[DEBATE] : [Fwd: Venezuela and South Africa: Redistributive Policies vs. Neo-liberal Economic Policies]

[glparramatta]

Venezuela and South Africa:
Redistributive Policies vs. Neo-liberal Economic Policies 
<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/scipes250906.html>
by Kim Scipes

Traveling to both Venezuela and South Africa this past summer, through 
my work as an academic sociologist, I was able to observe firsthand two 
radically different approaches to "third world" development: a 
"redistributive approach" in Venezuela, and a set of basically 
neo-liberal economic policies in South Africa.  Although this was not a 
consciously designed research project, the comparison begged for 
comment, as the differences were extremely obvious.

Venezuela

I was part of a group of North Americans who traveled to Venezuela in 
June to see with our own eyes what was going on in the country on a tour 
organized by the Marin Interfaith Task Force on the Americas (MITF) of 
Northern California.  I had read quite a bit beforehand -- I had helped 
expose the AFL-CIO's involvement in the April 2002 coup attempt against 
President Chavez (see my "AFL-CIO in Venezuela: Déjà vu All Over Again" 
<http://www.labornotes.org/archives/2004/04/articles/e.html> in the 
April 2004 issue of Labor Notes ) -- but this was an opportunity to go 
to see the country with my own eyes.  I was fortunate to go with MITF, 
as I don't speak Spanish, and our tour guide, Lisa Sullivan, had not 
only lived in Latin America for over 20 years, but also provided 
excellent translations, as other Spanish speakers on the tour readily 
confirmed.

In the 10 days we were in the country, we visited parts of Caracas (the 
capital), a mountainous area in the State of Lara (southwest of 
Caracas), and then the coastal area of Barlovento (northeast of 
Caracas), which is the center of the Afro-Venezuelan population.  
(Despite my many limitations, I wrote a more detailed report that 
provides a more extensive report of our tour, which is on-line at 
VHeadline.com <http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=62828>).

What we observed was that, by using part of the profits gained through 
their oil production, the government of Venezuela was making a 
significant improvement in the lives of the 80% of the population who 
are poor.  There has been a massive investment in health care provision, 
with over 8,000 clinics built recently in the barrios, both urban and 
rural; thus, people are able to access quality health care, 24 hours a 
day, in a nearby clinic, and at no cost.  Initially, these clinics were 
staffed by Cuban doctors who provided services and trained Venezuelans, 
but more and more Venezuelan health care workers now are providing 
services.  In addition, the Venezuelan government has been providing 
cataract surgery to those who need it, by flying them and their 
companions for free to Cuba for operations and high-quality care.  
However, we were told that Venezuelan doctors had now been sufficiently 
trained that the government was going to provide the surgery in 
Venezuela -- and even that they had offered free cataract surgery for 
100,000 people from the United States!

We also observed some of the massive educational effort taking place in 
the country, where illiteracy was eliminated in little over a year 
according to the United Nations, where students were excited about 
learning, and where pupils were no longer limited to at most three years 
of elementary school in rural regions; now, anyone who meets the 
academic qualifications can attend university.  It is not just young 
people who are taking advantage of the government's educational 
"Missions"; people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s were returning to school 
to get the education they were denied earlier in their lives.  In fact, 
we even met a 76-year-old woman who had just returned from getting one 
of her eyes repaired in Cuba, and she told us about her now being able 
to go to school to learn her letters and numbers!

The government has also massively expanded the system of cooperatives 
across the country: from around 7,000 cooperatives a few years ago to 
over 108,000 now.  The government told the land owners that they had to 
sell to the state the land on which they were not producing food, paying 
them market rates in exchange.  Land was provided to people, so they 
will have a means to economically support themselves, while working 
towards ending Venezuela's historic dependence on food imports.  And at 
perhaps the model co-op in the country, we were shown how they were 
shifting into organic farming.

In short -- and we got this wherever we talked with the poor -- the 
people had hope in their futures: they really felt that President Chavez 
and his administration were working to improve their lives.  We 
certainly saw the changes we had only heard about beforehand (and Ms. 
Sullivan told us that these processes were taking place across the country).

Let's be clear: Venezuela is not a paradise, as there are many 
problems.  It is a very unequal country, where approximately 80% of the 
population is poor.  It is a country that is very dependent on imports 
for its food supply.  It is recognizably over-dependent on oil.  And one 
of the women on the tour was told by a woman in one of the schools we 
visited that there were extensive problems of male violence against 
women, as well as abandonment, and the lack of legal support for the 
women, after the courts had overturned progressive legislation intended 
to address these issues.   But the point I want to emphasize is how the 
government is providing the services and the means for people to take 
more power over their lives; people -- and especially women in the 
barrios -- are taking advantage of the opportunities; and as they are 
improving their lives, hope and excitement about their futures is 
palpable.  It was exhilarating to see.

South Africa

Compared to Venezuela, South Africa was very disheartening.  I spent 
most of my three and a half weeks in the country in Johannesburg; 
although I did go to Soweto on a couple of brief tours and get to Durban 
for a few days, my travel was much more limited than in Venezuela.  
However, because I spoke the dominant language in South Africa, English, 
and an extensive range of high-quality books and articles about the 
country are available, I had many more in-depth and extensive 
conversations about what was going on in the country.

Through massive sacrifice and mobilization during the struggle for 
liberation, "ordinary" people (mostly black, but not all) had battled 
the South African state to a standstill: they couldn't overthrow the 
racially-based apartheid regime, but the regime could not control the 
insurgency.  Ultimately, both sides entered into negotiations:  various 
people's forces (including the African National Congress, the Pan 
African Congress, and the South African Communist Party) were unbanned; 
long-serving political prisoners such as Nelson Mandela were freed; 
political exiles were allowed to return; and, ultimately, elections were 
held in 1994, which elected Mandela and the ANC to lead the country.  
The system of apartheid was discarded, and it looks like the ANC will 
continue to control the government for the foreseeable future.

What I saw -- and remember, I only saw a tiny bit of the country -- 
surprised me.  There was much less racial tension than I had expected to 
find.  There was almost none among the political activists that I met.  
It was somewhat mind-boggling as an American white male to be hugged by 
blacks after they had been only told I was a "comrade," but it happened 
a couple of times.  And even when it didn't, it seemed to take almost no 
time at all to create bonds solid enough for deep and critical 
conversation about the current situation.  Among the general public, 
too, whether on the street or in a few malls that I ended up visiting, 
the level of overt racial tension was amazingly low (at least to my eye, 
though the blacks in the same situations might notice what I didn't.  
Nevertheless, while this was my first trip to South Africa, I have lived 
most of my adult life in multiracial, if not people of color-dominated, 
areas in the US, in both African-American and Latino communities, so I 
have some experience on which to make these observations.)  Needless to 
say, not a nirvana by any means, but the closest way to describe it is 
that it is similar to what I see daily in Chicago: blacks and whites 
don't generally mix in society, but when they do mix publicly, they do 
so with a minimum of obvious resentment or conflict, though blacks are 
much more likely to go into white areas than are whites to go in black 
areas.  And this, quite frankly, I did not expect.  So, qualitative 
political changes have been made from the past.

However, that leads me to the economic situation.  The negotiations 
between the apartheid regime and the liberation forces, which overthrew 
the political regime, left the economic regime untouched.  Key to the 
negotiations, for the whites, was that there be no effort to 
redistribute economic resources to the black, "colored," and Asian 
populations once the new government assumed power.  The white leaders 
claimed that the best way to overcome poverty was to not shackle them; 
they argued that, once the global economic boycott against South Africa 
was ended, they could lead the economy to such growth that poverty could 
be overcome and that economic opportunities would be available for all; 
i.e., they claimed the economy could "grow" its way out of the problem.  
Thus, no redistribution of economic resources should be considered, 
corporate power should be left intact, and taxes on white assets should 
not be raised.

The leadership of the ANC bought the argument.  Apparently, the fear was 
that if compromises were not made by both sides, the country would 
plunge into a civil war that would be terrible, whose burden would be 
borne mostly by blacks and other peoples of color, which should be 
avoided at all costs.  How valid the argument was is something that 
South Africans will have to settle over time, although I can appreciate 
being in a very difficult position can force people to take positions 
they would rather not take.

When the ANC got into power, it began to institute the RDP, the 
Reconstruction and Development Program, which had been advanced by its 
political allies, COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions -- the 
largely black, but non-racial labor movement), and the SACP (South 
African Communist Party).  They began to initiate at least some social 
programs.  There were a number of problems with the RDP, especially a 
lack of specificity, which allowed multiple interpretations and created 
conflict among proponents, but it was a serious effort to address the 
long-standing problems of the country that had developed out of white 
racial oppression.

Yet, by 1996, the RDP was history, replaced by a program called GEAR 
(Growth, Employment, and Redistribution).  This was a set of basically 
neo-liberal economic policies that aimed for economic growth by dropping 
tariff barriers and competing internationally in the global markets.  
This approach meant getting rid of workers and cutting labor costs and 
social programs.  It also meant privatization of public services, 
cutting even more jobs and weakening unions.  Sampie Terreblanche, in 
his acclaimed History of Inequality in South Africa, 1652-2002 -- 
arguably the most informed historical study to date on inequality in the 
country, written, interestingly, by an Afrikaaner -- described GEAR 
accordingly:

    … the strategy was aimed at providing the country with a
    comprehensive and  well-integrated macroeconomic framework.  GEAR'S
    point of departure is that higher levels of sustained economic
    growth requires a competitive, out-ward oriented economy.  Its
    immediate aim was to reassure potential -- especially foreign --
    investors that the government was committed to the neo-liberal
    orthodoxies of the 'Washington consensus'.  Decorated with all the
    trimmings of globalization, GEAR represents an almost desperate
    attempt to attract FDI" [foreign direct investment].

Terreblanche went on to remark that "[i]deologically, GEAR falls 
squarely within the supply-side/neo-classical paradigm," that it is 
"openly Thatcherite in content and tone," and that it "envisages a 
worldwide capitalist economic system in which market forces reign 
supreme, rewarding those countries that obey its imperatives and 
deservedly punishing those that do not."   Then, this professor of 
economics summed up the practical ramifications of such an approach: "By 
retreating into the fantasy world of economic textbooks, the compilers 
of . . . GEAR lost contact with the imperfect reality of and deep-seated 
inequalities in South Africa."

GEAR has not addressed the long-standing problems of the vast majority 
of the people of the country:  it has allowed a small group of blacks, 
along with white colleagues, to become incredibly wealthy, but for 
approximately 60% of the population, the economic situation has 
certainly not improved since apartheid and has gotten worse for many.  
(While in South Africa, I had recommended to me Ashwin Desai's 2002 book 
from Monthly Review Press, We Are the Poors:  Community Struggles in 
South Africa.)

The result of this is a rapidly increasing inequality among the people 
of South Africa.  As could be expected, crime -- at least in 
Johannesburg -- was rampant.  Everywhere I went, I saw houses of both 
the rich and the rest surrounded with high walls, topped with spikes or 
glass shards, and equipped with alarm systems -- my favorite was a house 
that had "Mi Casa Su Casa" (my house is your house) on an outside wall, 
with an "Armed Response" sign right next to it! -- and then they still 
required visitors to pass through two or three metal gates to get inside 
a house.

Some people also have anti-hijack devices on their cars.  That way, 
should certain processes not be followed correctly after starting the 
car, the car will "freeze up" and not move.  There is no sense of 
security on the streets of Johannesburg.  A personal friend of mine had 
been hijacked prior to my arrival, and another person I met while there 
had his house entered into the night before.

The most interesting thing about the neo-liberal economic policies of 
the ANC government is that COSATU, their key Alliance partner, still 
generally accepts them.  Yes, COSATU has had demonstrations against 
these policies, and one person told me that COSATU had made over 230 
interventions at the legislative level against them.  The government has 
responded in certain limited ways to the protests, so one cannot 
accurately describe the government's neo-liberal policies as "classic" 
-- rather, they are neo-liberal with a few efforts to reduce their 
harshest impacts.  Nonetheless, the reality is that COSATU has not 
launched a determined campaign against them.

There are clearly forces within COSATU and labor-supportive academics 
that are challenging this acquiescence.  I met a number of people who 
were thinking/acting against them from within labor.  One interesting 
development: I was one of three speakers for an opening night "public 
debate" that preceded the first international labor history conference 
in the country since 1994, and it turned out that all three of us (with 
no discussion among us beforehand) challenged continued acceptance of 
neo-liberal economic policies!  (I spoke about the experiences of 
workers in the Philippines -- see my "Global Economic Crisis, Neoliberal 
Solutions, and the Philippines," 
<http://www.monthlyreview.org/1299scip.htm> Monthly Review 51.7, 
December 1999: 1-14 -- and in the United States, a piece I'm currently 
working on.)

The long and short of it, though, is that neo-liberal economic policies 
have been a disaster for the large majority of people -- both black and 
white -- in South Africa.  And, they offer no realistic way forward: a 
country simply cannot grow its way out of 350 years of racist 
colonialism and neo-colonialism!

Conclusion

The trips to both Venezuela and South Africa gave me a perspective I 
would never have gotten by visiting only one of them: I can compare two 
countries taking two radically different approaches to their social 
development -- Venezuela trying to redistribute social services and 
opportunities, and South Africa trying to hold on to the failed economic 
policies of the past, in efforts that benefit the small elite of both 
whites and blacks but come at the direct expense of 60% or more of the 
population of all racial groupings.  In Venezuela, I saw hope among the 
poor; in South Africa, dejection and dissatisfaction.

The choice in the way forward seems obvious: we've got to reject 
neo-liberalism in all its forms, wherever it raises its ugly head.

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Kim <http://www.monthlyreview.org/0505scipes.htm> Scipes 
<http://www.monthlyreview.org/1299scip.htm> is a member of the National 
Writers Union and a long-time global labor activist in the US. He 
currently teaches sociology at Purdue University North Central in 
Westville, Indiana. His on-line bibliography on "Contemporary Labor 
Issues" can be accessed at http://faculty.pnc.edu/kscipes/LaborBib.htm. 
He can be contacted at < kscipes at pnc.edu <mailto:kscipes at pnc.edu>>.
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URL: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/scipes250906.html