Peasant patrimonialism in Venezuela: NYT/IHT article on Chavez & "socialist housing"

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/chavezs-socialist-housing-communes/

Excerpts:


The apartments are basic but comfortable: 775 square feet, with two or three bedrooms, concrete floors, a washing machine, and a stove, a refrigerator and a sink in each kitchen. Best of all, they’re free. As in free, free.

The catch is that the apartments never really become yours. All units are “communal property,” and the people who live in them cannot sell, rent, sublet or divide them.


I heard what sounded like deep personal affection for our leader — coupled, I soon realized, with generalized disdain for the government he leads.

“When Chávez came they showed him the apartments down there. His ministers took him to see only the first few buildings, which are really nice,” one resident told me. “They didn’t bring him up here,” she said, pointing out the water damage that’s already started to crack the walls in her three-month-old apartment. “The president was deceived.”

Residents heap scorn on the middle-managers of Chávez’s socialist experiment: everyone from ministers on down is fair game. Shoddy construction, flood-prone sewers, poor coordination between the local authorities and the shelters that assign apartments — all are pegged on Chávez’s underlings.

Chávez, you see, must have been deceived.

In Cacique Tiuna, the comandante presidente has built a powerful cult of personality, one made stronger because it allows for venting. Heavy, even strident, criticism of the government is O.K., so long as it doesn’t put a dent into the man himself and is couched in terms supporting the revolutionary project. But, hanging, say, a poster supporting one of the opposition candidates from an apartment window is strictly verboten. More than verboten: it’s unthinkable.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Typical liberal stance: conflate shoddy housing construction with a carrot and stick approach to elections.

I would like to know just how far this poor housing construction is built (what percentage of the total are like this).

[Die Neue Zeit]

Actually, the article itself said the housing is "basic but comfortable." What's the issue here isn't the housing stuff, but the peasant patrimonialism.

[Grenzer]

Interesting article, DNZ.

I am and have always been deeply skeptical of Hugo Chavez. It seems increasingly possible that his social-democratic government could be replaced by a neo-liberal one in the near future.

[Die Neue Zeit]

My underlying points re. peasant patrimonialism (militarized culture (http://www.revleft.com/vb/progressive-instances-militarized-t162086/index.html), personality cults, etc.) are:

1) That peasant patrimonialism is a force to be reckoned with (http://www.revleft.com/vb/trotskys-permanent-revolution-t149111/index.html) in countries without a proletarian demographic majority (contrary to Engels and Trotsky); and

2) That peasant patrimonialism is a force to be utilized (http://www.revleft.com/vb/nep-did-russia-t146798/index.html) in countries without a proletarian demographic majority.

[Ocean Seal]

My underlying points are:

1) That peasant patrimonialism is a force to be reckoned with (http://www.revleft.com/vb/trotskys-permanent-revolution-t149111/index.html) in countries without a proletarian demographic majority (contrary to Engels and Trotsky); and

2) That peasant patrimonialism is a force to be utilized (http://www.revleft.com/vb/nep-did-russia-t146798/index.html) in countries without a proletarian demographic majority.
You know if you want to complain that people aren't answering your points, you should perhaps be more clear.
For example, I can't for the life of me understand what it means for socialists to utilize peasant inheritance as a force.

[GoddessCleoLover]

If Hugo Chavez is indeed a dying man, given the personalist nature of his movement isn't it likely that Venezuela will fall back into neo-liberalism?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Someone and others in the PSUV needs to step up, especially if Venezuela is to have a real "revolution" for Third World Caesarean Socialism, thereby ousting all "national" petit-bourgeoisie along with their comprador brethren beside them and below them in the comprador petit-bourgeoisie. Whether it's by People's War, Focoism, a more successful repeat of Chavez's own Breakthrough Military Coup attempt (http://www.revleft.com/vb/opposition-angered-chavez-t167764/index.html), or some other means, real progress needs to be made.

[el_chavista]

The catch is that the apartments never really become yoursThe catch of the catch is that it is "a sale with reservation of title" until you finish paying your apartment. And construction in a mountainous capital like Caracas is always risky beyond the common construction techniques actually used by the government.

"Peasant patrimonialism" sounds like something different in this Venezuelan context. What do you think about a "demagogic populism" known in the vernacular here as "political paternalism"?

In fact, the Bolivarian government is hiding its lack of seriously addressing the housing problem through a decade and taking advantage of an emotive "political paternalism".

[GoddessCleoLover]

Will Chavez win re-election? What is the state of his health?

[el_chavista]

Chávez's health problem won't keep him from intervening in politics in a short term (a year?) time enough to beat the neo-liberal presidential candidate.

I think people can identify the right-wing candidate as a man from the banks, the very banks that are driving mad the people of the advanced countries with their neo-liberal measures hitting peoples' pockets and wallets.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

http://latitude.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/chavezs-socialist-housing-communes/

Excerpts:



The catch is that the apartments never really become yours. All units are “communal property,” and the people who live in them cannot sell, rent, sublet or divide them.

Are you suggesting that this is a negative? Of course the flats should not be able to be rented out second- or third-hand, or "owned" in the sense of private property. Or are you just quoting this for some obscure DNZ reason?

[Die Neue Zeit]

"Peasant patrimonialism" sounds like something different in this Venezuelan context. What do you think about a "demagogic populism" known in the vernacular here as "political paternalism"?

That's not quite peasant patrimonialism, but that is part of it:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/peoples-histories-blocs-t142332/index.html


In so doing, [Chavez] unwittingly stumbled upon the positions of the Second International on political and social change (not the kind of social revolution described in this work) in less developed countries where workers do not exclusively form the demographic majority, inspired by the radical sans-culottisme among the French Revolutionary lower classes in the dual avoidance of collaboration with bourgeois liberals and misplaced “permanent revolution” contempt towards the likes of small tenant farmers and sharecroppers (i.e., Engels and Trotsky), who can indeed be politically revolutionary even if not socially revolutionary. As noted in more reluctant and less generous terms by Mike Macnair in August 2010:

It's true that the peasantry is forced to decide between the fundamental classes. But it's not true that, because the peasantry is forced to decide between the fundamental classes, it cannot find political representation or act in support of autonomous peasant goals, that is to say, patriarchalism, the setting up of an absolute ruler, a cult of personality whether it's of Lenin or Saddam Hussein or Robert Mugabe.

[...]

Since the “national” or even “pan-national” loyalty is held by part of the petit-bourgeoisie and not the bourgeoisie as per Mao’s illusion, all bourgeois elements are excluded before, during, and after the Bloc wages its oppositionist class struggle, which in turn could include a mix of People’s War, Focoist guerrilla warfare and the kind of political strikes or mass strikes in the cities that helped then-guerrillas Fidel Castro and Che Guevara topple US-backed tinpot tyrant Fuluencia Batista, and populist breakthrough (military) coups like those employed by many Soviet-supported anti-colonial movements or the one in 1970s Afghanistan [...]

Within this “managed democracy,” the most obvious element is the National Leader or more optimally pan-national equivalent, even if there is no organizational emphasis here. Such role could move in and out of the presidency like Putin. Beyond extensive restrictions on “states of emergency,” the absence of strong veto power as wielded by US and Ukrainian presidencies or by a popularly elected dictator (overridden only upon a two-thirds legislative majority in all legislative chambers), and the inability to disband legislatures, the presidency itself could nevertheless be constitutionally stronger on the whole than various presidential systems, particularly Latin American ones, combined. Any existing veto power, while subject to aforementioned limits, could be stronger than a mere one-time ability to ask legislatures to reconsider certain legislation, as is the case in Hungary, Italy, and Portugal. From Peru’s model there could be an exclusively executive ability, exclusively only because of the absence of strong veto power, to deal with legislature-defeated bills and vetoed bills, like those dealing with questions on war and peace, by holding referenda. From the models of Brazil and Chile there could be exclusive legislative initiative in policy areas beyond just budget law and international trade affairs. From Ecuador’s model there could be the ability to force legislatures to explicitly vote down, within a certain number of days, bills submitted by the executive that have also been declared “urgent.” Meanwhile, from Venezuela’s model there could be the ability to legislate by decree. For the purposes of direct monetary and fiscal intervention, including the specific case of avoiding a US-style budget crisis initiated by a relatively stubborn legislature, there could be, from Colombia’s model, the ability to declare “economic emergency.”

Additionally, from other executive models comes undisputed sovereignty perpetuo over all military and civil administration, including chief executives at lower levels (municipalities, provinces, prefectures, and federated states), something best described as “neo-patrimonial” in light of historian Yoram Gorlizki’s observation of “patrimonial authority coexisting alongside quite modern and routine forms of high-level decision making” that characterized the late Stalin era. The basis of this would be Byzantine-inspired “judiciary reorganization,” or the less euphemistic presidential “court packing” of specifically constitutional courts – apart from the regular court system and its supposed-to-be-independent judiciary – would facilitate more radical labour and social reforms at the expense of bourgeois federalism, against which the transition to full communal power could see the National Leader’s obvious influence on the developing communal bulwark. Despite all this power, the president should be subject to legislative confidence, and a National Leader outside the presidency should also be the leading member of a party (all the more so as president).

To this, I add other features like militarized culture, such as in Venezuela:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/progressive-instances-militarized-t162086/index.html