‘End of capitalism’: Bolivia to expel Coca-Cola in wake of 2012 Mayan ‘apocalypse’

[jdhoch]

In a symbolic rejection of US capitalism, Bolivia announced it will expel the Coca-Cola Company from the country at the end of the Mayan calendar. This will mark the end of capitalism and usher in a new era of equality, the Bolivian govt says.
“December 21 of 2012 will be the end of egoism and division. December 21 should be the end of Coca-Cola,” Bolivian foreign minister David Choquehuanca decreed, with bombast worthy of a viral marketing campaign.
The coming ‘end’ of the Mayan lunar calendar on December 21 of this year has sparked widespread doomsaying of an impending apocalypse. But Choquehuanca argued differently, claiming it will be the end of days for capitalism, not the planet.

“The planets will align for the first time in 26,000 years and this is the end of capitalism and the beginning of communitarianism,” said Choquehuanca as quoted by Venezuelan newspaper El Periodiquito.
The minister encouraged the people of Bolivia to drink Mocochinche, a peach-flavored soft drink, as an alternative to Coca-Cola. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez followed suit, encouraging his country to ditch the American beverage for fruit juice produced in Venezuela.



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http://www.systemiccapital.com/end-of-capitalism-bolivia-to-expel-coca-cola-in-wake-of-2012-mayan-apocalypse/

[eric922]

Well all well and good, because I'm sure Coke has some awful labor practices, but I doubt this is the end of capitalism unless they decide to kick all private industry out of the country and even then they can't stand alone.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

In a symbolic rejection of US capitalism, Bolivia announced it will expel the Coca-Cola Company from the country at the end of the Mayan calendar. This will mark the end of capitalism and usher in a new era of equality

No. Seriously, this is ridiculous.

[Art Vandelay]

No. Seriously, this is ridiculous.

Dear god that made my head hurt; not to mention the fact that I know there are people out there just eating this up.

[Igor]

Haha yeah, anyone who thinks this has anything at all, in any way, to do with anti-capitalist action is fairly clueless. In fact, capitalism seems to be exactly what's being promoted here: just the Bolivian kind. Capitalism doesn't need certain American corporations to exist, shocker.

[RadioRaheem84]

Correction: The end of American capitalism in Bolivia.

[cynicles]

Maybe Morales is a Pepsi man. But seriously what garbage is this? Does he plan to do one useless thing a year until he gets kick out of office?

[Red Commissar]

Maybe Morales is a Pepsi man. But seriously what garbage is this? Does he plan to do one useless thing a year until he gets kick out of office?

They've been encouraging a different brand of soft drink locally produced from materials by by coca farmers. IIRC it's called "coca colla".

Btw I think something is off about the article, other sources are saying the FMs comments were taken incorrectly by one source then a bunch of sites just repeated it.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443687504577565541075127410.html

[RedHammer]

It may be a bit ridiculous, but as a symbolic act, it's great. An official rejection of the idea of capitalism. I can't see that as being bad.

[agnixie]

Worthless mystical claptrap, messianistic nonsense. There will be no end of capitalism coming from Evo Morales or anyone else in power in any of the world's bourgeois republics, no matter how much some desperate leftists want to clap their hands and believe.

Also it's entirely impossible for the planets to line up and the mesoamerican calendar was conceived at a very different latitude.

[Socialism in One Planet]

I am a bit skeptical if it is from RT, they take things out of context or make stuff up sometimes. Like when they said Chavez claimed HARP was responsible for the Haiti earthquake. That was totally made-up.

[Positivist]

Worthless mystical claptrap, messianistic nonsense. There will be no end of capitalism coming from Evo Morales or anyone else in power in any of the world's bourgeois republics, no matter how much some desperate leftists want to clap their hands and believe.

Also it's entirely impossible for the planets to line up and the mesoamerican calendar was conceived at a very different latitude.

I don't know too much about Morales, but Chavez has certainly been in a position to expropriate the bourgiose within Venezuela, and has chosen not to. Its more a lack of will than capacity.

[Khalid]

Doing little damage to imperialist company never hurted anyone.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I think this has more to do with the Indigenist aspect of the Morales government than a serious attempt to end Capitalism. Over 50% of Bolivia is indigenous origin so this plays well with a portion of his support base. There's nothing wrong with a revival of indigenous mysticism to a point, but I wouldn't put too much faith in the complex system of Mayan astrology to orient us to the time period in which it takes place (which people today have only a very limited understanding of anyways). It's also a little funny to see Bolivians appropriating Mexican mythology as if the two cultures were somehow closely related.

That said, it might be a good way for people to think about what a "new age" would consist of - which is new economic relations between people. This won't come from buying peach juice from a state-owned company of course.

[agnixie]

>There's nothing wrong with a revival of indigenous mysticism

Except it's like saying introducing germanic paganism is a good idea in Greece. I'm not quite sure who they think they're pandering to considering there's a large, not spanish assimilated native population in Bolivia, as you mentioned, for whom this idea is about as meaningful as any other piece of new age nonsense.

[Per Levy]

people, please read the link red commissar posted:


Bolivia Downplays Reports of Coca-Cola Exit


SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia—The Coca-Cola (http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=KO)[/URL] Company looks set to stay in Bolivia after a government official said Thursday recent comments by a high ranking minister that hinted at an exit later this year were blown out of proportion by the media.
"Foreign Minister [David] Choquehuanca's statements about Coca-Cola were taken out of context and there is nothing official," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Consuelo Ponce said.


[url]http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443687504577565541075127410.html (http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=KO?mod=inlineTicker)

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Except Germanic paganism died out 1,500 years ago while Native American religious beliefs continue to be important to the lives of many indigenous people in Latin America and North America as folk spirituality. I'm not in the business of telling religious people to drop their spirituality unless that spirituality leads them to impose certain disagreeable moral decisions onto others like chopping hands of for theft, repressing homosexuals, patriarchy, etc.

What's odd about this in particular is that it is a Bolivian appropriation of a Mexican astrological system.

It would be nice if someone with a WSJ account could put up the whole article which Red Commissar put up to give context to the story.

[agnixie]

Except Germanic paganism died out 1,500 years ago while Native American religious beliefs continue to be important to the lives of many indigenous people in Latin America and North America as folk spirituality. I'm not in the business of telling religious people to drop their spirituality unless that spirituality leads them to impose certain disagreeable moral decisions onto others like chopping hands of for theft, repressing homosexuals, patriarchy, etc.

What's odd about this in particular is that it is a Bolivian appropriation of a Mexican astrological system.

Less than a thousand, the churches were still trying to get rid of the latent paganism of Scandinavia in the late middle ages. What I'm saying is that it's not the belief system of any local native cultures, folk beliefs are not universal, there is no great unified "folk spirituality" of various indigenous american ethnic groups, it's about as culturally relevant to andean nations as anything else that's popularized by new age nonsense.

Also I love how fast the bolivian government is backpedaling, yeah. It's always a great breath of fresh air to see that yet again the rhetoric is meaningless.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

I'm glad comrades are all over the nationalist aspect of this stuff. But it is even less than that as it turns out. The reformist left likes to drool over left-talking nationalists like Morales or Lula or even Chavez. I remember hearing Ernest Mandel waxing orgasmic over USEC's deputies in the Worker's Party in Brazil -- how under Lula things were really going to change. Uh, right. The tailing of these left talking administrators of capitalism reflects the despair that these so-called revolutionaries feel. They will hang their hopes on anything that could be construed as offering a glimmer of hope. The problem is, that fostering false hope in Lula, Chavez, Morales, Maurice Bishop, etc., actually hurts the cause of socialism.

There's nothing wrong or right about throwing out Coca Cola in favor of some local capitalists. It does nothing for the proletariat.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

It may be a bit ridiculous, but as a symbolic act, it's great. An official rejection of the idea of capitalism. I can't see that as being bad.

How is kicking out one foreign company an official rejection of a mode of production? Shame on them for leading their people to believe communism could be achieved in such a fashion.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Less than a thousand, the churches were still trying to get rid of the latent paganism of Scandinavia in the late middle ages.


The Scandanavians had only converted a few centuries earlier, while the church was more established in much of Germany, France, Spain and the Mediterranean.


What I'm saying is that it's not the belief system of any local native cultures, folk beliefs are not universal, there is no great unified "folk spirituality" of various indigenous american ethnic groups, it's about as culturally relevant to andean nations as anything else that's popularized by new age nonsense.You have no argument with me here, as I said earlier it is an appropriation of Mexican religion and not an indigenous Andean tradition and that is what it is weird about the story. Earlier pronouncements from Bolivia about Pachamama, etc, made sense within the Bolivian cultural system because native Bolivians still recognize that, but the Mesoamerican calendar was never a part of Andean culture. So on this point we are not in any disagreement.

On the other hand, folk religions tend to be more than happy appropriating things their worshippers like. Native American religion adopted a belief in Jesus Christ and contact between the tribes led to the spread of different religious dances across the Americas too (the Ghost Dance is a famous example, and today many tribes have multi-tribe dances which is a huge innovation from the way the spirituality was practiced from the 1800s). Since there is no hard doctrine there is really nothing stopping some shaman or medicine man from taking a little bit of what he likes from everything, as long as it has some significance to the people he is guiding. That was also an aspect of Roman paganism, with the spread of the cult of Isis, etc, despite the obviously foreign origin of the god. The obvious objection here is the fact that this "appropriation" is being done by the State, or is at least sponsored by it.

[cynicles]

IIRC it's called "coca colla".
No seriously?

[JPSartre12]

How is kicking out one foreign company an official rejection of a mode of production? Shame on them for leading their people to believe communism could be achieved in such a fashion.

I don't think that there's any indication that kicking Coca-Cola will usher in communism or socialism. Still, the fact that there is the discussion about the presence and role of corporations in society is noteworthy.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I don't think that there's any indication that kicking Coca-Cola will usher in communism or socialism. Still, the fact that there is the discussion about the presence and role of corporations in society is noteworthy.

I am of course very aware that kicking them out is not an indication of a break with capitalism otherwise I would be cheering right along with the rest of the fools in this thread

“The planets will align for the first time in 26,000 years and this is the end of capitalism"

That was spoken by David Choquehuanca, the foreign minister, intentionally leading his people to believe that kicking out one foreign company constitutes a break with capitalism.

There is nothing to show that a discussion on the role of corporations is taking place, simply a desire for domestic corporations to exploit where this foreign corporation has so far been exploiting alone.

The left wing of capital reveals itself once again and all the revolutionaries flock to gobble up it's bullshit.

[agnixie]

No seriously?

I suspect it was a joke; which reminds me of a prof where I went who gives a demonstration of indo european mutations in his first year undergrad class by demonstrating what coca cola would sound like in hindi if it was an immemorially ancient PIE word.

[JPSartre12]

There is nothing to show that a discussion on the role of corporations is taking place, simply a desire for domestic corporations to exploit where this foreign corporation has so far been exploiting alone.

The left wing of capital reveals itself once again and all the revolutionaries flock to gobble up it's bullshit.

That's an interesting point of view, comrade. Do you think that there's any possibility of them creating a non-capitalist (or perhaps even non-market, at the very least) economy? Not now, necessarily, but perhaps what they are doing could be laying the foundation for something that may manifest in several years.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

That's an interesting point of view, comrade. Do you think that there's any possibility of them creating a non-capitalist (or perhaps even non-market, at the very least) economy? Not now, necessarily, but perhaps what they are doing could be laying the foundation for something that may manifest in several years.

What kind of non-capitalist economy could Bolivia make on it's own? I'm sure Morales has the best of intentions for his people, but it's wrong of him to present this as a move towards socialism or communism and it's frustrating to see radicals continually fall for this kind of nonsense.

[RedHammer]

I don't think anybody is expecting that this move is the "beginning of socialism". It's a commentary by a Bolivian leader on the state of things as they are. Nothing more. And it's good to officially reject capitalism; it's a psychological victory.

Psychological victories are important. When the PCF (French communists) won 4 million votes last election, I was ecstatic. Yes, they are revisionists and many are reformists; but the victory of an openly communist party is psychological.

This is a propaganda victory.

[Per Levy]

I'm sure Morales has the best of intentions for his people, but it's wrong of him to present this as a move towards socialism or communism and it's frustrating to see radicals continually fall for this kind of nonsense.

but moralles didnt do that, did you read the article red commissar posted? it states clearly that

1. coca cola is more then confident that it wont be thrown out
2. that the mininster in question is known for a "flowerly" language
3. that the whole things was quoted out of context and what not.

i agree with your analysis the problem is just that the case its based on isnt true.

[Rocky Rococo]

Perhaps it's the "coca" connection that's the underlying symbol Morales is seeking to exploit here? It makes more sense than Mayan religion in Bolivia.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

but moralles didnt do that, did you read the article red commissar posted? it states clearly that

1. coca cola is more then confident that it wont be thrown out
2. that the mininster in question is known for a "flowerly" language
3. that the whole things was quoted out of context and what not.

i agree with your analysis the problem is just that the case its based on isnt true.

I know Morales is not the one who said it, I was just using his name to refer to the Bolivian state. My concern is not whether or not the Bolivian state thinks they're headed for socialism I'm positive they know they aren't , my concern is them pushing this shit out to their people, flowery language or not, and the fact that the left is so desperate for a victory that they'll fall for just about anything at this point. Refer to the post above yours for an example.

[Red Commissar]

I suspect it was a joke; which reminds me of a prof where I went who gives a demonstration of indo european mutations in his first year undergrad class by demonstrating what coca cola would sound like in hindi if it was an immemorially ancient PIE word.


No seriously?

No, it's quite real.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_Colla

If you read on how they chose the name it actually makes sense.

[agnixie]

No, it's quite real.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_Colla

If you read on how they chose the name it actually makes sense.

The explanation is somewhat wrong; Colla sort of became an ethnonym of sorts (for the aymara, not the quechua) but it was originally just the name of the southernmost province of the inca empire - which has become a sort of nationalist reference for some of the local Aymara and Quechua movements (since Bolivia effectively refers to a heritage of spanish dominance, whether from the spanish in Madrid, the spanish in Lima, or the spanish in La Paz). That said it's interesting.

[Tim Finnegan]

I don't know too much about Morales, but Chavez has certainly been in a position to expropriate the bourgiose within Venezuela, and has chosen not to. Its more a lack of will than capacity.
How can a bourgeois government expropriate the bourgeoisie? That's like expecting a wolf to eat itself.

[Geiseric]

So coca cola owns alot of the sugar and water resources in south american countries, but what specfically is Coke's relationship with Bolivia?

[Astarte]

>There's nothing wrong with a revival of indigenous mysticism

Except it's like saying introducing germanic paganism is a good idea in Greece. I'm not quite sure who they think they're pandering to considering there's a large, not spanish assimilated native population in Bolivia, as you mentioned, for whom this idea is about as meaningful as any other piece of new age nonsense.

No, actually its nothing like saying that because those who want to introduce german paganism in Greece want fascism. What is wrong with mysticism being used for socialism? Absolutely nothing. Obviously they are not pandering to you, eh?

[~Spectre]

Capitalists love protectionism.