Re: [DEBATE] : Chávez's U-turn on Socialism

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

On Jan 11, 2008 12:02 AM, Dominic Tweedie <dominic.tweedie at gmail.com> wrote:
> The general problem is how to maintain hegemony within the sphere of the
> bourgeois state while permitting and encouraging the flourishing of multiple
> and diverse organs of popular power.
>
> The alternative and apparently (to apparatchiks) safer route is to invest in
> a mass social-democratic "social contract" that ties all forces into one
> monolithic so-called "socialist" apparatus. This is what Zwelinzima Vavi has
> advocated for South Africa in terms of a "political centre" governed by an
> "Alliance Pact".
>
> It is also what Hugo and the Chavs have proposed for Venezuela, but are
> struggling to construct, mainly because the masses have seen what is being
> proposed, and don't want it.
>
> The monolithic state socialist route is not safe and has never succeeded.
> Often its failure has been catastrophic, and in all cases tragic.
>
> What do you think about this, Yoshie? Why don't you step out of your stream
> of articles for once and offer a view of your own?

I'm still trying to see the situation from all angles.  Last year,
there was a lurch in one direction (that you describe), and this year
there is a lurch in another direction, among the Venezuelan
leadership.  At this point, I'd worry more about a possibility that
the leadership will eventually adopt orthodox prescriptions to try to
cure the problems of inflation, shortages, and so on, losing the
support of their popular bases, than the possibility of repeating the
errors of state socialism past and present.
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>