The Concept of Homeland Property

Thursday, December 24 2010, by Debate Socialista

President Chávez practices the Property of the Homeland concept which is superior to the concept of Social Property. He wraps it, and he gives it meaning. He makes it more human, more understandable and he brings it closer to the people’s souls.

(click here to view entire article)

Hugo Chávez’s First Decade in Office: Breakthroughs and Shortcomings

By Steve Ellner - Latin American Perspectives (January 2010 Vol. 37, No.1.)

Now that the presidency of Hugo Chávez is beginning its second decade, the insistence of some critics on holding the government accountable by evaluating its concrete results becomes increasingly compelling. The assessment of gains and shortcomings is particularly important in light of the assertion of Chávez’s adversaries, as well as the concerns of some analysts who are more sympathetic to his government, that rent-seeking continues to underpin the Venezuelan economy and society, which remain completely dependent on petroleum (López Maya, 2008: 7; Coronil, 2008; Kelly and Palma, 2004: 229–230; Lombardi, 2003: 5–6).

(click here to view entire article)

Venezuela and China Consolidate “Strategic Alliance,” Expand Bilateral Trade

[Venezuelan and Chinese government officials and business leaders met in Caracas this week to discuss bilateral relations. As a result of the accords signed at the meeting, Venezuela will increase its supply of oil to China to more than 600,000 barrels per day next year, and China will increase its investments in Venezuelan agriculture, infrastructure, mining, and energy production.]

Friday 25th December 2009, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com

Mérida, December 24^th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan and Chinese government officials and business leaders met in Caracas this week to discuss bilateral relations. As a result of the accords signed at the meeting, Venezuela will increase its supply of oil to China to more than 600,000 barrels per day next year, and China will increase its investments in Venezuelan agriculture, infrastructure, mining, and energy production.

In a press conference, Venezuelan Planning and Development Minister Jorge Giordani called Venezuela’s growing economic relationship with China “a consolidated strategic alliance based on the premise of equality and mutual respect that will be consolidated even more by two countries that have a shared vision of a multi-polar world.”

(click here to view entire article)

The State of the Venezuelan Worker - 2008

[Proceeding with the information from the Venezuelan Central Bank's report on the Venezuelan economy for 2008 I would now like to review some data on Venezuela's workforce and how its workers faired last year.]

The State of the Venezuelan Worker - 2008

July 15th 2009, by Oil Wars Blog

Proceeding with the information from the Venezuelan Central Bank's report on the Venezuelan economy for 2008 I would now like to review some data on Venezuela's workforce and how its workers faired last year.

This data is quite interesting and thought provoking. And as usual, some of it paints the accomplishments of Hugo Chavez is a flattering light and some of it paints him in not such a flattering light.

Before getting into the pages that specifically relate to the Venezuelan workforce it is important to give a key statistic which is found at the bottom of this page:

(click here to view entire article)

The Development of Venezuela's Popular Economy, Pt. 1

[Certainly, the Chavez government has broken with the neoliberal agenda of the preceding decades. But has it developed instead a shift toward a participatory and democratic economy as the core of 21st Century Socialism?]

The Development of Venezuela's Popular Economy, Pt. 1

May 21st 2009, by Jan Ullrich – Venezuelanalysis.com

Part 1: Experiences and LegislationVenezuela has experienced five years of continual economic prosperity. Its gross domestic product almost doubled between 2003 and 2008. Poverty significantly declined, and the shift of the GINI-Coefficient represented a large reduction in inequality [1]. While those macro-economic indicators are recognized by most critics of Venezuela's economic policies, the qualitative economic development of the country is the subject of polemical discussions from different scientific, political, and ideological points of views.

Certainly, the Chavez government has broken with the neoliberal agenda of the preceding decades. But has it developed instead a shift toward a participatory and democratic economy as the core of 21st Century Socialism? The new "Law for the Development of a Popular Economy," which I will refer to as the Popular Economy Law in this article, could be counted as a step toward a participatory and democratic economy, because it promotes the democratization of the relationship between communities and production and consumption. The concrete experiences of "Solidarity Exchange Groups" that were defined in this law and established in ten communities across the country illustrate how the relationships of communities to production and consumption could be re-organized.

(click here to view entire article)

Challenges and Possibilities: Learning from ALBA and the Bank of the South

[At the same time capitalism’s credibility as an engine of development (in both free-market and state-directed forms) is being weakened, the governments of a number of South American countries are working to advance new regional initiatives that have the potential to promote and strengthen socialist-inspired development alternatives-the most important are the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) and the Bank of the South. Although these two initiatives do not have the explicit mission of promoting socialist transformation, they are critically important because they concretize the existence of alternatives to capitalist growth strategies and, in the case of ALBA, offer support to governments that are themselves pursuing a socialist-inspired process of transformation.]

Challenges and Possibilities: Learning from ALBA and the Bank of the South

May 22nd 2009, by Martin Hart-Landsberg - International Debt Observatory

This is a time of great challenges and also great possibilities. The first decade of the 21st century may well mark an important turning point in the international struggle to supplant capitalism.

For decades the great majority of third world governments have followed neoliberal policies despite the failure of those policies to deliver their promised export-led growth. As a consequence, anti-neoliberal political movements have grown in strength throughout Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa. While an important political development, the emancipatory potential of those movements has remained limited, in large part, because of their focus on neoliberalism as the primary impediment to progress. More specifically, many participating activists and academics continue to draw a sharp distinction between neoliberalism and capitalism; while they strongly oppose the former, they remain largely unwilling to reject the latter.

Most tend to blame the development failures of their respective nations on government policies (often implemented under pressure) that liberalized, deregulated, and privatized economic activity. They believe that the East Asian experience of high-speed, export-led growth and industrial transformation demonstrates that active state intervention and direction of economic activity can produce successful capitalist development. Therefore, they have often directed their efforts at enhancing the state capacities of their respective countries in an attempt to recreate East Asian economic successes.

However, we are now at a point where it may be possible to win a strong majority of these activists and intellectuals to an anti-capitalist perspective, a critical change if we are succeed in building the movement clarity and strength necessary to advance a socialist alternative. One reason is that the exploitative and contradictory nature of the East Asian growth strategy is becoming clearer. Ever more intense intra-regional competition has begun to undermine East Asia’s past social and economic gains and generate worker resistance. Perhaps even more dramatic, the region’s export-led growth strategy has finally run up against its own limits, as an ever deepening global economic crisis triggered by imbalances in the U.S. economy has thrown East Asian economies into their own downward economic spiral.

(click here to view entire article)

Another Left Turn In Venezuela

[The development of the Bolivarian Revolution, including using the institutional gains achieved to date to meet human needs and develop popular potentials via humane policies, as well as establishing further institutional gains, has encountered three major obstacles: residual capitalists, residual oligarchic government, and residual mainstream media.]

Another Left Turn In Venezuela

March 30th 2009, by Michael Albert - ZNet

On the top page of ZNet, in the box in the center column labeled Venezuela, for example, you will see some interviews, including one with Julio Chavez, Carlos Lanz, and Fernando Torrealba respectively, at the time of the interviews, Mayor of Carora in Venezuela, Venezuelan vice minister of Education and former activist within the economy, and Supreme Court Justice, again, in Venezuela. In addition, on the Audio page linked from the ZNet top page under the ZNet tab, you will see a link as well to a talk by myself and one by Noam Chomsky - both recorded at an event at MIT a week ago, where Julio Chavez spoke as well, but in Spanish, so that his talk isn't online as yet.I draw your attention to these pieces because of their special cumulative relevance to the discussion below.

The Bolivarian Revolution

The development of the Bolivarian Revolution, including using the institutional gains achieved to date to meet human needs and develop popular potentials via humane policies, as well as establishing further institutional gains, has encountered three major obstacles: residual capitalists, residual oligarchic government, and residual mainstream media.

Many people look at Venezuela as an established society of the future and ask, okay, what are its features, what are their benefits and costs, are they worthy, do they meet our most exalted desires? This is a mistake.

Revolutions take time to undertake gigantic transformations of attitudes, habits, and structures. Usually a revolution takes many years, or even decades, to increase popular commitment and raise popular consciousness, as well as win positive improvements - finally reaching a turning point where mass consciousness is sufficiently high, aroused desire is sufficiently high, and organized movements are as a result able to direct development thereafter not from a position of opposition, but due to being in possession of organized power.

(click here to view entire article)

Chávez Sweeps Away Budget Predictions of Venezuela's Opposition

[President Chávez outlined new economic policy for Venezuela, designed to protect the national economy from the effects of the global economic collapse. These new policies neutralise all the arguments and predictions of the opposition economists and their media.]

Chávez Sweeps Away Budget Predictions of Venezuela's Opposition

March 23th 2009, by Arturo Rosales - Axis of Logic

The so called "economic adjustment package" announced by President Chávez on Saturday was predicted by the opposition media to look something like this:

Devaluation of the local currency, the Bolivar by some 40%
A 400% increase in the price of gasoline
28% tax on the purchase of new vehicles
25% increase in gas and electricity prices
Freezing of the minimum wage
Cutting social programs
Reintroduction of the tax on all bank transactions
An increase of 10% in VAT (purchase tax) taking it up to 19%

In other words, the opposition predicted a traditional neoliberal package of measures designed to shore up government coffers and stop the country "falling off the cliff" at the expense of the public. Not surprisingly, the measures they predicted would have followed a capitalist model.

In Venezuela the word "package" harkens back to the 1989 economic package imposed by the then Pérez government on February 27th of that year which sparked countrywide riots and looting and almost overthrew the regime. Thousands were slaughtered in the streets as the Pérez government used fully armed troops to quell the rioting and protect the sacred cow of private property.

(click here to view entire article)

The Chávez Administration at 10 Years: The Economy and Social Indicators

[This paper looks at some of the most important economic and social indicators during the 10 years of the Chávez administration in Venezuela, as well as the current economic expansion. It also looks at the current situation and challenges.]

The Chávez Administration at 10 Years: The Economy and Social Indicators

February 5th 2009, by Mark Weisbrot, Rebecca Ray and Luis Sandoval - CEPR

For the full report in its original PDF format, click here (255kb).

Executive Summary
This paper looks at some of the most important economic and social indicators during the 10 years of the Chávez administration in Venezuela, as well as the current economic expansion. It also looks at the current situation and challenges.

Among the highlights:
The current economic expansion began when the government got control over the national oil company in the first quarter of 2003. Since then, real (inflationadjusted) GDP has nearly doubled, growing by 94.7 percent in 5.25 years, or 13.5 percent annually.

Most of this growth has been in the nonoil sector of the economy, and the private sector has grown faster than the public sector.

During the current economic expansion, the poverty rate has been cut by more than half, from 54 percent of households in the first half of 2003 to 26 percent at the end of 2008. Extreme poverty has fallen even more, by 72 percent. These poverty rates measure only cash income, and does take into account increased access to health care or education.

Over the entire decade, the percentage of households in poverty has been reduced by 39 percent, and extreme poverty by more than half.

Inequality, as measured by the Gini index, has also fallen substantially. The index has fallen to 41 in 2008, from 48.1 in 2003 and 47 in 1999. This represents a large reduction in inequality.

Real (inflationadjusted) social spending per person more than tripled from 1998-2006.

From 1998-2006, infant mortality has fallen by more than onethird. The number of primary care physicians in the public sector increased 12fold from 1999-2007, providing health care to millions of Venezuelans who previously did not have access.

There have been substantial gains in education, especially higher education, where gross enrollment rates more than doubled from 1999/2000 to 2007/2008.

The labor market also improved substantially over the last decade, with unemployment dropping from 11.3 percent to 7.8 percent. During the current expansion it has fallen by more than half. Other labor market indicators also show substantial gains.

Over the past decade, the number of social security beneficiaries has more than doubled.

Over the decade, the government's total public debt has fallen from 30.7 to 14.3 percent of GDP. The foreign public debt has fallen even more, from 25.6 to 9.8 percent of GDP.

Inflation is about where it was 10 years ago, ending the year at 31.4 percent. However it has been falling over the last half year (as measured by threemonth averages) and is likely to continue declining this year in the face of strong deflationary pressures worldwide.

The current situation and challenges:

(click here to view entire press release)

Venezuela's ALBA in the face of the Global Economic Crisis

[As neoliberalism reveals its fissures and weaknesses, ALBA may be gaining ideological legitimacy as an alternative for poorer Latin American states facing these failures of neoliberalism (past and present). The question remains, however, of how ALBA will gain institutional legitimacy in this economic storm.]

Venezuela's ALBA in the face of the Global Economic Crisis

December 29th 2009, by Jodie Neary - UpsideDownWorld

In response to the G20 Summit in Washington D.C. last month, Chavez established an equivalent, the ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas) Summit in Caracas, Venezuela on November 26th. This 6-member group consisting of Venezuela (2004), Cuba (2004), Bolivia (2006), Nicaragua (2007), Dominica (2008), and its most recent member Honduras (2008), represents an alternative vision to neoliberal economics, one with a socialist agenda in trade relations attempting to re-embed 'the social' back into economic and political relations in the region. This ad hoc meeting was a response to the discontent expressed by many Latin American nations to the lack of representation from poorer nations in the G20 summit. It was also an attempt to confirm the notion that neoliberalism is at its end, a remark expressed by Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega during the Summit, who called the crisis as the 'funeral of Capitalism', naming ALBA as 'an alternative model of development'.[1] As neoliberalism reveals its fissures and weaknesses, ALBA may be gaining ideological legitimacy as an alternative for poorer Latin American states facing these failures of neoliberalism (past and present). The question remains, however, of how ALBA will gain institutional legitimacy in this economic storm. In the context of a global financial crisis, ALBA's institutional consolidation will be even more vital.

(click here to view entire article)

Oil Prices and Venezuela's Economy

[This paper looks at Venezuela’s export revenue, imports, and trade and current account balances under a range of oil price outcomes for the next two years. It finds that Venezuela would run large current account surpluses for prices between $60-90 per barrel, and would even run a small surplus with prices at $50 per barrel. (Most oil industry estimates for the next two years are in the range of $80-90 per barrel). The authors conclude that Venezuela is unlikely to run into foreign exchange constraints in the foreseeable future, and can pursue expansionary fiscal policies to counter any economic downturn.]

Oil Prices and Venezuela's Economy

November 2008, by Mark Weisbrot and Rebecca Ray - CEPR

(click here to view entire report; click here to view entire report in Spanish)