From the latest NYT article, courtesy of Simon Romero:
“One significant measure is foreign investment, which has hit record levels in several other Latin American countries but has fallen in Venezuela.”
In the mindset of the capitalist counterrevolutionary, there can be no better indicator of a successful nation than High Foreign Investment. Even if the economy is growing, domestic productivity is growing, unemployment and poverty are falling, it’s hardly relevant. The simple fact is that there are less multinationals eyeing a fast buck to be made in Venezuela.
Of course, a multinational might decide to invest elsewhere to make a political point. More likely is that they intend on carrying out exploitative or environmentally-destructive practices that are no longer acceptable in modern Venezuela. It might be because the “revolutionary” tax agency no longer permits you to get away with not paying taxes. Ask a member of the opposition, and they’ll tell you it’s because Venezuela is scaring them away with nationalizations and a “deteriorating business climate”.
Well, with nationalizations and buy-outs, Chavez is known to pay the market price. And as long as you operate in the national interest, you won’t be “picked on”. Of course, strategic industries are generally of such importance to the construction efforts taking place around the country, not to mention the development and security of the revolutionary project, that a private company looking after its own interests (and who knows whose else’s?) is simply out of the question.
It’s easy to reason that cement companies should not be shipping their product out of the country for higher prices while it is needed for domestic projects. Or that the nationalized telecoms company has lowered prices and expanded coverage to “unprofitable” areas. Or when the big dairy firm was producing yoghurt in a time of milk shortage. Put simply, private companies seek their own self-interest, which occasionally coincides with public demand, except when it doesn’t.
As long-time rural escualido Daniel comments:
“The latest opus of NYT’s Simon Romero could just be another run of the mill set of observations of all that is wrong in Chavez’s Venezuela… However what makes this article worth noting is that it writes straight that all in Venezuela is about Chavez amassing more power.”
Yes, that is the other point. Nationalizations = More Power For Chavez. Whether or not he prioritises the public interest is hardly relevant. If a course of action will improve the country, but it happens to confer more power upon the president, that’s a tough decision to make. Or at least it would be if you thought there was even a chance a nationalization could benefit the country. It’s difficult to say whether the opposition are in favour of a nationalized oil industry, but they seem to have opposed the principle in every other instance.
The point about Chavez amassing power is subject to deeper questions, such as: Is it really power for power’s sake? Evidence suggests not. Could any leader revolutionise society without it? Of course not. Are the people gaining power in all conceivable areas – is the revolution for real? With an explosion in community media and worker-owned cooperatives, a new United Socialist Party with over 5 million members in a country of 26 million, a massive increase in political consciousness among the poor, and repeated encouragements to grasp power, any realistic person can see Chavez’s increased power has not been at the expense of anybody; to the contrary, he has used it to expand grassroots power.
Since the Chavez government started handing out microloans to cooperatives and street traders and women, certain private banks have followed suit. In other words, it simply wasn’t profitable until…they realised it was. Was it really that the banks could not identify such a large market? Or that the revolution, through raising general prosperity for the least privileged, has created the market?
On goes Daniel:
“Whatever Chavez is doing he is not attracting real business investors, the real ones, those that do create real jobs. The only investors Chavez attracts are folks that want to have a colonial type access to raw materials, such as China Cuba and Iran.”
Here, the point of decreasing unemployment does not enter the thought process. Government jobs are not real jobs, I think he’s trying to say. Western foreign investment means real jobs, but Chinese or Iranian foreign investment does not. How can it be that modern Venezuela is fighting US imperialism but welcoming Chinese “colonialism”? Firstly, China appears to operate on a basis of soft influence in many countries, mainly based on investment. Sure, it’s to get energy first and foremost.
All Chinese oil companies pay the same high rates of tax and royalties as everyone else. Cooperation in building factories is as mutual in Venezuela as it is in China, where three refineries are being built to process Venezuelan oil. The rising multipolar world order is concerned with securing sovereign power, repelling US influence, and building mutually-beneficial international relations. Aside from China, most are self-sufficient in energy terms.
Daniel continues:
“See, even Mr. Weisbrot knows very well what the truth is: Chavez need to control EVERYTHING and he needs desperately new patronage systems to shore up his popularity, such as doubling or trebling the payroll of the newly nationalized industries, and the hell with notions of competence and competitiveness.”
This is another requirement: that the opposition search long and hard for evidence of failure and corruption in the newly-nationalized industries. We’ve had scant evidence so far, but expect no stone to go unturned in the future. As you can see, all benefits and improvements will be summarily ignored.
“Evidence suggests not.”
Oh please. Pritor to the last referendum Chvaez said literally any vote against the referendum is a vote against him. He lost. Consequently he would have had to step down. He did not. I.o.W. he lied.
“Could any leader revolutionise society without it?”
Castro, Stalin, Kim in norther Korea ….. enough examples ?
“With an explosion in community media and worker-owned cooperatives, a new United Socialist Party with over 5 million members in a country of 26 million, a massive increase in political consciousness among the poor, and repeated encouragements to grasp power, any realistic person can see Chavez’s increased power has not been at the expense of anybody; to the contrary,”
Oh PLEASE !!! The same happened in the former COMECON. Everybody was part of the communist or socialist parties…. Do you know what happened to the parties when the yoke was thrown off ? The vanished into the trash bin of history. With the Tascon list, the maisanta software
You have truly no idea what you talk about.
“In the mindset of the capitalist counterrevolutionary, there can be no better indicator of a successful nation than High Foreign Investment.”
Carlos, why don’t you quote what comes just a few words later ?
I will do it for you:
“Not to mention that now many studies rank Venezuela close to last, if not last, in parameters such as transparency and climate for business. ”
Do you hear that ? ranks last in transparency. I.o.W. it is the beginning of a situation as in Cuba where your socialist oligarchs live in comparative luxury when the people starve.
It is a pity that you and your ideology was not tried in 1989 – after the collapse of the COMECON – likefascism was tried in 1945 in Nuremberg.
What I was trying to say, tom, was that if a country is deemed to have a bad “climate for business”, many people might infer that a shift in priorities has taken place:
PEOPLE > PROFIT comes to mind.
To give just one example, I suppose those big fishing trawlers, who previously were able to go close to shore and ruined the livelihood of many a small fisherboat, are claiming a “bad climate”.
Carlos, you are trying to say that Chavez is not amassing power.
Let me quote Chavez, not literally but accurately. In a speech to justify the paradox move to restrict the possibility to reelect governors and to drop exact this restriction for himself Chavez said, that prolonged power corrupts, but he needs this time (i.e. being in office till 2020 something) to realize his (sic !) revolution. Just like Castro, Stalin and Kim il Sung. His revolution. If that is not a sure sign he stays in power just for being in power, then what is ?
I guess that you stay quite often in Cuba. I hope that during your next stay you will be taken to jail – mistakenly as a crtic of the regime. Just for a few days and without harm for you, but then you will probably meet the true face of your ideology. I just say one thing: 10.000 dead Cubans. Victims of Castro.
I notice my last comment was too devastating for you.
If you like to talk about Cuba, why not enlighten us as to your experience there?
Carlso, no smokescreen. wha con’t you comment on for instance Chavez’ failure to step down after he tied his political fate to the referendum ? I will tell you wha. Because you are neither human rights abiding nor a democrat.
It must be tough for you to deal with the fact that Chavistas did not vote against the reforms, they only abstained.
So you haven’t been to Cuba?
Carlos- the abstained because lots of them didn’t support it. The reform lost.
Tom- Chavez never said the reform was a referendum on him or that he’d resign if it lost. What he did was try to make the case that if you supported him, you ought to support the referendum. He put this in pretty strong terms (traitors, etc.) His supporters did not agree and corrected him on this. About a third of them simply didn’t vote for it.
It’s also a bit silly to compare Venezuela now to Stalin’s Russia. That’s a bit like comparing McCain or alan garcia to Hitler because they are right of center.
But, Carlos, that doesn’t mean there aren’t problems, and big ones, and that certain government businesses have been mismanaged. The question is if it’s worth it.
Yeah Vince, it was as a result of Chavez’s “vote against it, vote against me” that Chavistas could not bring themselves to vote No.
Vincent Chavez *said* every vote against the reform is a vote against him. He made it crystal clear.
http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2007-11/2007-11-30-voa71.cfm?CFID=299371765&CFTOKEN=41645238
A true democrat would have stepped down after that statement and after he lost. However, Chavistas have (and always had) a severe problem with real democracy.
Carlos, your desperate attempt to “explain” the undemocratic behaviour with abstention tells volumes. Chavez made crystal clear that this reform is a vote for or against him. The Venezuelan people voted against him. Ergo: As a true democrat he would have stepped down. He did not because his entire ideology is neither compatible with human rights, nor compatible with democracy – for your ideology goes the same, otherwise you would not adore countries like Cuba and dictators like Castro.
As for my experience with socialist countries: Parts of my family lived 40 years in such a system – and they where not part of the party oligarchy or associated as you apparently are.
Sorry tommo, if you want Chavez to leave office before his term’s over, you’ll have to vote him out in a recall referendum. It’s a good thing the democracy in venezuela allows that, or you might be resigned to another 5 years of him.
Every man and his dog now knows your family lived in a socialist country. What would be more interesting is your direct experience – say, in Cuba, which you must have visited.
Carlos, I do not think that my cuban friends would be happy about me telling you about their sufferings. Or would you tell a Pinochetista about the chilenean opposition ? Just that much: Castros claim that there is no torture in Cuba or political prosecution is a lie. Fidel managed what Tito could in the 70ties. Appearing as nice elderly statesman whil being responsible for a major democide.
Your sentence the only way to remove Chavez is by recall referendum tells volumes. In the US a president acting like Chavez would be impeached and end up in jail. This is the difference between a caudillo state and a – well – more democratic country.
Here’s an interesting experiment: Tell us briefly what Chavez has done to deserve a theoretical impeachment, and also what, if anything, you believe Bush has done in the US to deserve it.
Carlos, Venezuelan Support for the FARC is practically the same as US support for the Contras in Nicaragua.
Chavez knew and initiated a plan to overthrow a democratically elected government by supporting the FARC. NOT ONE SINGLE responsible is charged, they are celebrated as heroes.
After the Iran Contra Affair blew up the ones responsible *where* charged, sentenced and the US president only narrowly escaped an impeachment, only because he could convince people that he did neither know nor approve that plan.
This is the difference between a socialist caudillo state and a more democratic country.
Let me tell you one experience. A very good friend of mine is Colombian. Part of their family was active for Ninos por la Paz. They did some action the FARC did not like. One relative was captured and shot as a warning. At the time of his death he was 8 years old. And you, Carlos, by supporting these thugs – are coresponsible for that.
Last I heard, FARC militarism has been dropping off and the new gameplan is rather more political (releasing hostages, embarassing Uribe).
Have you even been following the news?
Do you read news ? Colombian military finished the FARC off, that’s it.
Tom – you must live in a fantasy world. Instead of harping on about the FARC just take time out to realize that the Uribe government is up to its neck in supporting and financing the paramilitaries. “Only 60 senators and congressmen – almost all from uribe’s party – are eitehr in custody or being investigated. Colombia sponsors state terrorism. Look at the Patriotic Union in the late 1980’s – 6000 liquidated by the paras. So far this year “only” 23 trade unionists have been asassinated in Colombia.
Please give us details of Chavez’s plan to overthrow the Colombian government by cooperating with the FARC.
Sorry to say this Tom but you appear to be a classic victim of escualido disociacion syndrome very widespread in the Venezuelan opposition.