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a study of Bolivia's lithium deposits, with no commitment to Japanese companies. Japan is doing it just to position their companies better, when Bolivia starts the contract bidding.
There is no sign that MULTI-LATERAL trade (as opposed to U.S.-dominated trade) has been hurt in these countries. OTHER countries and their companies are willing to operate in Venezuela on Venezuela's terms and in Bolivia on Bolivia's term. U.S. corporations are not used to a level playing field. They don't want to compete. They don't want to deal on anybody else's terms. And they most certainly do not want to take any responsibility for the welfare of the people who own the resources. So a smallish company like Italy's ENI (compared to, say, Exxon Mobil) is benefitting. There are at least eight companies, from as many countries, willing to operate in Venezuela on Venezuela's terms to be able to exploit Venezuela's huge oil reserves (biggest in the world--twice Saudi Arabia's--according to the USGS). This is what the Chavez government has done for Venezuela--it has asserted Venezuela's sovereignty and its right to demand a hugely better deal for Venezuela and its social programs, than prior governments did with the likes of Exxon Mobil. They have DIVERSIFIED the bidders! Those who are not so greedy can operate in Venezuela and the rest can go jump in lake. Venezuela doesn't need their arrogance, their gross interference and their greed.
Venezuela's land reform program is an extremely careful one. For about half a decade, they did nothing at all as to private landowners with clear title--and they surely had reason to seize some of the those (--thousands of acres of farm land with absentee landlords, or farm land that was not being used for anything--and Venezuela with a food sovereignty problem!). But they didn't touch them. They converted government lands and lands without title, to farming. And they absolutely have NOT just "given away" the lands to the poor. They have a well-thought out, rigorous process of training farmers, and withholding title to the land until the farmers have proven that they are producing food as planned. I wouldn't be surprised if Venezuela's agricultural planners studied models like Zimbabwe for mistakes that others have made, because they seem to know them all and to have thought out solutions.
One of the things that prior rightwing/"free trade" governments did, that was so very bad for Venezuela, was to side with big, rich landowners when they drove small peasant farmers from the land, resulting in a vast migration of very poor people into urban areas, where they can't feed their families, let alone their communities, and who end up in urban squalor, with few nor no jobs to be had--and no education and training. At the same time, these governments encouraged the development of a well-off, urban elite, addicted to imported goods, and mostly living off the oil wealth, with no thought to the general welfare and the future of their own country. Reversing such a bad policy is very difficult, but that is what the Chavez government determined to do. But they are doing it with enticements--training, farm loans, technical help and the future prospect of getting title to the land if the farmers do well consistently. They are not doing it with any kind of draconian measures--such as Stalin did, for instance--neither as to forcing people back to the land nor as to confiscating lands.
Another tragedy of that rightwing/"free trade" mode was the LOSS OF KNOWLEDGE OF FARMING, that is passed from generation to generation in rural areas. The Chavez government's farming education programs, and their gentler treatment of still-existing small peasant farmers, is addressing this crazy and devastating policy of losing knowledge and skill in an essential industry--food production. I saw a documentary on Jamaica's loss of food sovereignty under "free trade" rules and it is HEART-BREAKING to see a traditional dairy farmer, for instance, destroyed by imported U.S. powdered milk, weeping over his inability to pass his farm and his knowledge of farming to his children. They destroyed his market. They destroyed him. And they destroyed the future.
But there are still some traditional farmers in Venezuela. Many of them have been robbed of their lands. The Chavez government is siding with them in disputes with big landowners. This is pretty much the story across Latin America. Land has been stolen from millions and millions of small-scale, organic, peasant farmers--the campesinos--in the past by the local rich and powerful, more recently for multinational corporations like Chiquita and Monsanto. In Colombia, five MILLION small farmers have been displaced from their lands--THE worst human displacement crisis on earth. The lands were given to Alvaro Uribe's rich friends, to corporations and to the big, protected drug lords--all with the support of $7 BILLION in military aid from the U.S. It is Colombia's greatest tragedy--in a country with many tragedies.
Santos (Uribe's successor) says that he is going to do something about this. We'll see. Colombia's the country that has to prove itself. Can it stop murdering its peasant farmers, to begin with, let alone displacing them? Can it stop creating a slave labor force of poverty-stricken, displaced peasants in its cities, for multinational corporate sweatshops? Corporate interests like this, you know, and they do "invest" in other peoples' slavery. Should these 'dog eat dog' types be permitted to rule countries with their money? As in Jamaica, what about the FUTURE? And what about decency--a decent society, that everyone benefits from? Colombia has a long way to go to prove itself.
The Chavez government's experiments have been largely successful. They've cut poverty in half and extreme poverty by more than 70%. They've kept unemployment very low. And millions of Venezuelans now have access to education and health care, who didn't before. The Chavez government is working toward and betting on the future--on an educated, motivated population, and they have created rather enormous economic success--a 10% rate of growth, over five years (2003 to 2008), with the most growth in the private sector (not including oil)--before the Bushwhack Depression hit the world. Venezuela is more vulnerable to that Depression because of the dramatic drop in oil prices. But they are headed in the right direction, overall--investing in their people. That cannot be said for Colombia.
The impact of Chavez's level of nationalizations depends on a lot of factors. Some of the nationalizations have not been nationalizations at all. For instance, the government itself had invested in a hotel complex with private partners. When the government's legal option to buy out the private investors came up, the government bought them out. This was treated in the corpo-fascist press as a seizure of private property and it was not. In other cases, private corporations have not been obeying the laws, or their owners have engaged in corruption, or, in the case of some banks they were corrupt and fleecing people (and endangering depositors). These have been seizures for cause--somewhat similar to our anti-drug police seizing marijuana growers' homes, cars and other property--but with MORE cause and certainly with more justice. I think our government should be doing the same to corporate scofflaws, or merely to corporations that get TOO BIG. Such corporations are a danger to our sovereignty. They have no inherent right to exist. They exist only my permission of a sovereign people and when they start running the government and hijacking the military for corporate oil wars, they ought to be de-chartered and dismantled. Or, rather, they need to be de-chartered and dismantled before they get too powerful.
The question about some nationalizations (none of the above) is, can the government or the workers run the business to fulfill its social purpose--whether providing steel for housing constructions, or food distribution, or whatever? And can they do so without Stalinist coercion and violence? Well, so far, the Chavez government has shown no penchant for coercion or violence of any kind. They think that FREELY CHOSEN socialism will work. And their socialism is not a whole lot different from the socialism in some European and Scandinavian countries. I have read interviews of Chavez in which he talks about the mistakes of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe and the internal mistakes of Eastern European communist countries--and specifically, Stalinism, coercion and violence. For all his bombast, he is a thoughtful man and a reader--and so are many of those in his government. They are not stupid people. They know what they are doing. But, yes, they are experimenting and some things remain to be seen.
Can you remove the motive of a few people getting rich, and run a business on the motive of fair wages/fair prices and social benefit? Can a government run a business that way, without getting arbitrary and tyrannical? Can a co-op run a business that way? (I know some that do, here--and I know of some in Venezuela.) Although the rightwing in Venezuela focused on one managerial mistake in food distribution--some warehouses with rotting food--as an election "talking point," the government food distribution program has worked very well most of the time. The poor can buy greatly reduced price food in state stores. I visited Russia in 1972 and found the store shelves to be nearly empty. That was very shocking for an American. Our grocery stores are a kind of "food Heaven"--jampacked with sumptuous foods of every kind (and much too much packaging for Mother Earth). But we also have people struggling to put food on the table, many homeless people and millions of people with poor nutrition and consequent health problems. Is our food distribution all that great? Those with money can get what they want. The poor and the ignorant (including the ignorant well-to-do) don't get proper nutrition.
But, clearly, Russian communism was having trouble with state-run enterprises like food distribution. Someone told me that it was a gasoline and truck shortage, actually. And it was true on many goods and services. You could SEE it, everywhere. But I think we are talking about extremes here. That was heavily centralized communism. Chavez is a socialist and his government furthermore encourages decentralization in many ways--for instance, distributing funds to the community councils who decide what projects are needed in their specific community, with all the responsibility for designing and implementing the project for their community. The Chavez government also listens to workers, and invites worker in-put. I read accounts of long sessions with workers during the hydroelectric power crisis--with hydroelectric workers and workers from related industries.
The Chavez government doesn't seem at all inclined to dictate from above. In fact, some people have criticized them for taking too long to make decisions, and for not being strident enough socialists. They dictate to Exxon Mobil, et al. They don't dictate to their own people. And that is as it should be. Exxon Mobil and other rich investors and executives don't give a crap about Venezuela or its people. They just want the oil profit--all of it. Unfortunately, that has become our era's "business ethic." Take it all! To Hell with the workers who actually create the products and wealth.
I see a lot of good, positive trends in Venezuela. I don't see much on which to base a prediction of either dictatorship or failure. The Chavez government has been in power ten years. They've had their up's and down's, like any government. They have their unsolved problems, like any government. But they've mostly been steady on, through very tumultuous pressures, especially from the U.S. And their accomplishments--on poverty reduction, on education, on health care and on a good run of economic growth--are extraordinary.
So where does Zimbabwe even come into it? That just doesn't compute, with me. I don't see it all. I don't see it in Chavez, personally, with his open smile and jolly nature. I've watched him with other leaders and he seems quite content to just be one of them. He doesn't try to outshine anybody or dominate or bully. He has good friendships with other leaders. And when he talks to ordinary people, he seems unguarded and friendly and quite interested in them. He's part showman, for sure, but, at his core, he's happy and has a lot of good will. There is simply no comparison to Robert Mugabe, with his tight, closed face, and given the atrocities he has committed, and the wealth he has acquired.
Further, there is no hint of taint to Venezuela's elections, whereas in Zimbabwe, almost every election has been characterized by fraud--by Mugabe rigging it to stay in power. Venezuela has transparent, honest, aboveboard and internationally monitored elections. Chavez has NEVER rigged an election, as Robert Mugabe has done.
Zimbabwe has had a hell of a hard time, to be sure. It was Rhodesia, after all--the most viciously white racist colony in Africa. Since its relatively recent independence, Zimbabwe has suffered a huge HIV crisis and interference of the goddamn IMF which basically took an economy that was on an upward path and destroyed it.
There is no comparing Venezuela to Zimbabwe. Venezuela has a long history of democracy and labor and social movements. Zimbabwe has a history of kings and "ruling tribes" and several brutal wars with Portuguese and then British invaders, with extremely oppressive British and then white Rhodesian rule. Zimbabwe didn't achieve independence with majority black rule until 1980, after a long and difficult war against the minority white Rhodesians. At that time, the white 1% of the population owned 70% of the best farm land in the country.
Venezuelans have suffered colonialism, racism, U.S. domination and rule by the rich, but nothing like Zimbabwe. And their histories of dealing with these problems are entirely different. Venezuela has a vibrant political culture--more vibrant today than ever before--very inclusive with big voter turnouts. Zimbabwe basically has a monarchy, with rigged elections and low participation. Venezuela's land reform has been gentle, gradual and well thought out. Mugabe's land reform was brutal. Zimbabwe has very recent, brutal white racism coursing through peoples' psyches. Venezuela elected a president who is part Indigenous, part African-Venezuelan and part Spanish! There are vestiges of racism--nothing like in Zimbabwe.
There are, indeed, some bloody strains of social reform. Zimbabwe has suffered a variation of that. But we are never going to see that in Venezuela, nor the fanatical Maoist or Stalinist eruptions that we saw in China and Russia. It is just not in Venezuela's character, is not present in any form in Venezuela's history and is not evident in its current president or government--and it is extremely unfair to keep predicting "dictatorship/failed state," or saying "we'll see," and mentioning Zimbabwe, when the Chavez government has been in charge for ten years and there is no sign of it yet!
FDR is a much more apt comparison for Chavez. Turned the country around. Beat back the moneyed powers who had wrecked it. Directly rescued the poor. Created a "New Deal" for America's majority. Tried to create strong government structures and policies that "organized money" could not defeat. And kept getting elected--four times!
Robert Mugabe is in power through coercion, corruption and by monarchical tradition. Chavez is in power because most Venezuelans want him to be. There is no comparison.
And if you throw back the one-liner about Chavez befriending Mugabe, I will ask you who is the biggest friend of the U.S. in the Middle East besides Israel? The answer is the most oppressive tyranny in the Middle East and probably in the world--an overt absolute monarchy--Saudi Arabia. Anyway, who has killed more people--the "president" of Zimbabwe, or the "president" of the United States? National leaders rarely get to pick who they have to deal with, on an international level, in the interest of their country. The U.S. has, as "friends," Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE and Colombia (where thousands of trade unionists and other leftists have been murdered by the Colombian military and its death squads)--along with Uzbekistan (where the dictator is reported to have boiled his enemies to death). Venezuela has Zimbabwe, Iran and, um, lately, Colombia. Is the U.S. being "strategic" in its alliances while Venezuela is being evil? That's B.S. The U.S. also has Norway, Canada and Japan as "friends." Venezuela has Brazil, Argentina and Italy. The U.S. doesn't tend to criticize its "friends" or strategic partners. Neither does Venezuela.
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