Evo Morales forced to leave town after protests over food

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12427057


Bolivian President Evo Morales flees food price protest

Mr Morales is facing rising discontent over food shortages
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Bolivian President Evo Morales has abandoned a public event in the face of an angry protests over food shortages and price rises.

Mr Morales was due to address a parade to commemorate a colonial-era uprising in the mining city of Oruro.

But he and his team left the city to avoid a violent demonstration by miners throwing dynamite.

There have also been protests in other Bolivian cities over the shortage of sugar and other basic foodstuffs.

Mr Morales cut short his visit and returned to La Paz after protesters set off explosions close to where he was preparing to give a speech in Oruro, the capital of his home province in western Bolivia.

"The government took the decision not to respond to shameful provocations of this kind," presidential spokesman Ivan Canelas said.

Wave of protest
Setting off dynamite is a common feature of trade union protests in Bolivia, where the explosive is widely available to miners, but injuries are rare.

In the eastern city of Santa Cruz - an opposition stronghold - protesters blocked the road to the airport to demand the government scrap an agency set up to promote food production.

The protesters say the agency - known as Emapa - is inefficient and discourages private commerce.

Smaller protests were also staged in La Paz and the central city of Cochabamba, although marches were called off because of bad weather.

President Morales is facing a wave of protest over rising food and transport costs and a shortage of sugar.

The left-wing leader's popularity has fallen sharply since the beginning of the year, when he abandoned plans to cut fuel subsidies in the face of popular protests.

Some of the protests have been led by social movements that supported Mr Morales as he rose from being a radical peasant leader to win election as Bolivia's first indigenous president in 2005.

Looks like issues with his working class base for morales. Problem is, i dont know if there's an economically viable way for him to push down food prices. Are they expecting too much or did he send their expectations too high?

[Nolan]

The failure of social democratic populism to change anything is becoming more and more apparent in Bolivia.

We'll see if this gets bigger.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The failure of social democratic populism to change anything is becoming more and more apparent in Bolivia.

We'll see if this gets bigger.

I don't know if it is viable, considering the poor education and infrastructure, and the relative lack of foreign currency, to push things much harder than morales has done. It's a lot harder for a tiny, poor country like bolivia to turn into some kind of socialist utopia overnight.

[Dimentio]

I don't know if it is viable, considering the poor education and infrastructure, and the relative lack of foreign currency, to push things much harder than morales has done. It's a lot harder for a tiny, poor country like bolivia to turn into some kind of socialist utopia overnight.

Often on these forums, we get the impression that only if a non-revisionist Marxist-Leninist party would get into power, everything will be amazing.

[Nolan]

Often on these forums, we get the impression that only if a non-revisionist Marxist-Leninist party would get into power, everything will be amazing.

That's because you're not a Marxist Leninist.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I don't know if a country with the poverty level and poor infrastructure of Bolivia (which is also reliant on foreign expertise and international trade for hard currency to compensate for its own economic shortcomings) can institute an efficient state-run system overnight. There simply aren't enough educated people or enough domestically owned productive technology ... Aymara and Quechua peasants without a college education may be clever and intelligent people, but they simply lack the skill base and knowledge to build the industrial base required to maintain and produce the services (and we expect them to build a factory for lithium batteries all on their own?) Private capital, for its evils and faults, usually have access to more technologically advanced capital, scientific data, and engineers with a better understanding of the sciences required to build these industries up.

Either way, then let me ask, "What would Lenin do?" We know what he did in the context of 1917 Russia, but this isn't 1917 Russia.

[pranabjyoti]

Even in post 1917 Russia, the Russian state was initially highly dependent on foreign technology and machinery. Lenin himself wrote "our primary duty is now give a big order (to European capitalist countries and US) to supply machinery to us"

[S.Artesian]

In 2005, Morales was the last to embrace nationalization of the petroleum industry; he tailed way behind the mass movement.

His land reform program, although perhaps better enforced, is based on the 1996 law enacted by Goni during his first administration.

He simply ignored his own promoted constitutional convention when it bogged down in... of all things class struggle and changed 137 articles [I think] unilaterally.

And when the media-lunatics unleashed death squads, armed terror [with some of thugs imported from Brazil], Morales, afraid that he couldn't count on the army, waited days before taking action.

Currently, NGOs are having a field day in Bolivia with their mini-capitalist "humanitarian" projects.

Plus, there's the fact that he keeps providing troops to the MINUSTAH occupation of Haiti.

He might think he's a combination of Gandhi and Castro, in reality he's Kerensky and Mbeki.

[S.Artesian]

I don't know if a country with the poverty level and poor infrastructure of Bolivia (which is also reliant on foreign expertise and international trade for hard currency to compensate for its own economic shortcomings) can institute an efficient state-run system overnight. There simply aren't enough educated people or enough domestically owned productive technology ... Aymara and Quechua peasants without a college education may be clever and intelligent people, but they simply lack the skill base and knowledge to build the industrial base required to maintain and produce the services (and we expect them to build a factory for lithium batteries all on their own?) Private capital, for its evils and faults, usually have access to more technologically advanced capital, scientific data, and engineers with a better understanding of the sciences required to build these industries up.

Either way, then let me ask, "What would Lenin do?" We know what he did in the context of 1917 Russia, but this isn't 1917 Russia.

This is bullshit. During the MNR rule, the miners were intelligent enough to run the mines. This isn't a question of intelligence, but class struggle. If there ever was an incompetent group in history, it's the bourgeoisie. What they are good at is maintaining their class power by whatever means necessary.

During the battles in El Alto, the population was certainly intelligent enough to run the public water utility which the government wanted to privatize and put in the hands of Halliburtion, or the Suez company of France.

In the petroleum fields, the workers are certainly capable of running the gas wells, pipelines, and processing.

I love it when supposed "revolutionists" use, and believe, the ideology of the elites-- that somehow the elites are elites because they have more education, not because the class rule requires them to be elites.

What a bunch of bourgeois crap.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

The elites aren't elites because they have more education, but as elites they have monopolized education. And that education is often in economically and socially critical areas, such as engineering, medicine, the sciences, etc.

Maybe you can set up miner's cooperatives or run water companies. I'm not disputing the class consciousness of the Bolivians. But as far as more technologically sophisticated efforts are concerned, like setting up a lithium industry or improving the productivity in iron mines by buying more efficient means of production, if it benefits people to at least cooperate with private capital and expertise, often from foreign nations, there's no problem. Take these riots; as far as things like sugar is concerned, it is clear that productivity needs to be drastically improved to keep the government in power. How will they do that without new technology, probably purchased from abroad? If not that, they will need to buy sugar from abroad to support the subsidized supplies. Both of those require foreign currency or investment. This isn't even beginning to mention the threat of American economic retaliation, in a country with a government that certainly seems weaker than a nation such as Venezuela. Do you really think that Socialists should shun all business with Capitalists?

Anyways, no reason to throw insults, i respect your position but I'm just not convinced that a country like Bolivia could have a revolution overnight, and that it should instead focus on laying the groundwork for a revolution (hence the party name, Movement Towards Socialism). I'm not suggesting they set up SEZs, just that I can understand their rationale behind not wanting to try to build rome in a day.

[Dimentio]

That's because you're not a Marxist Leninist.

The thing is that I could imagine the international reactions would such a party with genuince (or "genuine") policies come to power. Had Evo or Hugo been actual ML-ists, they would definetly had been overthrown.

[S.Artesian]

The elites aren't elites because they have more education, but as elites they have monopolized education. And that education is often in economically and socially critical areas, such as engineering, medicine, the sciences, etc.

Maybe you can set up miner's cooperatives or run water companies. I'm not disputing the class consciousness of the Bolivians. But as far as more technologically sophisticated efforts are concerned, like setting up a lithium industry or improving the productivity in iron mines by buying more efficient means of production, if it benefits people to at least cooperate with private capital and expertise, often from foreign nations, there's no problem. Take these riots; as far as things like sugar is concerned, it is clear that productivity needs to be drastically improved to keep the government in power. How will they do that without new technology, probably purchased from abroad? If not that, they will need to buy sugar from abroad to support the subsidized supplies. Both of those require foreign currency or investment. This isn't even beginning to mention the threat of American economic retaliation, in a country with a government that certainly seems weaker than a nation such as Venezuela. Do you really think that Socialists should shun all business with Capitalists?

Anyways, no reason to throw insults, i respect your position but I'm just not convinced that a country like Bolivia could have a revolution overnight, and that it should instead focus on laying the groundwork for a revolution (hence the party name, Movement Towards Socialism). I'm not suggesting they set up SEZs, just that I can understand their rationale behind not wanting to try to build rome in a day.


Nobody's talking about building Rome, particularly since Rome was a slave society.

Nobody's saying that socialism will be built in a day, but the fact of the matter is it won't be built at all with the likes of the MAS, which is committed and explicitly by its vice-president, to building state capitalism. Nothing gets built by cooperating with private capital except the mechanisms for exploitation.

You don't think Morales has been cooperating with private capital all through his tenure? Look around at the economy.

The higher food prices, the rebellion and terrorism of the media luna, are the direct results of cooperating with private capital in its national and international iterations.

We're not talking about setting up cooperatives, we're talking about the need to seize power, to seize the means of production, and expropriate private property by and through the working class.

These aren't questions of technological complexity, but of class power. The lithium extraction technology to be deployed in Bolivia is not developed enough yet to become commercially viable. Nothing says private property is any more "intelligent" in this regard than revolutionary socialism. A lot says, in the history of Bolivia and other places, that revolutionary socialism is a lot smarter than private property.....but to know that you'd actually have to look at the history of Bolivia, of its history of indentured labor; of Potosi; of the declines in the mines; of the gas exploration; of Bolivia's history of capitalism.

If you want respect for your views, then you have to at least have some knowledge of the area you are discussing. You don't evidence a bit of that knowledge... arguing for example that the price of sugar requires Bolivia to introduce new technology, when in fact the problem stems from the profitability of production, and capital's need to accumulate value.

In Bolivia itself, the decline in sugar production in the 1980s was based, not on a fall of productivity and inadequate technology, but the fact that prices declined so dramatically and consequently production was shifted to soybeans, and with the decline in profitability-- the mismanagement of yields by the very private capital you claim is essential to improved output followed.

Bolivia's sugar production is concentrated in the media luna. 65 per cent of the properties producing sugar cane are classified as large estates. There are 4 plantations in Santa Cruz alone that produce more than a million tons of sugarcane collectively. These properties are highly mechanized. Yet as mechanized as they are, they still require thousands of migrant laborers each year, and those laborers, like migrants everywhere suffer tremendous abuse.

The problem isn't declining technology or lowered productivity-- it's in the profitability of production, and the shift of production both away from sugar to soybeans [the price of which has soared also], and the dedication of more of the sugar production to ethanol, and the impact of the world market price for sugar.

In February 2010 Bolivia banned the exports of sugar in response to increasing shortages on the domestic market; the restrictions were listed in April 2010.

A drought in the summer of 2010 brought about the reimposition of the ban on exports. This in turn has caused a bit of a "growers' strike" and a growing black market in Bolivia.

This then is a social struggle, one in which the drought, etc. get translated into terms of value and accumulation, not issues of technology.

Nothing in this process is so technically complicated that the working class can't manage, cannot train its own specialists, utilize existing agricultural knowledge to ensure adequate production without overproduction, without wasteful diversion of production into ethanol in search of higher profits, without the miserable conditions the migrant laborers involved in sugar cane harvesting endure.

[Le Socialiste]

I had heard of Morales' drop in popularity, but I wasn't aware of this...

I must confess I don't know much about Morales or his politics. All I know is that he's something of a Social Democrat. Is that correct? Either way, I'll have to begin following things in Bolivia - guess we'll see what happens.

[pranabjyoti]

The thing is that I could imagine the international reactions would such a party with genuince (or "genuine") policies come to power. Had Evo or Hugo been actual ML-ists, they would definetly had been overthrown.
REALLY? Do you think that such acts are so easy still today? How can you forgot the long crippling lock-out in the oilfields of Venezuela to cripple the economy and the army coup. What about the recent riots in Bolivia in the mineral rich provinces? Do you think that imperialism give them some kind of concession as they are NOT M-L?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Artesian-how would you go about increasing the amount of sugar available to consumers? Ban ethanol production? Surely there will be production in Brazil still. Ban exports? This just fuels a black market, and the breakdown of government law and order. That mechanized production may result in exploitation of migrant labour, but surely it still results in more production of sugar per capita, and surely that mechanized industry requires maintenance which itself needs imported goods. Even if you nationalize all the mechanized sugar farms in Bolivia, and the local farmers and owrkers can manage it properly, can you maintain efficient production levels in the mechanical industry (especially if foreign powers blockade you)? Without Soviet support, Cuban sugar production has declined thanks in part to a slow decline in the efficiency of the technology. I can understand Morales not wanting his government to take a headlong plunge down the M-L path without at least some research done in better and more sustainable ways to do it.

Not to mention, Morales is seeing an improvement of living standards, which presumably will increase prices of sugar as the social demand goes up.

As for the fact that Morales hasn't gone after the land owners yet, considering the actions in Venezuela in 2002-2003 or Chile in the 70s, is this surprising? That last event is also some evidence of what happens when the workers who have had a monopoly on education for the past 50 years go on strike. They almost managed to bring down the government of Venezuela by going on strike. When their strike failed, many of those guys moved to Colombia or Miami, and left the Venezuelan oil industry without skilled technicians in certain areas. It took a year or two for Venezuela to completely recover, and there have been plenty of problems with their oil production since. Bolivia is a much smaller and poorer country, and any instability of that nature would make it even more vulnerable than Venezuela was.

My personal view is to play divide and conquer among the national bourgeoise, until your country has enough class consciousness, political organization, and access to means of production and infrastructure for a full revolution. I see utility in this as the bourgeoise does have disproportionate training in certain economically necessary skills, as well as economically necessary goods for exchange such as technologically efficient and advanced means of production (normally for sale for foreign currency). If that's too much like maoist stageism, that's a debate for another age, but it certainly seems like a rational and pragmatic policy position according to the conditions of the early 21st century.

Anyway, I think there's a good debate to be had, and I certainly don't mean to minimize the intelligence and brilliance of the Bolivian people. It seems they are deeply committed to class revolution there. But I can also understand Morales being slow and conservative in the speed at which he is "revolutionizing" the society. I'm more than open minded to what you're saying though, and I'm not particularly committed to that belief, but it seems from the facts I've seen that Morales's government is the fulfillment of its historical conditions.

[S.Artesian]

Artesian-how would you go about increasing the amount of sugar available to consumers? Ban ethanol production? Surely there will be production in Brazil still. Ban exports? This just fuels a black market, and the breakdown of government law and order.

Gee, that's a tough one. Let me think.... okay, first thing I wouldn't do anything, but what a workers revolution would do is expropriate the plantation owners, the big producers in the media luna-- that way the working class gets control of production and breaks the financial grip of the media-lunatics. Next question.


That mechanized production may result in exploitation of migrant labour, but surely it still results in more production of sugar per capita, and surely that mechanized industry requires maintenance which itself needs imported goods. Even if you nationalize all the mechanized sugar farms in Bolivia, and the local farmers and owrkers can manage it properly, can you maintain efficient production levels in the mechanical industry (especially if foreign powers blockade you)? Without Soviet support, Cuban sugar production has declined thanks in part to a slow decline in the efficiency of the technology. I can understand Morales not wanting his government to take a headlong plunge down the M-L path without at least some research done in better and more sustainable ways to do it.

Yes, you can maintain and improve the production of sugar without the bourgeoisie. Yes you maintain equipment without the bourgeoisie. Yes you can do all these things without super-exploiting migrant laborers. The basis for inefficiency in production, for oscillating periods of overproduction and shortages, is capitalism, is the bourgeoisie's production of sugar only for purposes of the accumulation of value.

That's terrific, the example, you give of Cuba, isolated that is and subject to an US embargo. Would a revolution in Bolivia come up against the same resistance from the US. Of course. So what? Right now, the non-revolutionary MAS government is coming up against the same resistance in a different garb, the resistance of its own bourgeoisie. In this situation the alternatives are not "damned if you do, damned if you don't," but rather you're only damned if and when you don't. Next.


Not to mention, Morales is seeing an improvement of living standards, which presumably will increase prices of sugar as the social demand goes up.
If it's capitalism you insist on preserving then expect capitalism to not return the favor. We're not talking supply and demand here, bourgeois political economy. We're talking class struggle. The living standard improvement that Morales has capitalized upon has very much to do with the increase in natural gas prices from 2005. However that uptick has ended. The improvement in living standards is a cyclical thing--- where capitalism is involved, so I wouldn't bet my ranch on it.



As for the fact that Morales hasn't gone after the land owners yet, considering the actions in Venezuela in 2002-2003 or Chile in the 70s, is this surprising? That last event is also some evidence of what happens when the workers who have had a monopoly on education for the past 50 years go on strike.They almost managed to bring down the government of Venezuela by going on strike. When their strike failed, many of those guys moved to Colombia or Miami, and left the Venezuelan oil industry without skilled technicians in certain areas. It took a year or two for Venezuela to completely recover, and there have been plenty of problems with their oil production since. Bolivia is a much smaller and poorer country, and any instability of that nature would make it even more vulnerable than Venezuela was.Workers? That was a management lockout. I happen to know some of the people who were former managers in PDVSA-- and that's what they were, former managers who supported those actions. That wasn't the working class leading a class conscious strike. That was a management lockout. The workers hardly have the cash to move to Miami.

And,,, So what? What's the alternative? Allende in Chile? Attempting to placate the bourgeoisie, and restrain the workers at every turn? Inviting Pinochet into your cabinet so he can plot your downfall on your time?

All you are saying is that there is no possibility for revolution; that only the bourgeoisie have the talent, the education, and the force to manage, and control an economy. Well guess what? It is their very talent, education, and force that makes the capitalist economy so unmanageable. The conflict between profit and social labor, the socialized means of production means something's got to give and something has got to be taken. In the end, it comes down to which side are you on? There is a middle road all right, but it goes nowhere, except into the dead end of death squad capitalism. So what has to give is the ability of one class, the bourgeoisie, to live off wage labor, or of the other, the proletariat, to abolish the immiseration that the bourgeoisie requires to maintain that parasitism.


My personal view is to play divide and conquer among the national bourgeoise, until your country has enough class consciousness, political organization, and access to means of production and infrastructure for a full revolution. I see utility in this as the bourgeoise does have disproportionate training in certain economically necessary skills, as well as economically necessary goods for exchange such as technologically efficient and advanced means of production (normally for sale for foreign currency). If that's too much like maoist stageism, that's a debate for another age, but it certainly seems like a rational and pragmatic policy position according to the conditions of the early 21st century.
Your personal view, like your understanding of capital, like your understanding of the economics of sugar production does nothing but disarm the workers in the very midst of a class struggle-- advocating support for Morales, or "accommodating" the "national bourgeoisie"-- and BTW exactly what are the media-lunatics of Bolivia if not the national bourgeoisie in their most national form? What was the Rosca, if not a national bourgeoisie in its most concentrated form?

And where exactly has your rational and pragmatic policy worked out well for workers in the 21st century? Where has it not led to the massive penetration of foreign capital and in fact, and including in China, a relative decline in the workers' share of the national income?



Anyway, I think there's a good debate to be had, and I certainly don't mean to minimize the intelligence and brilliance of the Bolivian people. It seems they are deeply committed to class revolution there. But I can also understand Morales being slow and conservative in the speed at which he is "revolutionizing" the society. I'm more than open minded to what you're saying though, and I'm not particularly committed to that belief, but it seems from the facts I've seen that Morales's government is the fulfillment of its historical conditions.Morales isn't committed to revolution. His actions have shown he is committed to preventing revolution. Morales' government is on the way out, plain and simple, as he has pretty much served his purpose-- of keeping the workers and rural poor from linking up and overthrowing the organization of Bolivian capitalism.

[Dimentio]

REALLY? Do you think that such acts are so easy still today? How can you forgot the long crippling lock-out in the oilfields of Venezuela to cripple the economy and the army coup. What about the recent riots in Bolivia in the mineral rich provinces? Do you think that imperialism give them some kind of concession as they are NOT M-L?

If they had been, they would have alienated some of their support base, especially the Middle Classes, the Lumpen and perhaps the Peasants.

[pranabjyoti]

If they had been, they would have alienated some of their support base, especially the Middle Classes, the Lumpen and perhaps the Peasants.
Well, in that case we can say that are in the transition period to be M-L as the reality isn't proper there to accept M-L ideology at present. Afterall, we have to adopt proper technique to go forward.