[DEBATE] : (Fwd) Michael Lebowitz: Bolivarian social economy under construction

[Patrick Bond]

(If anyone's interested in liaising with Michael on this, please go for 
it, as he's contemplating some Southern Africa connections for early 
next year.)

Going Beyond Survival: Making the Social Economy a Real Alternative

(For presentation at the IVth International Meeting of the Solidary 
Economy at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil 21-23 July 2006)

Michael A. Lebowitz
Canada
mlebowit at sfu.ca

The rations of slaves were never fixed. And so, too, it has always been 
possible within capitalism for workers and citizens, through their 
struggles, to secure themselves some share of the benefits of social 
labour. Capitalist globalisation and the offensive of neoliberal state 
policies, however, encroached upon all those gains from past struggles; 
and the answer to those who were surprised to find those victories 
ephemeral was the mantra of TINA--- that ‘there is no alternative’. Yet, 
as the devastation of the capitalist offensive has become obvious, 
opposition has emerged especially in Latin America. Working people 
around the world look here these days for the demonstration that ‘a 
better world is possible.’
But, are they right to look here? Is a real alternative emerging here or 
is it merely a negotiation of better terms in the implicit contract with 
capitalist globalisation? Is it possible for a new social economy or 
solidary economy to develop within the nooks and crannies of global 
capitalism or are those islands of cooperation nurtured by states, NGO’s 
and church charities merely positive ‘shock absorbers’ for the economic 
and political effects of capitalist globalisation?
I propose that in the five Latin American countries where opposition to 
neoliberal state policies has produced recent important governmental 
changes, there is only one case at present where the changes occurring 
can make the social economy a real alternative to capitalism. Let me 
indicate my premises and my reasoning.
Firstly, what constitutes a real alternative to capitalism? I suggest 
that it is a society in which the explicit goal is not the growth of 
capital or of the material means of production but, rather, human 
development itself--- the growth of human capacities. We can see this 
perspective embodied in the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela--- in 
Article 299’s emphasis upon ‘ensuring overall human development’, in the 
declaration of Article 20 that ‘everyone has the right to the free 
development of his or her own personality’ and in the focus of Article 
102 upon ‘developing the creative potential of every human being and the 
full exercise of his or her personality in a democratic society.’
In these passages (which are by no means the whole of that 
constitution), there is the conception of a real alternative--- a social 
economy whose logic is not the logic of capital. ‘The social economy,’ 
President Hugo Chavez said in September 2003, ‘bases its logic on the 
human being, on work, that is to say, on the worker and the worker’s 
family, that is to say, in the human being.’ That social economy, he 
continued, does not focus on economic gain, on exchange values; rather, 
‘the social economy generates mainly use-value.’ Its purpose is ‘the 
construction of the new man, of the new woman, of the new society.’
Beautiful ideas. Beautiful words. But, of course, only ideas and words. 
The first set comes from a constitution and the second, from the regular 
national educational seminar known as ‘Alo Presidente’. How can such 
ideas and words be made real? I want to propose four preconditions for 
the realisation of this alternative to capitalism and then want to talk 
about what has occurred in Venezuela.

(1) Any discussion of structural change must begin from an understanding 
of the existing structure--- in short, from an understanding of 
capitalism. We need to grasp that the logic of capital, the logic in 
which profit rather than satisfaction of the needs of human beings is 
the goal, dominates both where it fosters the comparative advantage of 
repression and also where it accepts an increase in slave rations.
(2) It is essential to attack the logic of capital ideologically. In the 
absence of the development of a mass understanding of the nature of 
capital--- that capital is the result of the social labour of the 
collective worker, the need to survive the ravages of neoliberal and 
repressive policies produces only the desire for a fairer society, the 
search for a better share for the exploited and excluded--- in short, 
barbarism with a human face.
(3) A critical aspect in this battle of ideas is the recognition that 
human capacity develops only through human activity, only through what 
Marx understood as ‘revolutionary practice,’ the simultaneous changing 
of circumstances and self-change. Real human development does not drop 
from the sky in the form of money to support survival or the 
expenditures of popular governments upon education and health; nor is it 
fostered by the petty tutelage and hierarchical decision-making of 
statist societies. The conception which challenges the logic of capital 
is one which explicitly recognises the centrality of self-management in 
the workplace and self-government in the community as the means of 
unleashing human potential--- i.e., the conception of a social economy, 
a solidary economy, indeed, of socialism for the 21st century.
(4) But, the idea of this solidary economy cannot displace real 
capitalism. Nor can dwarfish islands of cooperation change the world by 
competing successfully against capitalist corporations. You need the 
power to foster the new productive relations while truncating the 
reproduction of capitalist productive relations. You need to take the 
power of the state away from capital, and, you need to use that power 
when capital responds to encroachments--- when capital goes on strike, 
you must be prepared to move in rather than give in. Winning ‘the battle 
of democracy’ and using ‘political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all 
capital from the bourgeoisie’ remains as critical now as when Marx and 
Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto.

Are these conditions present in the new Latin American governments on 
the Left? On the contrary. For the most part, the pattern displays the 
familiar characteristics of social democracy--- which does not 
understand the nature of capital, does not attack the logic of capital 
ideologically, does not believe that there is a real alternative to 
capitalism and, accordingly, gives in when capital threatens to go on 
strike. (This is a perspective crystallized in the statement of the 
social democratic Premier of British Columbia in Canada at a time when I 
was Party Policy chairman--- ‘We can’t kill the goose that lays the 
golden eggs.’) While it is too soon at this point to judge the course of 
developments in Bolivia, let me suggest that something different has 
been happening in Venezuela. I want to turn to that now--- both what has 
happened and the current struggles.

The Venezuelan Path

The Bolivarian Constitution does not only stress the goal of human 
development. It also is unequivocal in indicating that human beings 
develop their capacity only through their own activity. Not only does 
Article 62 declare that participation by people is ‘the necessary way of 
achieving the involvement to ensure their complete development, both 
individual and collective,’ but that Constitution specifically focuses 
upon democratic planning and participatory budgeting at all levels of 
society and (as in Article 70) upon ‘self-management, co-management, 
cooperatives in all forms’ as examples of ‘forms of association guided 
by the values of mutual cooperation and solidarity.’
With its emphasis upon a ‘democratic, participatory and protagonistic’ 
society, the Bolivarian Constitution definitely contains the seeds of 
the solidary economy, the seeds of socialism for the 21st Century; and, 
those particular elements continue to inspire the Venezuelan masses. 
Yet, that constitution also guarantees the right of property (Article 
115), identifies a role for private initiative in generating growth and 
employment (299) and calls upon the State to promote private initiative 
(112). That constitution, in short, supports continued capitalist 
development, and this was precisely the direction of the initial plan 
developed for 2001-7. While rejecting neoliberalism and stressing the 
importance of the State presence in strategic industries, the focus of 
that plan was to encourage investment by private capital--- both 
domestic and foreign--- by creating an ‘atmosphere of trust’.
To this was to be added the development of a ‘social economy’--- 
conceived as an ‘alternative and complementary road’ to the private 
sector and the public sector. But, it is significant how little a role 
was conceived for the self-managing and cooperative activities by which 
the ‘complete development, both individual and collective’ of people was 
to be achieved. Essentially, this was a programme to incorporate the 
informal sector into the social economy; it is necessary, the Plan 
argued, ‘to transform the informal workers into small managers.’ 
Accordingly, family, cooperative and self-managed micro-enterprises were 
to be encouraged through training and micro-financing (from institutions 
such as the Women’s Development Bank) and by reducing regulations and 
tax burdens. The goal of the State was explicitly described as one of 
‘creating an emergent managerial class.’
Class struggle, however, nurtured the seeds of that social economy so 
that it increasingly was seen as the alternative to capitalist 
development. Even though the initial measures of the government to allow 
it to pursue its ‘Third Way’ orientation were not an attack on 
capitalism as such, the response of Venezuela’s pampered oligarchy 
(supported fully by US imperialism) --- first through its coup of April 
2002 and then through the bosses’ lock-out of the winter of 2002-3--- 
mobilised the masses in workplaces and communities and drove the 
Bolivarian Revolution along a path moving away from capitalism.
As government revenues revived in the latter part of 2003 (with the 
effective re-nationalisation of PDVSA, the state oil company), new 
missions in health and education began to demonstrate the real 
commitment of the Bolivarian government to wipe out the enormous social 
debt it had inherited. Mission Mercal, building upon the experience of 
government distribution of food during the general lockout, began in 
early 2004 to provide significantly subsidized food to the poor (and 
continues to expand at the expense of the capitalist sector). Yet, the 
question remained--- how were people to survive? How could the growing 
confidence and sense of dignity felt by the exploited and excluded as 
they emerged from the education programs be nurtured rather than 
disappointed?
The answer in part was the creation in March 2004 of Mission Vuelvan 
Caras (Turn your Faces), a programme for radical endogenous development 
oriented to building new human capacities both by teaching specific 
skills and also preparing people to enter into new productive relations 
through courses in cooperation and self-management. And, the context in 
which this was occurring was one in which President Chavez was directly 
attacking what he called the ‘perverse logic’ of capital and stressing 
the alternative--- that social economy whose purpose is ‘the 
construction of the new man, of the new woman, of the new society.’
While productive activity under these new relations has been expanding 
(with the number of cooperatives increasing from under 800 when Chávez 
was first elected in 1998 to almost 84,000 by August 2005), though, how 
much of an alternative to capitalism can this provide? The new 
cooperatives fostered and nurtured through Vuelvan Caras are destined to 
be small and not likely (certainly at their outset) to be major sources 
of accumulation and growth. Nevertheless, in their emphasis upon 
replacing the system of wage-labour with one based upon cooperation and 
collective property, they are a microcosm of an alternative to the logic 
of capital; and, since the general lock-out, they have been complemented 
by a drive for self-management and co-management on the part of workers 
both in state industries and also in closed factories.
In the last year, solidarity rather than self-interest has become a 
major theme in discussions of the social economy (now renamed socialism 
for the 21st century). Drawing upon Istvan Meszaros’s discussion (in his 
Beyond Capital) of Marx’s conception of the communal society, President 
Chavez a year ago called for the creation of a new communal system of 
production and consumption--- one in which there is an exchange of 
activities determined by communal needs and communal purposes. We have 
to build, he announced in his July 17 ‘Alo Presidente’ programme, ‘this 
communal system of production and consumption, to help to create it, 
from the popular bases, with the participation of the communities, 
through the community organizations, the cooperatives, self-management 
and different ways to create this system.’
At the heart of this conception is protagonistic democracy--- the 
combination of democratic development of goals at the community level 
and democratic execution of those goals in productive activity. New 
communal councils (based upon 200-400 families in existing urban 
neighbourhoods and 20-50 in the rural areas) are a critical part of this 
process. These institutions are now being established to democratically 
diagnose community needs and priorities. With the shift of substantial 
resources from municipal levels to the community level, the support of 
new communal banks for local projects and a size which permits the 
general assembly rather than elected representatives to be the supreme 
decision-making body, the new communal councils provide a basis not only 
for the transformation of people in the course of changing circumstances 
but also for productive activity which really is based upon communal 
needs and communal purposes.
On the side of production, there is a substantial expansion of new state 
companies, the introduction of co-management in basic industry beginning 
in the state aluminum firm ALCASA and the creation of a new 
institution--- the Empresas de Produccion Social (EPS). The concept of 
these new companies of social production is that they both make a 
commitment to serving community needs and also incorporate worker 
management. Drawn from a number of sources--- existing cooperatives (now 
committing themselves to the community rather than only collective 
self-interest), smaller state enterprises and private firms anxious to 
obtain access to state business and favourable credit terms), the logic 
of the EPS is to reorient productive activity away from exchange value 
to use-value--- by linking to the community and to the state sector as 
part of production chains as suppliers and processors. The goal, in 
short, is to move progressively away from the separation of the 
collective worker inherent in commodity production to a concept of 
solidarity within the society.
When you look at this picture, you understand better Chavez’s statement 
at the 2005 World Social Forum in Porto Alegre about the need to 
‘re-invent socialism,’ the need to develop new systems that are ‘built 
on cooperation, not competition.’ Capitalism, he stressed, has to be 
transcended if we are ever going to end the poverty of the majority of 
the world. ‘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.’

Which way Venezuela?

It should be apparent from the premises with which we began that only in 
Venezuela is there at this time a real challenge to capitalism (as 
opposed to fostering survival strategies and negotiating new terms in 
the implicit contract with capital). But, is Venezuela succeeding? 
Certainly, there is an attempt to understand the logic of capital, the 
effort to attack capitalism ideologically in a battle of ideas and 
development of the conception of an alternative to capitalism. But, what 
about the actual creation of that alternative?
In Build it Now: Socialism for the 21st Century, a book which will be 
published next month, I wrote the following about the Bolivarian Revolution:

The economic revolution, in short, has begun in Venezuela but the 
political revolution (which began dramatically with the new constitution 
but requires the transformation of the state into one in which power 
comes from below) and the cultural revolution (which calls for a serious 
assault on the continuing patterns of corruption and clientalism) lag 
well behind. Without advances in these two other sides, the Bolivarian 
Revolution cannot help but be deformed.

While the Bolivarian Revolution has definitely succeeded in providing 
enormous hope and dignity for the poor, it faces many problems and its 
success will only occur as the result of struggle. Not only a struggle 
against US imperialism, the champion of barbarism around the world, 
which is threatened by any suggestion that there is an alternative to 
its rule. And, not only against the domestic oligarchy with its 
capitalist enclaves in the mass media, banks, processing sectors and the 
latifundia. Those are struggles for which the Revolution must be 
prepared and for which solidarity with that revolution is essential. 
But, the really difficult struggle, I suggest, is within the Bolivarian 
Revolution itself.
Many problems have their origin in one question: who are the subjects of 
this revolution? It is clear who have been the principal 
beneficiaries--- the poor (and especially women) and, thus, its most 
passionate supporters. Yet, the further development of the revolution 
requires that not only the needs of people but also their transformative 
activity drive the revolutionary process.
In this respect, the creation of the communal councils is an absolutely 
critical step in this process because it creates the space for the 
self-development of revolutionary subjects. At the same time, however, 
worker management in what are called ‘strategic’ state industries has 
moved backward, and these reversals have demoralised revolutionary 
workers; confining them to the adversarial role that they play in 
capitalism, it reinforces all the self-oriented tendencies of the old 
society. Without democratic, participatory and protagonistic production, 
people remain the fragmented, crippled human beings that capitalism 
produces. Further, if state firms remain characterised by hierarchical 
decision-making, how long before producers in the companies of social 
production (EPS) articulated in production chains with them discover 
that they are themselves little more than associations of collective 
wage-labourers? Where, then, is the social economy as an alternative to 
capitalism?
There are, in short, significant contradictions within the Bolivarian 
Revolution at this time. For some Chavists who want Chavez without 
socialism, the process has gone far enough. To the extent, then, that 
there is resistance to decision-making from below (whether in workplaces 
or communities), the self-development of people will advance only 
through struggle. But, there is at this point no means of coordinating 
among organised workers, cooperative members, informal sector workers, 
peasants and professionals who are prepared to fight for protagonistic 
democracy in the workplace and in the community; there is no united 
force from below demanding transparency and prepared to fight against 
corruption and the deformation of the Revolution.
To carry the Bolivarian Revolution forward and to demonstrate the 
possibility for that ‘new type of socialism, a humanist one, which puts 
humans and not machines or the state ahead of everything,’ it is 
essential to create institutions that foster the development and 
coordination of revolutionary subjects--- people who transform 
themselves in the course of struggling for a better world. As Hugo 
Chávez wrote from prison in 1993, ‘the sovereign people must transform 
itself into the object and the subject of power. This option is not 
negotiable for revolutionaries.’


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