Venezuela: The Left, Context, Prices and the Market

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Since last year, having traversed the crossroads of trying out the rentier economy, under the illusion that the State could indefinitely subsidise the material interests of both the poor and the rich, the scheme fell to pieces having reached the limits of the subsidiary income. And with the scheme also came down the centralist and protostatist ideological protocols of the State’s capitalism as the inaugural transition to socialism, so well defended by radicals and reformers. What we’re left with is the Robinsonian premise; right now, “either we invent or we fail.” In the people’s struggle, we ask that the subsidising scheme be completely inverted, beyond any external communist desire, and repositioned at its primary origin; the need to develop the creation of productive activities, rejecting solely private accumulation and emphasising collective need and direct participation in this development.

http://upsidedownworld.org/main/venezuela-archives-35/4720-venezuela-the-left-context-prices-and-the-market

[Die Neue Zeit]

Even in Third World contexts, I'm very much opposed to price control schemes. Currency control policies are good, but not the faux-populist price control crap. Several cents per gallon for oil isn't helping Venezuela's vehicle manufacturing modernize environmentally.