present?[1]
(3) How can interests be transferred, and what counts as a 'voluntary' as opposed to a 'coerced' transaction? How much and what types of power over other people is seen as acceptable (Robertson, 1995)?
The point made by the CLS writers is that foundational questions such as these cannot be avoided, and can be answered in many different ways, producing a much greater variety of possible free market systems than the orthodox defenders of currently existing capitalism imagine. This means that the market socialist project I described earlier gets the theoretical 'green light', since it simply wants to give different answers to the foundational choices which have to be made in any private property and free market system.
But the necessity for foundational choices of these kinds to be made also counts against the second objection to the market socialist project noted above. That objection, you will recall, was that it was an improper intrusion into the private zone if the state acted to redefine private property or market rights. But now we have seen that it is impossible to have any free market and private property system without the state acting to provide answers to foundational questions like the ones above. So if it gives different answers to these questions at some later time, it is not doing something any different from what it did when it set up the original rules; it is not now entering into a private zone that it has hitherto kept out of. The state not only always has been, but always has to be, deeply involved over in the private realm liberals wanted to keep it out of. This holds true even if you don't have a soviet-style planned economy, or a social democracy that alters end-states, and instead have the most laissez-faire 'free market' system. The implication of this is that the division of social space into public and private realms so beloved of liberal thinkers has some serious problems.
And it gets worse still. The market is seen as a neutral facilitating structure in liberal theory. It imposes no values or goals on people, but simply allows them to pursue their own unique visions of the good life. But now we see that any market system requires foundational choices, and on what basis are these foundational choices made? The different choices are not simply aesthetic: they have power implications, and therefore have implications for the eventual distribution of power, wealth, and status that is generated by the system. This was a point stressed by Robert Hale (1923; 1943), a legal economist who had a great influence on both the Legal Realists and the later Critical Legal Studies writers.[2] The choices made in establishing any market system are not just technical and neutral ones, therefore, but political choices. In making them the state cannot be neutral, but is guided by a conscious or implicit commitment to a particular social vision, or vision of how society could and should be ordered. It then follows that any conception of free markets that stresses their neutrality, and denies the political choices that inevitably go into their formation, is ideological. It operates to disguise, behind a smokescreen of neutrality, the political choices benefiting some groups at the expense of others.
Further Implications of the Legal Realist and CLS Analysis for Market Socialism
The Realist and CLS analysis just described has significant implications for a widening of the scope of the market socialist project. When we turn to those offering descriptions and analyses of market socialism, we find that many of their models and critiques implicitly accept limitations on what the market socialist project involves (Bardhan and Roemer, 1993; Le Grand and Estrin, 1989). In particular, many seem to accept that the differences between capitalism and socialism, in an economic sense, depend upon different answers to the choices between public ownership versus private ownership, and market versus plan. If you choose public ownership and plan, you have communism. If you choose private ownership and market, you have capitalism. On this understanding, market socialism is what you get when you chose instead public ownership and market. The underlying limitation is that any form of socialism must involve public ownership, (although it needn't be what we know as nationalised state ownership).
Oscar Lange's market socialism of the 1930s would fall into this category (Lange and Taylor, 1994). An interesting modern example of this type of market socialism is provided by John Roemer (1993a:89; 1993b:347). He basically sees all enterprises as publicly owned, run by hired managers, and competing against each other for profits in a market system However, instead of the profits going to the state, they are distributed directly to citizens via dividends paid by mutual funds which supply capital to the enterprises, and in which all citizens are given shares. These shares can be traded for other mutual fund shares, but cannot be sold for cash, and thus the ability to concentrate holdings is limited. A much more egalitarian distribution of wealth results.
A great value of the Realist and CLS analysis is to provide the theoretical foundations for varieties of market socialism that are not confined to working out new forms of 'public ownership', as these models do, but seek instead to rework the content of 'private property'. The realist and CLS contributions give a theoretical foundation for varieties of market socialism in which private property and the market are retained, but reconceived by the giving of different answers to the foundational choices necessary to establish any private property and market system. The market socialist foundational choices would be guided by the desire to achieve, without massive government ex post facto tinkering, outcomes or end-states that were more egalitarian, democratic, and communitarian than those produced by the capitalist private property and market system.
A Market Socialist Model
Finally, after the theoretical objections have been overcome and the theoretical foundations have been provided, we come to the task of evaluating attempts to carry this new type of market socialist project forward. In practice this project has amounted to a shift to producers' co-operatives as the predominant economic form.[3] There are many differing models of such a 'self-managed market socialism', and we shall choose one to look at in more detail shortly. But first note how an economic system based on producers' co-operatives is still recognisable as a private property and market system.
(1) The main economic actors are producers' co-operatives rather than corporations, but these co-operatives compete against each other to sell goods and services to the public. There is still a market structure but with different actors than the ones we are used to under capitalism.
(2) There are still private property owners who own these new economic actors, but again, these are different from the owners we are familiar with now. Whereas the owners of corporations, the shareholders, can be people who do not work in the enterprise, this is not possible with producers' co-operatives. Their owners can only be people working in the enterprise.
(3) On some models these new owners take over most of the ownership bundle that Honoré described. Thus the right to manage, the right to income, and the right to capital that Honoré described as part of private property ownership are not taken away and given to the state, as in nationalisation. Instead this bundle is taken from one set of people, the suppliers of capital, and given to another set, the suppliers of skills and labour.
(4) On other models the treatment of the ownership bundle is more complex. In them it is not the case that the familiar ownership bundle under capitalism is simply transferred to a different class. The rights might be permanently disaggregated, and distributed among different groups of people. Or the ability of the owners of the enterprise to alienate their interests might be more limited than they are under capitalism, without being removed altogether.
Let us finally look briefly at one detailed model of self-managed market socialism.[4] The model I will describe is that given by Thomas Weisskopf in 'A Democratic Enterprise-Based Market Socialism' (1993:120). Weisskopf recognises that capitalist forms of enterprise ownership combine control rights and income rights, (understood broadly as including both the income from assets and the proceeds from asset sales), and also allow private individuals to acquire such ownership rights in varying amounts. But this means that 'capitalist ownership generally confers control over enterprises on a group of private owners or shareholders with unequal membership rights, little social contact, few ties to the area in which the enterprise is located, and no enduring common identity.' (Weisskopf, 1993:126) Such private ownership is not 'individual', since many owners are involved, but nor is it collective or social in any strong sense.
Market socialists argue that ownership of productive assets should be more social; it should be ownership by people who do form a genuine community. Different models of market socialism result depending on the type of community chosen. 'In particular, whether the community is a political constituency (local, regional, or national) or an economic constituency (those who work in an enterprise) and which enterprise ownership rights--control and/or income--are to be held on an equal basis by members of the relevant community and which (if any) are till to be available for acquisition in varying amounts by private individuals.' (Weisskopf, 1993:122). He describe two pure models based on (1) ownership by political communities and (2) ownership by workers of an enterprise. In each of these the community keeps the full ownership bundle of control and income rights. After noting problems with each pure model, he tries to combine elements of both to produce a hybrid that combines greater economic efficiency with greater satisfaction of the socialist goals of greater equality, democracy, community, and social rationality.
(1) Democratic self-management is required for all enterprises with more than a minimum number of people involved. The members of the enterprise elect a governing council on a one person, one vote basis, and this council hires managers. (Weisskopf, 1993:126)
(2) The enterprise finances itself and/or acquires assets in the following ways:
(a) by leasing assets.
(b) by borrowing funds from independent and democratically self-managed banks and other financial intermediaries to purchase assets.
(c) by selling non-voting tradable equity shares to independent mutual funds, and using the proceeds to purchase assets. The mutual funds receive no formal control rights, but get the right to receive dividends and to realise capital gains or losses by selling shares. Thus his model 'unbundles the control and income rights associated with capitalist enterprise ownership.' (Weisskopf, 1993:125).
(d) by reinvesting some of their net operating surplus in the purchase of assets. 'In this case all members of the enterprise community receive--in proportion to the rate at which they earn income in the enterprise--individual nonvoting nontradable equity shares, which generate dividends and capital gains or losses in exactly the same way as any tradable shares held by outsiders, according to the performance of the firm; the capital gains or losses can be realised, however, only as and when the insiders leave the firm and cash in their equity--by selling positive equity claims back to the enterprise, or making good on negative equity claims resulting from poor enterprise performance.' (Weisskopf, 1993:127). This internal capital account model is based on that developed by the Mondragon co-operatives in Spain. (Ellerman and Pitegoff, 1982-3).
(3) In order to achieve a broader distribution of the fruits of these enterprises without the familiar taxation and redistribution, Weisskopf proposes a two-tier stock market system. The two tiers are (a) shares in the worker-owned enterprises themselves, and (b) shares in the mutual funds which purchase shares in the worker-owned enterprises. The shares in the worker-owned enterprises can only be purchased by competing mutual funds, not individuals or enterprises.
These mutual funds can sell shares in their portfolios to other mutual funds for cash. But the shares in these mutual funds themselves would, in a manner borrowed from Roemer (1993a;1993b), be spread among all of the adult citizens, thus ensuring a more egalitarian distribution of the income of the worker self-managed enterprises. To avoid some people being able to buy up and accumulate citizens' mutual fund shares, these shares can only be traded for other mutual fund shares. They cannot be purchased for cash or converted into cash. But this trading, based on the dividends paid by the mutual funds, which are in turn based on the performance of the enterprises which form the portfolios of the mutual funds, will send signals about the performance of the enterprises and their managers which can be used for disciplinary purposes.
I have chosen to focus on Weisskopf's model of market socialism because at one level it retains many of the familiar features of capitalism. There is private ownership of productive assets and capital, there is debt financing and equity financing, there are decentralised market mechanisms at work. But each of these elements has been reinflected, reconceived and altered to increase socialist outcomes. There will be greater equality in the distribution of material benefits because income differentials are typically smaller when they are chosen by the workers at producers' co-operatives, and because some of their profits will be distributed to all citizens via ownership of shares in the mutual funds. Democratic decision-making will be extended into the workplace and the economy because workers in an enterprise now retain control over it. The expectation is that this enhancement of democratic skills will flow over into the regular political process too. Ownership of productive assets will have a more social nature, as now ownership will be held by people in a genuine form of community, rather than isolated shareholders with no real connection to the enterprise they own.
Weisskopf acknowledges that his model is more achievable at the moment in the Eastern European post-communist countries, where most of the productive assets had already been socialised in the hands of the state. The state need only devolve most of its ownership rights to enterprises and mutual funds to establish a Weisskopf-type economy, whereas in the West the realisation of his model would involve massive and costly expropriation of the current owners of shares in enterprises and mutual funds.
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References
Bardhan, Pranab and Roemer, John (1993) Market Socialism: The Current Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ellerman, David and Pitegoff, Peter (1982-3) 'The Democratic Corporation: The New Worker Co-operative Statute in Massachusetts', [1992-3] New York University Review of Law and Social Change 441
Hale, Robert (1923) 'Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Non-Coercive State', 38 Political Science Quarterly 470
--(1943) 'Bargaining, Duress and Economic Liberty', 43 Columbia Law Review 603
Honoré, Tony (1961) 'Ownership', in A. G. Guest, (ed.) Oxford Essays in Jurisprudence
Kennedy, Duncan (1991) 'The Stakes of Law, or, Hale and Foucault!', 15 The Legal Studies Forum 327.
Klare, Karl (1991) 'Legal Theory and Democratic Reconstruction: Reflections on 1989', 25 U. of British Columbia Law Rev. 69.
Lange, Oscar and Taylor, Fred (1994) 'On the Economic Theory of Socialism' in A. Nove and I. Thatcher (eds.) Markets and Socialism Aldershot: Edward Elgar.
Le Grand, Julian and Estrin, Saul (1989) Market Socialism. Oxford: Clarendon.
Miller, David (1990) Market, State and Community. Oxford:Clarendon
Nove, Alec (1983) The Economics of Feasible Socialism. London: George Allen and Unwin.
Radin, Margaret (1987) 'Market-Inalienability', 100 Harvard Law Review 1849.
Robertson, Michael (1995) 'Property and Ideology', 8 The Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 275.
Roemer, John (1993a) 'Can There Be Socialism after Communism?' in P. Bardhan and J. Roemer (eds.) Market Socialism: The Current Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
--(1993b) 'The Possibility of Market Socialism' in D. Copp et al. (eds.) The Idea of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Unger, Roberto (1987) Social Theory: Its Situation and its Task. A Critical Introduction to Politics, a Work in Constructive Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Weisskopf, Thomas (1993) 'A Democratic Enterprise-Based Market Socialism' in P. Bardhan and J. Roemer (eds.) Market Socialism: The Current Debate. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Endnotes
1. Even under current capitalist arrangements, it is not the case that all those things which can be owned as private property can be freely alienated. E.g. prescription medicines, home brewed beer.
[2.] For reliance on Hale by Critical Legal Studies writers, see Klare (1991) at footnotes 18, 20, 25 and accompanying text, and Kennedy (1991).
[3.] They will not be the only economic units or actors. Market socialist models tend to be pluralist. See for example Nove (1983) ch. 5 where he lists centralised state corporations, socialised enterprises, co-operative enterprises, small-scale private enterprise, and individuals.
[4.] Remember though there are many differing models. Is the enterprise to be owned jointly, or are workers to have individual alienable shares reflecting their portion of the capital value? Although only workers can be owners, can the enterprise also hire employees who are not owners? How is the enterprise to be financed--internally through retained earnings, or externally from lenders of capital? What kinds of entities should these capital providing bodies be? The choices with respect to these issues turn out to be very relevant for efficiency considerations. It is not enough, after all, to think up a different form of private property and market system: it has to be one that works efficiently or it will compare poorly to the existing arrangements.
Socialism cannot be created overnight. A long transition is needed to build its political, human, and economic foundations. If we are to learn from the past, we need critical and ruthless analyses of the post-revolutionary societies, their achievements as well as failures. It should be evident by now that a transfer in class power can make a real difference. That shows up during the early days of a move to a new social system: elimination of hunger, creation of full employment, the spread of literacy, universal education and medical care for all the people, and an escape from imperialist domination. These steps toward social justice are not easy. Moreover, booby traps may slow and divert further progressive and radical changes.
The transition to full-fledged socialism entails a long and bumpy road full of pitfalls and contradictions. Time is needed to: (a) convert existing productive forces into worker-controlled and peasant-controlled enterprises, (b) create new productive forces for the basic needs of the entire population, and (c) construct a legal-political-cultural superstructure adapted to a cooperative commonwealth. Shortcuts are few and far between. Nor can general recipes be designed that will suit every country and anticipate every twist and turn of history. Room must be provided for a process of trial and error, which means informing and involving the masses, including the power of the masses to recall administrators and correct errors.
The socialist vision encompasses a nonhierarchical, egalitarian society—one which strives to improve the living standards and quality of life, with top priority given to the poorest, most discriminated against, and powerless. Thus, the dominant tendency in China during roughly the first 30 post-revolutionary years was to dedicate resources and effort to achieving equality and meeting the basic needs of the people, especially those of the downtrodden. By the end of the 1970s (covering roughly the first three decades after the revolutionists came to power), China had become a highly egalitarian society, arguably the most egalitarian on earth in terms of the distribution of income and in meeting basic needs. Since then, however, a striking turnaround has taken place—in fact as in theory. The heads of the party and the government encouraged a blossoming of private industry via domestic and foreign investment. A turn to so-called market socialism was proclaimed. The U-turn in the ruling ideology was dramatic. Market socialism, it was said, would lead to speedy growth of material production, a growth of riches that would inevitably trickle down to all social sectors.
China’s new course has indeed resulted in an extremely rapid increase of production and total national income. However, the wealth created didn’t trickle down very far. The result is a very rich upper stratum and a comfortable middle class, and as for the rest: poverty, insecurity, unemployment, and a decline in education and medical care. The effect of the turnaround is finally acknowledged in official circles. Last year the political department of China’s Ministry of Finance issued a report on the subject. People’s Daily Online (June 19, 2003) ran an article containing the substance of the document. The article began by acknowledging that the government report had revealed: (1) “A ceaseless widening of the gap in income distribution and the aggravated division of the rich and the poor is occurring”; and (2) “Amassed wealth is becoming more concentrated, with the difference of family fortunes becoming bigger and bigger.”
What is clear from the Chinese experience is that the basis of the class struggle continues even after nationalization of business institutions. The mentality (ideology) of the old society does not evaporate into thin air after a revolutionary change. It remains and conflicts with the socialist road. Other strains arise from the potential and actual entrenchment of a bureaucratic elite, the persistence of hierarchy, and the complexity of building a people’s democracy. The bureaucratic elite and other privileged groups sustain a competing ideology—one that justifies their privileges, which are at odds with the needs of the mass of the people. Members of the elite are commonly concerned with passing on their advantages to their children, typical of class society. The clash of class interests continues from generation to generation. In this way the class struggle persists, though in different forms from the past. At heart, as Mao pointed out, even some in high Communist Party positions wanted to take the “capitalist road.”
The ideological struggle that takes place is linked with differences over the rate and direction of growth. Unfortunately, growth in itself is the deity worshipped by “capitalist roaders,” whereas the crucial questions are: What kind of growth? For what purpose? For whose benefit? Should the growth be geared to satisfying the desires of intellectuals, managers, business owners, and the bureaucratic political groups and classes? Or, should the direction of growth be oriented towards improving living standards and quality of life for the mass of the people?
Wednesday,Apr 13 2005, 01:12:22 AMA farmer's market in Havana. http://www.cityf
A farmer's market in Havana.
http://www.cityfarmer.org/CubaSpringPhotos.html
In 1993 when the government began to break up the state farms, they introduced Resolution 357, allowing the formation of these relatively autonomous cooperatives. They still farm government land but they own the harvest. However, they must sell their quota to the state and adhere to state rules, like selling at 20% below the farmers' markets.
In addition to a salary, the 43 workers on Norma's farm receive 40 pesos worth of produce a month. As the average monthly wage is about 217 pesos (roughly US $10), the supplemental food is welcomed. They also breed goats, sheep and chickens for the workers. They also have a large selection of herbs which they sell fresh and dried. Spices are almost impossible to get outside of the organiponicos. (Oh and Cubans hate pepper - they don't even have a pepper shaker on the table usually.) Medicinal herbs, known as green medicine, are also grown here. The use of alternative medicine is widespread as the nation's health system is also besieged.
They also teach organic gardening courses on-site and are hoping to incorporate canning and preserving into the curriculum. Oh, and there was one other problem, jars (for preserving) are very hard to come by in Cuba.
Norma Romero Castillo/Miguel A. Salcines Lopez- UBPC. Organoponico Vivero Alamar
Ave. 160 Esq. Parque Hanoi -- Zona 6, Alamar. H. del Este -- Ciudad Habana. Cuba Telef: 65 37 97
The Antonio Nunez Jimenez Foundation is a non-profit, dedicated to promoting sustainable environmental practises. The group is housed in a beautiful, well-maintained museum, a tribute to its founder, a prolific writer, scientist, explorer, and obsessive collector. Here they offer permaculture courses; publish and distribute brochures and newsletters; and maintain a small demonstration garden. Course graduates then go out and start urban gardens on roof tops, boulevards and in community spaces.
Around the corner from A. Nunez was one of the government run, seed houses (Casa de Semillas). These "gardening stores" sell a variety of seeds, seedlings, biological pest controls, organic fertilizers and tools; supplies that are hard to come by since the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. None of the farmers we talked to saved their own seeds because the seeds were so readily available from the government, and storage was a problem in the tropical environment. However, they did complain about the lack of variety. For example, we saw only one variety of lettuce being grown on the farms.
...
Recent Reforms in Cuba -- http://www.choicesmagazine.org/2003-4/2003-4-01.htm
Faced with this crisis, Cuba radically changed the state sector in 1993; about 80% of the farmland was then held by the state and over half was turned over to workers in the form of cooperatives—UBPC (Basic Unit of Cooperative Production). Farmers lease state land rent free in perpetuity, in exchange for meeting production quotas. They may even bequeath the land, as long as it continues to be farmed. A 1994 reform permitted farmers to sell their excess production at farmers' markets.
The reforms emphasized five basic principles. Foremost of these was a focus on agroecological technology, supported by the state/university research, education, and extensions system. There had been researchers, outreach specialists, and faculty devoted to agroecology before the crisis. The crisis not only brought them to the forefront, but universities, research centers, and agricultural policies were reoriented to make agroecology the dominant paradigm. To begin to understand the magnitude of this reorientation, imagine for a moment that your local college of agriculture reoriented its entire curriculum, research, and extension programs to agroecology. Pick yourself up off the floor, and now image that all the universities as well as all national agricultural policies in your country were reoriented to agroecology.
A second principle of the reform was land reform; state farms were transformed to cooperatives or broken into smaller private units, and anyone wishing to farm could do so rent free. In effect, a right-to-farm policy was implemented. A third principle of the reform was fair prices to farmers: Farmers can sell their excess production at farmers' markets; average incomes of farmers are three times that of other workers in Cuba. A fourth principle of reform is an emphasis on local production in order to reduce transportation (and hence energy) costs. Urban agriculture, a key to this reform, produces nearly the recommended daily allowance of 300 grams per person of produce. The fifth principle of reform is farmer-to-farmer training as the backbone of the extension system.
Impact of the Reforms
What were the results of these reforms? Production of tubers and plantains tripled and vegetable production quadrupled between 1994 and 1999, while bean production increased by 60% and citrus by 110%. Potato production increased by 75%, and cereals increased by 83% between 1994 and 1998. Calorie intake rose to 2,580 per capita per day—just under the minimum recommended by the World Health Organization. This is despite Cuba being the second poorest country in the Americas.
The conversion of Cuba's agriculture to more sustainable practices has focused on urban agriculture and domestic crops. Indeed, these practices seem to free up scarce chemicals for the traditional export crop, sugar. Sugar continues to be produced in monoculture, but increasing amounts of organic sugar are being produced, largely for export.
Urban agricultural production climbed from negligible in 1994 to more than 600,000 metric tons in 2000. There are more than 200,000 urban farm plots ranging in size from a few meters to a hectare in size. Production practices rely on organic matter, vermiculture, raised beds, crop rotation, companion cropping, and biopesticides. Yields are between 6 and 30 kilos per square meter and are predominantly roots, tubers, and vegetables. A proposed project called Calle Parque (street parks) will extend urban agriculture and provide much-needed urban cooling by converting some streets in central Havana to parks and gardens. The reforms have not yielded dramatic results for sugar, meat, or dairy, nor for traditional import crops (rice and beans). Cuba continues to rely on food imports, as it has since it was colonized.
In 2000, Cuba imported US$141 million in rice, US$65 million in beans, and US$60 million in milk products. Cuba also imports about one million metric tons of feed grains, nearly a half million metric tons of soybeans, 100,000 metric tons of chicken and pork, as well as substantial amounts of cooking oil, soybean meal, and malt. Because of the U.S. embargo, Cuba has to buy these products from distant countries, adding on average 30% to the cost of food imports over what they would pay for U.S. products. For example, Cuba buys rice from India and China, dairy products from the European Union, grains from South America and Eastern Europe, and meat from Canada and Brazil.
Meat production and dairy production were hit particularly hard by the loss of subsidized Soviet feed and petroleum. The loss of petroleum meant that animal traction became a strategy to reduce reliance on farm machinery. Animal traction is also better for soil management, particularly given the smaller farm size after land was redistributed. However, the conversion to animal traction was impeded by lack of oxen and expertise. The solution was to prohibit slaughter of cattle without government permission (in order to build up the herd) and to create "schools" to train the oxen (and presumably farmers). More than 150,000 oxen have been trained at these schools, and pairs of working oxen are ubiquitous throughout Cuba. This dramatic transformation did not come without a cost—the availability of beef plummeted, and anyone caught illegally slaughtering cattle could spend up to 20 years in jail.
Policy Themes -- This kind of policy solution—trading personal liberty for social goals—is common in Cuba. Not only cattle are managed as a national resource—the dean of an agricultural university in Cuba declared that "soil is a strategic national resource." Intellectual property is also managed as a public resource. Cuban researchers are developing biotechnology applications for agriculture and medicine. However, the Cuban government prevents anyone from patenting discoveries funded by government research. Intellectual property developed with public funds is treated as a public resource.
Social equity is a clearly a higher priority for the Cuban government than personal liberty. Indeed, Cubans even share their poverty; living standards are uniformly low. Yet, despite being the second poorest country in the Americas, there is no widespread hunger; housing is generally free, if dilapidated and crowded; Cubans are one of the most educated populations in the world; and there is universal free health care. All Cubans have access to a basic (although minimal) diet through their ration card. Cubans supplement this with food they grow, barter for, or buy at farm stands, farmers' markets, or dollar stores. Cubans spend about two thirds of their income on food, but not everyone has the same buying power. A 2000 Lexington Institute study found that it took the average Cuban on a government salary four days to earn enough money to buy a basket of food consisting of one pound each of pork, rice, and beans, two pounds of tomatoes, three limes, and a head of garlic. A retiree on a pension would need 7.2 days, and a private taxi driver in Havana would need 3.5 hours.
Citizen Responses
Cubans themselves have a range of responses to this situation. Some Cubans are dedicated to social equity and are pragmatic about the individual sacrifices required so that everyone has something to eat. Others are discontented, even resentful, feeling that they are underemployed given the level of (free) education that they have and could have a higher living standard under a capitalist system. No one says that the situation is easy, and the embargo (called a blockade in Cuba) is viewed by all as the primary barrier to improving the situation.
The Farm Bureau has made some headway with the State Department to allow some U.S. exports. Indeed, while in Havana, we bought Washington State Red Delicious apples (for 50 cents each!) at a dollar store. Cuba wants to buy U.S. farm products: rice, dairy products, feed grains, soybeans, meat, and poultry. However, it is unlikely they will be able to do so without some means of earning dollars, and their export products are sugar, citrus, tobacco, tropical fruits and vegetables, and seafood, which would compete with some U.S. producers.
The Future
What will the future bring? Quien sabe. Everyone expects political changes when Castro dies, but one must be mindful that there is an immense state communist system that permeates Cuban society. Many people benefit from this system, and Cubans are well aware of the example of the Soviet collapse and ensuing economic and social crisis in Russia. Regardless of what happens on the political level, it seems likely that Cuba will continue to promote agroecological practices and to expand urban agriculture simply because they are yielding results. The bad experiences with large agricultural operations, both before and after communism, make it unlikely that anyone could credibly promote a return to large, high-input operations as a matter of national policy.
The positive results that farmers, university researchers, and extension are getting from the transformation of Cuban agriculture will likely encourage them to continue to pursue sustainable practices whatever comes next. Cuban people are eating better and healthier than before, though things are far from perfect. However, the relevant comparison is to other Latin American countries; Cuba simply does not have the widespread hunger, destitution, and suffering that are commonplace in countries with much higher GDP per capita.
The extent of future success with sustainable agriculture will of course depend on what markets Cuban farmers will have access to and what types of competition they will face from imports. Although great strides have been made, Cuba will likely always be a food importer, and it will certainly be in Cuba's interest to buy its imported meat, rice, beans, oil, soy, and dairy products as cheaply as possible. [ Editor Note – This is really the only part We disagree with – especially on beans, oil, soy and diary! Why can’t Cuba produce these? ]
A Short Addition on Coops vs Collectives (seems coops better for framing and collectives for small businesses)
It is possible to set up an organization whereby it is owned by the community (the members) and operated democratically by the workers. Policy issues would have to be negotiated between the two constituencies. Ideally, the workers would have the protection of a union [ Why any unions in such a set up??? ] whose values and actual functioning parallel direct democracy, in order to protect against rouge power tripping member boards or other such tendencies that would undermine democracy within. On the same token, the workers should be required to negotiate with the community with regard to the end result of what is done or produced (ie. we could do without a collectively run GMO farm, or chemical manufacturer, that is not accountable to the community). Also, both constituencies are checks upon one another.
In short, a sort of decentalized socialist democracy and economic democracy, as a coalition between workers in an organization and the community it affects. Unfortunately, the process to reform coops or collectives into a hybrid modelof direct democracy is tough, and it might be less effort tobuild them up anew.
Co-operatives are about workers, producers, consumers, etc having a share or the rights of the OWNERSHIP of whatever, whereas a collective is about the workers, producers,etc, having equal MANAGEMENT rights and decision-making responsibilities. Co-ops usually have a board of directors that may or may not include workers, but collectives are run by the people who make the big decisions together. Whether you work in a co-op or collective, you have to work under certain decisions that are made...it's just that in a co-op, you might have to live with decisions that you had no input into, but in a collective, you helped negotiate any decisions that were made.
So it's a lot harder for collectives to sell-out
For More Information –
Deere, C.D. (1996). The evolution of Cuba's agricultural sector: Debates, controversies and research issues (International working paper series, IW96-3). Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Food and Resource Economics Department, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
Funes, F., Garcia, L., Bourque, M., Perez, N., & Rosset, P. (Eds.) (2002). Sustainable agriculture and resistance: Transforming food production in Cuba. Oakland, CA: Food First Books.
Sinclair, M., & Thomson, M. (2001). Cuba: Going against the grain: Agricultural crisis and transformation. Boston, MA: Oxfam America.
international@lifecyclesproject.ca, http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1460
Tuesday,Apr 5 2005, 01:16:49 AMThe Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela Here is...
The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
Here is a shorter version of Alan Woods-Land reform-
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=25767
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http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_16126.shtml
Venezuela: The agrarian revolution By Alan Woods Mar 7, 2005, 20:30
The Bolivarian Movement is a mass movement that originated as a movement for the national-democratic revolution - that is, a revolution that stood for a programme of advanced democracy, but which stopped short of challenging the foundations of capitalism. However, the progress of the Revolution has inevitably brought it into conflict with the vested interests of the oligarchy. At every step the demands of the masses in both town and village clash with the so-called sacred right of property. Upon the resolution of this contradiction the future of the Revolution depends.
The Marxists naturally supported the national democratic revolution and applauded Hugo Chavez's courageous fight against the Venezuelan oligarchy and imperialism. Even on a capitalist basis, this was tremendously progressive, and it was, and remains our duty to defend it. Not to do so would be a betrayal. But we have always pointed out the elementary truth that in order to succeed, the Revolution sooner or later would have to go beyond the boundaries of capitalism and expropriate the Venezuelan landlords and capitalists. Experience has proved we were correct. At every stage the Bolivarian Revolution has come up against the most ferocious resistance of the landlords and capitalists, backed by imperialism. In order to overcome this resistance, it has had to base itself on the only genuinely revolutionary classes: the workers and urban poor in the towns and cities and the poor peasants in the countryside. A decisive stage in this conflict is now commencing in the countryside.
Land distribution is an age-old aspiration of the poor of the Venezuelan countryside. The peasants desire to work the land and improve their standard of living. But this justified aspiration comes up against the fierce resistance of the big landowners, who, together with the bankers and big capitalists, constitute the cornerstone of the Venezuelan oligarchy. No real advance is possible in Venezuela unless and until the power of this oligarchy is broken. That is the real importance of the agrarian revolution.
Modest reformsThe attempt to move towards an agrarian reform has posed the central dilemma of the Bolivarian Revolution point-blank. It is not merely a question of modifying the existing set up. It must be swept away: the agrarian economic and social structure must be utterly transformed. As the Spanish Socialist Largo Caballero once put it: you cannot cure cancer with an aspirin. For this reason the Venezuelan peasants, like their brothers and sisters in the towns and cities, are drawing the most revolutionary conclusions. In early January, President Chavez announced new measures to deepen and extend the agrarian reform, an essential component in the Bolivarian Revolution. The reforms themselves are quite modest in their scope, concentrating on the issue of under-exploited estates. Under a 2001 land law, the government can tax or seize unused farm sites. The Venezuelan authorities have identified more than 500 farms, including 56 large estates, as idle. A further 40,000 farms are yet to be inspected.
These measures are very modest and fall well short of what is required in order to fulfil the most elementary requirement of the national democratic revolution. Yet they were met with howls of rage from the enemies of the Revolution.The opposition has accused the state of "invading private property" and introducing "communistic measures". The protests of the Venezuelan opposition are mild, however, in comparison to the howls of rage in the international media. On 13 January the London-based Economist magazine carried an article attacking Chavez's land reform. The occasion for its ire was the measures taken by the government to investigate the cattle ranch of El Charcote in Cojedes, a state in Venezuela's northern plains, which is run by Agroflora, a subsidiary of a big UK food monopoly. The Vestey Group is the owner of this huge ranch comprising no less than 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres) of pastures and woodlands, as well as a dozen other ranches elsewhere in the country. It has investments in beef and sugar in Argentina and Brazil as well as in Venezuela. It is a typical example of the way in which big foreign companies have taken over the key sectors of the productive forces in the continent and drained them for profit.
The Economist admits that the family that owns the company are famous (or rather infamous) in Britain for its long history of tax avoidance as well as for meat. Nevertheless it defends their absolute right to hold onto their land, since their title to El Charcote "goes back a century and has been upheld by the courts." The article describes in colourful detail the spectacular way in which the inspection was carried out:
"On January 8th, the clatter of helicopters over the ranch heralded the arrival of Johnny [sic] Yánez, the chavista governor of Cojedes, bearing the country's first "intervention order" against rural property. He was accompanied by some 200 troops and heavily armed police commandos. Mr Yánez, a former army captain, announced that private property was 'a right, but not an absolute right'".
A state commission now has three months to decide whether the ranch is unproductive or not legally held and thus can be turned over to peasant co-operatives under the terms of the land-reform decree of 2001. Two days later, President Chávez set up a similar commission at national level. Its task is to speed up and bring order to the land-reform drive.
For Part II and more; See: the section Venezuela Agriculture Shorts at:
real-left.tripod.com
Tuesday,Apr 5 2005, 01:12:17 AMPart II: Woods: Venezuela Agriculture –...
Part II: Woods: Venezuela Agriculture – LAnd Reform
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http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_16126.shtml
Venezuela: The agrarian revolution By Alan Woods Mar 7, 2005, 20:30
The case for land reform in Latin America is unanswerable. In Venezuela, over 75 percent of farmland is controlled by fewer than 5 percent of landowners. Rural poverty is a cancer that blights millions of lives. Even the right-wing Economist agrees that "Unequal land distribution is one of the historical causes of the wider inequality that scars Latin American societies." But an all-out assault on the property of the landlords will inevitably pose the question of the expropriation of the banks and industries as well. That is why the imperialists have raised such a hue-and-cry about the proposed measures. Will agrarian reform damage production?
The bourgeois critics of land reform say that Chavez's policies will have a negative effect on agricultural production:
"By harrying the private sector," The Economist says, "the government has merely intensified Venezuela's dependence on oil - and all the economic distortions that go with that. The government says Venezuela imports 70% of what it eats. The opposition retorts that food imports have risen by a fifth since Mr Chávez came to power, while agricultural production has fallen."
The enemies of the Revolution are running around screaming about the threat to investment and productivity, when in reality what worries them is something else. What really frightens The Economist is the fact that the president's promises have encouraged peasants to invade farms. It is arousing the rural masses from their slumber and bringing them into the revolutionary struggle. It is calling into question the "sacred principle of private property" and thereby is taking a big step in the direction of the socialist revolution. This is a prospect that fills the oligarchy and its imperialist masters with panic. The Economist quotes with horror the words of Johnny Yánez: "Social justice cannot be sacrificed to legal technicalities," adding darkly: "This assault on property rights is likely to scare off investment." The article continues its tale of woe:
At the massive El Charcote ranch, herds of Brahma cattle still graze. The Vestey company normally supplies 4% of the beef consumed by Venezuelans. It has been a pioneer in genetic improvements to the national herd. But Diana dos Santos, the firm's local boss, says that at El Charcote all but one small pasture has been invaded; beef output has slumped. More than a thousand interlopers have put up rickety shacks and planted crops on the estate. They support the president-but despise Mr Yánez. So they may be evicted in favour of other, more reliable, political clients. And in a few years' time these in turn will probably end up back in urban slums, while Venezuela will have lost a source of wealth." So there we have it! The big-hearted imperialists like the Vestey family have been so kind as to come to Venezuela with the best intentions in the world.
Their only aim in life is to serve the people of Venezuela, feeding them with delicious beef, constantly improving the national herd with all manner of "genetic improvements" (we recall the kind of genetic improvements introduced by the British capitalist farmers in the United Kingdom, which gave us the blessings of mad cow disease). If incidentally they have earned a few bolivars by honest means, this was of course a secondary matter, in which neither the Bolivarian government nor the British taxman should take any interest. Attitude of the petty bourgeois "democrats"
So crystal clear is the case for agrarian reform in Venezuela that even petty bourgeois groups, not noted for their love of Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution, have had to grudgingly accept it. The Venezuelan human rights group PROVEA has welcomed the Venezuelan government's war on big landownership, calling the political will shown by government and opposition State Governors as "positive."
However, the revolutionaries should beware of praise coming from such quarters. The bourgeois "democrats" of PROVEA are no friends of the Bolivarian Revolution and their praise is a poisoned chalice that they offer to the Revolution, not to help it but to paralyse it and render it ineffective.
The government is being urged to be "inclusive" in its agrarian policy and to avoid rural violence. That is to say, it is being invited to represent the interests of all classes - the landlords as well as the peasants. It is being invited to make the lamb lie down next to the wolf. It is being invited to square the circle. In short, it is being invited to do what cannot be done. And those who advocate such nonsense actually consider themselves to be great "realists"! If the consequences were not so serious, it would be very funny. When one is given a bill of support from such people, it is highly advisable to read the small print! And in the small print we read the following:
"The process should be undertaken within the rule of law and rejects the possibility that bodies other than those established in the Land & Agrarian Development Law (ITDA) start processes of expropriating agrarian land." These are priceless pearls of wisdom! The hypocrites of PROVEA read us pious lectures on "the rule of law" but conveniently forget that for years the Venezuelan landlords have been beating, torturing and murdering peasants who dare to question their authority and demand their rights. The landowners do not feel bound by the "rule of law" and will fight by any means at their disposal to prevent a meaningful agrarian programme to be carried out. Whoever denies this is either a fool or a rogue.
The peasants are not fools and will not allow themselves to be cheated by smart lawyers and "democratic" demagogues. They know that the land will never be theirs unless they fight for it, unless the ruthless resistance and sabotage of the landowners is defeated. They also know from bitter experience that their interests cannot be guaranteed by bureaucratic measures and nice sounding speeches by men in smart suits in Caracas. They know that unless the agrarian reform is backed by energetic movement from below, it will remain a dead letter - like all such laws in the past.
Therefore the peasants are organizing themselves. They are taking initiatives to seize the land of the big landowners. Genuine democrats will not oppose such initiatives but support them enthusiastically. Only a corrupt bureaucrat and an agent of the counterrevolution fears the revolutionary initiatives of the workers and peasants! It is only these initiatives that have saved the Bolivarian Revolution time and time again. Those who seek to stifle the initiatives of the masses are consciously or unconsciously striving to weaken the Revolution, to deprive it of its main strength and motor force. The day these people succeed, the Revolution will be doomed.
Legalistic sophistry
These unlikely "Friends of the People" continue: "State Governors can promote and facilitate processes that correspond to the National Institute of Lands (INTI) and provide technical support but they cannot hand over land titles or touch land by expropriating. "Land owner's rights of property must be respected along with legal processes, just and transparent administrative measures, opportune payment and just compensation.
"In the case of idle lands, owners must be guaranteed expedition of improvable farm certificates, as established in ITDA Art. 52." (my emphasis) These "clever" lawyers know the law back to front, inside out and upside down. Yes, they have studied their legal textbooks for many years, passed all their exams and made a lot of money out of using and abusing the law. They have turned the law into their private property - something that represents a very expensive cow that yields a lot of delicious milk for a privileged few. But the hungry masses, the poor peasant, the worker, the unemployed, have got very little out of it.
The Bolivarian Revolution has done a lot to rectify this position. It has torn up the old Constitution of the oligarchy and replaced it with a new and more democratic constitution. That is very welcome, but in and of itself it is by no means sufficient to change the position of the masses and to eliminate the injustices of the past, as so many Bolivarians so passionately desire.
The Bolivarian Constitution is no use if it is not used to fight with. In the hands of the lawyers and bureaucrats the Bolivarian Constitution can be easily reduced to a scrap of paper - something that can be twisted and "interpreted" and turned into a dead letter. After all, even the most democratic constitution in the world has limited powers. It establishes certain limits within which the class struggle can be carried out. That is important because it can give a greater or lesser scope to the workers and peasants with which to carry out their struggle.
What it can never do is to act as a substitute for the class struggle.
In order for the democratic Constitution to mean anything, it must be backed by mass action from below. Without that, it must remain only a dry husk, an empty shell devoid of all real content, the lifeless bones of a skeleton. Only the revolutionary movement of the workers and peasants can put flesh on these dry bones and fill democracy with a real content. To argue therefore that the Venezuelan peasants must confine themselves to what is acceptable to the lawyers, to accept "restraint", to moderate their demands to what the bureaucrats consider "reasonable" - in short to sit back and wait for the land to be handed to them on a plate - would be to give up any possibility of a genuine agrarian reform ever being carried out in Venezuela.
The line of argument of these legalistic ladies and gentlemen is the height of arrogance and insolence towards the masses. As mentioned above, they inform us that "state Governors can promote and facilitate processes that correspond to the National Institute of Lands (INTI) and provide technical support but they cannot hand over land titles or touch land by expropriating." The first part of the sentence is surely redundant. It is to be supposed that all democratic state Governors are legally obligated to carry out the decisions of the legally elected government. Why need this be stated? Unless of course, there are Governors who are working in collaboration with the big landowners and the Counterrevolution to sabotage the decisions of the Caracas government.
Do such governors exist? Of course they do, and that is precisely why the peasants do not trust them to carry through a proper agrarian reform. That is precisely why the peasants have decided - quite rightly - to organize and to take their own initiatives. That is just what provokes the indignation of the "democrats" of PROVEA and other counterrevolutionaries, open and disguised. The "sacred right of property"
Above all, the "Friends of the People" protest, the big estates must not be expropriated. Why not? Because that would be a violation of the sacred right to private property! But in a country where 75 percent of the productive land is in the hands of only about five percent of landowners, how is it possible to have a real agrarian reform without violating the so-called sacred right to private property? To renounce this would be to renounce the whole idea of agrarian reform in Venezuela. And that is just what our "democratic" men in suits would like, although politeness (and fear of the masses) prevents them from saying so openly.
These ladies and gentlemen prattle on about "just compensation". But if anyone is entitled to just compensation it is the millions of peasants who have been exploited, cheated and oppressed for centuries by the landlords who have enriched themselves at the cost of the people. Their ranches and mansions have been built out of the blood, sweat and tears squeezed out of generations of poor men, women and children. And where did they get their property from in the first place? The land was not theirs to start with. It was seized from the native population by violence and trickery. Where was the "just compensation" then?
These "clever" sophists try to blind us with legal niceties. But the whole history of Latin America shows that the parasitic class of landlords has never shown the slightest regard for such legal niceties when it was a question of their own selfish interests. They obtained the land through violence and have held it ever since by violence. What was stolen from the people must be restored to the people. The question of compensation does not enter into it. The landlords have made their fortunes on the back of the people. They do not deserve a single cent more.
PROVEA states that the government cannot deliver titles on private lands, if it has not undertaken expropriation procedures beforehand and followed Constitution Art. 115 regarding the expropriation of lands considered of social interest or public utility. The talk about legal niceties is only a smoke screen designed to confuse the issue, as in phrases like: "In the case of idle lands, owners must be guaranteed expedition of improvable farm certificates, as established in ITDA Art. 52." PROVEA inform us that the Revolution must do this and must do that, and that it cannot do this and cannot do that. Really? But the essence of a Revolution is that it expresses the will of the people; that it stands for the interests of the majority over those of the minority. The laws that were made in the past were made by the rich minority to defend their own power and privileges. A Revolution that allowed itself to be paralysed by such laws would not deserve the name of a Revolution at all. It would be only a bureaucratic game, a fraud and an illusion.
When the masses voted by an overwhelming majority last August to endorse the Bolivarian Revolution, they did not intend their clearly declared intentions to be frustrated by their enemies who, having been ejected by the front door, are now seeking to re-enter by the back door. Having been defeated in open battle, they are resorting to manoeuvres and intrigues, hiding behind the law and using delaying tactics. If we accept this, it would mean subordinating the will of the majority to the machinations of a wealthy and privileged minority. Democracy would be reduced to a hollow phrase. The tail would wag the dog. Fortunately, the masses have no intention of allowing this to happen. The peasants mobilize for action
We recently received an interesting report of The Venezuelan Peasant Congress from El Nuevo Topo, signed by E. Gilman. This brief report clearly shows the real attitude that is developing at the base, not only among the workers but also among their natural allies, the poor peasants. In it we read the following:
"Caracas: On February 5th and 6th took place in Tucari the 'Peasant Conference in Defense of National Sovereignty and for the Agrarian Revolution,' sponsored by the Frente Nacional Campesino Ezequiel Zamora. "Nearly 100 delegates met at the Berbere Cooperative, which is a collective farm run by largely Black farmers.
"Though there was universal support for President Hugo Chavez, the Agrarian Reform Law was severely attacked as it allows only lands over 5000 hectares to be expropriated and these lands need to be uncultivated to be covered by the law. The peasants criticized the Agrarian Reform Institute, which they claimed was so slow and bureaucratic that owners of latifundios would cut down whole forests off the land while the Agrarian Reform Institute made up its mind. Also many had received defective seed from the Institute. Many peasants who have taken lands directly have complained local judges are on the side of the landowners and have had local police drive them off the land [...]
"The conference discussed the need for armed self-defence as well as the possibility of guerrilla warfare if there is a U.S. invasion. They defended the need to build collective farms rather than dividing up the land. There was discussion on the need for accounting and discipline with those who refuse to work.
The Conference agreed to set up a school on the Berbere farm to teach collective agriculture.
"The peasants discussed blocking the Panamerican Highway to get their demands. The only discordant note was from the local Mayor who told the peasants to have more patience and that the law was like a 'father who makes rules for his child'. Her proposal for patience for solidly rejected. Many peasants stated they felt a 'revolution within the revolution' was necessary to have genuine People's Power (Poder Popular.)"
These few lines speak louder than all the books and articles that have appeared on the Bolivarian Revolution. Here we see the dialectical relationship between the masses and the leadership of Hugo Chavez at work. Reflecting the pressure of the masses, the government approves an agrarian reform. The peasants take heart from this measure and press their demands. They express "universal support for President Hugo Chavez", but at the same time they point out the limitations of the new law. It is welcome, but it does not go far enough. They therefore decide to help the government to go further by stepping up their actions from below.
The announcement of the new measures has prompted hundreds of land invasions and these have been met by the killing of dozens of peasant activists by the landlords and their agents. But as yet very little land has actually been awarded. This is admitted honestly by some officials. "That's a self-criticism the revolution has to make," says Rafael Alemán, the official in charge of the review at El Charcote. "We have not pushed this process forward." This need not surprise us. The machinery of government is slow and cumbersome. The bureaucracy cannot be an adequate instrument for revolutionary change.
It drags its feet, fulfilling its obligations without enthusiasm, or even sabotaging the laws passed by the Bolivarian government. In its ranks there are many escualidos and disguised counterrevolutionaries. The peasants do not trust it, and they are right not to trust it. They criticize the Agrarian Reform Institute for its slowness and bureaucratic methods that help the owners of lantifundios to sabotage the reforms. They know - and the whole people know - that only the mass revolutionary movement can carry through the revolution!
Displaying an unerring revolutionary instinct, they answer the critics of the agrarian reform in a way that shows a very high level of political maturity. The enemies of the agrarian reform say: the break-up of the big landed estate into individual peasant plots will damage productivity and cause chaos and hunger. The peasants reply: we are for the expropriation of the big estates - but we do not insist on their division into a multitude of small peasant holdings. We advocate the establishment of collective farms on which the land can be cultivated in common, using all the advantages of modern machinery and technology and economies of scale. To do this it is not necessary that the land should be owned by a handful of rich parasites!
The revolutionary peasants are not fools. They fully understand the need for accounting and discipline on the collective farms. They will be run democratically by the producers themselves. Those who refuse to work will be disciplined by the rest of the collective, which is interested in establishing a high level of productivity, and to this end proposes the establishment of schools on the farms to teach the science of agriculture. What has this highly responsible attitude got to do with the grotesque caricature of "ignorant peasants" sabotaging scientific agricultural production that the western apologists of the landlords like to present us with? Reformism or revolution?
[[ Skipped a well written section on revolutionary actions to demolish the landed oligarchy -- !!!
The peasantry must arm itself! That message has been given more than once by President Chavez. It is time to put it into practice. What is needed is not a guerrilla war, but organized self-defence, the establishment of democratically elected peasants committees in every village, armed with whatever weapons they can obtain to defend the people against the armed gangs of the counterrevolution. The committees should link up on a local, district and national basis, and in turn must link up with the committees of the workers in the urban centres.
This is the only way to bring about a peaceful and orderly transfer of power to the people in the countryside. The peasant committees can play a dual role: first, to mobilize and organize the peasant masses for the swift carrying out of an agrarian revolution, and then to establish democratic control over the management and administration of the collectivised estates. No other way is possible.
The agrarian revolution, if it is to succeed, must challenge the power of the oligarchy, and not only in the countryside. In order that agricultural production should not suffer irremediable damage, the expropriated farms must be run on collective lines. [We disagree – experiences in all systems has shown that people prefer a variety of production types: cooperative, collective and small holder. There is plenty of land in Venezuela and plenty of time and opportunity to experiment. We do support extra subsidies for cooperatives and collectives.] That can only succeed if they are guaranteed the necessary finance, cheap credits, cheap fertilizers, tractors and combine harvesters, lorries for transportation, and guaranteed markets for their products. [ We disagree slightly on the scale of needs: limit fertilizers, limit/share tractors, and in the MER plan we would only guarantee a price floor with state intervention to maintain prices either through direct purchase or price subsidies.]
That can only be achieved if they are integrated in an overall plan of production. The first step in achieving this is the nationalization of the banks. Without control over finance and credit, it is impossible to control and plan the economy. It would be like trying to drive a car with no brakes, accelerator or gear-stick. The nationalization of the land and banks is an absolutely necessary measure - even as part of the national democratic revolution. But then the question would immediately be posed: why stop there? Why not expropriate the big firms that still remain in private hands? (We are not interested in the small ones.)
The reason why the oligarchy and the imperialists are panicking over the agrarian reform is precisely because they understand its underlying logic, which is to place a question mark over the so-called divine right to private property. That is absolutely correct! Instead of apologising and assuring the landlords and capitalists that they have nothing to fear, the Bolivarian Revolution should place at the top of its agenda the expropriation of the property of the corrupt and degenerate Venezuelan oligarchy.
President Chavez has stated correctly that capitalism is slavery. He has said that the future of the Bolivarian Revolution must be socialism. We agree with him one hundred and one percent. He has also publicly supported Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution. What does this say? It says that under modern conditions the tasks of the national democratic ("bourgeois democratic") revolution cannot be carried out by the bourgeoisie, and that the national democratic revolution can only succeed if it transforms itself into a socialist revolution.
On the basis of capitalist slavery, no way forward is possible. It is necessary to break with landlordism and capitalism once and for all. That is the real meaning of the slogan:
Revolution within the Revolution.
Monday,Apr 4 2005, 11:18:50 PMhttp://zorpia.com/cgi/member.cgi?username=and
http://zorpia.com/cgi/member.cgi?username=andescircle&type=journal
Above good on long ven files
A SHort Review of Some Chavez International Statements
Chavez added that U.S. imperialism is not invincible. "Look at Vietnam, look at Iraq and Cuba resisting, and now look at Venezuela." In reference to the recommendations of some of his close advisors, he said that "some people say that we cannot say nor do anything that can irritate those in Washington." He repeated the words of Argentine independence hero José de San Martin "let's be free without caring about anyone else says."
"The south also exists... the future of the north depends on the south. If we don't make that better world possible, if we fail, and through the rifles of the U.S. Marines, and through Mr. Bush's murderous bombs, if the is no coincidence and organization necessary in the south to resist the offensive of neo-imperialism, and the Bush doctrine is imposed upon the world, the world will be destroyed,"
Chavez warns of drastic weather changes that would bring catastrophic events if no action is taken soon, in reference to uncontrolled or little regulated industrial activity. Chavez added that perhaps before those drastic changes take place, there will be rebellions everywhere "because the peoples are not going to peacefully accept impositions such as neoliberalism or such as colonialism."
"Everyday I become more convinced, there is no doubt in my mind, and as many intellectuals have said, that it is necessary to transcend capitalism. But capitalism can't be transcended from with capitalism itself, but through socialism, true socialism, with equality and justice. But I'm also convinced that it is possible to do it under democracy, but not in the type of democracy being imposed from Washington," he said.
Chavez said that Venezuela is trying to implement a social economy. "It is impossible, within the framework of the capitalist system to solve the grave problems of poverty of the majority of the world's population. We must transcend capitalism. But we cannot resort to state capitalism, which would be the same perversion of the Soviet Union. We must reclaim socialism as a thesis, a project and a path, but a new type of socialism, a humanist one, which puts humans and not machines or the state ahead of everything. That's the debate we must promote around the world, and the WSF is a good place to do it."
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/cocha/indexfr.htm
If we naively take the perspective that everything is being globalized and that all that remains is for us to globalize ourselves, we fall into a trap. We have known for a while that the world is round, but it seems we don't grasp that its capitalist roundness is exclusionary..." http://movimientos.org/grito/show_text_en.php3?key=242
There has been a resurgence of collective sentiments in Venezuela. The people are awakening and are in movement around a common project. Each day the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean will be increasingly convinced that there is no other road but revolution. For us there is no other road but revolution. ([Chavez]2)
One of the great strengths of the Venezuelan revolution is that it is part of a continental rebellion. Neoliberalism in Latin America is in an economic and a political-ideological crisis. Struggles throughout the continent are taking not only defensive forms but in many cases offensive forms and the left is beginning to reconstruct. The left is accumulating forces and re-appraising its political perspectives. In many of the rural (peasant and landless) organisations and in the trade union movement there are left currents coming to the fore and tackling the questions of state power and citizen participation. The fear of making a revolution “post-Cold War” is beginning to be broken.
Notes
1. The governments and business leaders of the US and Latin America have been promoting since 1994 the creation of what would be the biggest commercial bloc in the world, the Area de Libre Comercio de las Americas (ALCA). The aim is essentially to impose further and more direct US control over the Third World economies of the continent.
2. Chavez: “Con Golpistas no se negocia, se les derrota”, Danil Moser. www.rebelion.org January 19, 2003.
3. La Izquierda Contraataca, Conflicto de clases en America Latina en la era del neoliberalismo. James Petras. Westview Press 2000.
One of the great strengths of the Venezuelan revolution is that it is part of a continental rebellion. Neoliberalism in Latin America is in an economic and a political-ideological crisis. Struggles throughout the continent are taking not only defensive forms but in many cases offensive forms and the left is beginning to reconstruct. The left is accumulating forces and re-appraising its political perspectives. In many of the rural (peasant and landless) organisations and in the trade union movement there are left currents coming to the fore and tackling the questions of state power and citizen participation. The fear of making a revolution “post-Cold War” is beginning to be broken.
Notes
1. The governments and business leaders of the US and Latin America have been promoting since 1994 the creation of what would be the biggest commercial bloc in the world, the Area de Libre Comercio de las Americas (ALCA). The aim is essentially to impose further and more direct US control over the Third World economies of the continent.
2. Chavez: “Con Golpistas no se negocia, se les derrota”, Danil Moser. www.rebelion.org January 19, 2003.
3. La Izquierda Contraataca, Conflicto de clases en America Latina en la era del neoliberalismo. James Petras. Westview Press 2000.
