Why venezuella is poor ??

[THKO]

Hugo Chavez is sosyalist . and there is a unemployment in venezuella a lot . percentage of it is % 9 and people are poor. I don’t understand why it is ? bush is try to collapse Hugo Chavez i know that but they can’t be like Cuba. Cuba’s economi is better than venezuella and other south america countries why there is huge unemployment and why they are poor.
Hugo Chavez is sosyalist . and there is a unemployment in venezuella a lot . percentage of it is % 9 and people are poor. I don’t understand why it is ? bush is try to collapse Hugo Chavez i know that but they can’t be like Cuba. Cuba’s economi is better than venezuella and other south america countries why there is huge unemployment and why they are poor.

[Sendo]

The problem with top-down socialist reforms is that they can't be immdeiate. Chavez has doubled the wages of bottom 10% of his country, but change comes slowly is aimed long-term as he expands social security and works on bolivarian councils.

If he were to announce a mass confiscation of capital everyone would "cash in their chips" and leave Venezuela with little industry or infrastructure.

One socialist country in a sea of capitalism is on thin ice as it is. It is getting better with the partnership with Bolivia and Cuba, but Chavez still has to worry about the Wall streets of the world sabotaging his economy with an engineered crash.

[spartan]

Venezuela is poor because for half a century a small pro-American elite owned and made most of the money in certain important privatised industries (Oil for example) in the Venezuelan economy without ever letting even a small amount of that money trickle down to alleviate the brutal conditions that those in the Barrios are forced to live in.

The reason Venezuela is still poor under Chavez is because Chavez is a Reformist who, though making huge gains for the working class and making their lives a little better, doesnt go far enough.

For instance Venezuela always has food shortages some time or another, and the media in the west like to paint this as a failing of Chavez's Bolivarianism, when in actual fact it is the Capitalist owners of these food companies holding back the food to force concessions out of Chavez that favour themselves (As they feel threatened because they are losing power).

If Chavez nationalised this food sector of the economy then we wouldnt see all these food shortage problems as it would be his Socialist government, and not a small pro-American Capitalist elite, who would be in control of the food.

But as Sendo said the reason Chavez wont do this is because he still isnt to sure if his postion is safe enough (Remember the coup in 2002?) and doesnt seem to want to take that big a risk, which is a shame because nationalisation of certain important sectors of the economy, which is then placed under the control of a worker friendly government, is just what the poor Venezuelans need right now to alleviate their problems.

[Sendo]

Good point on the local capitalists.
Many of the reactionary whites there (the traditional oligarchs) undermine Chavez every chance they get (remember the 2002 2-day coup?). And yeah, Chavez doesn't go far enough, but I don't know how much he could if he wanted unless he organized the people or encouraged the people to seize the means of production themselves.

He was elected to the Presidency, so his rise to power was through electoral channels. No matter revolutionary a man like him getting elected is, it is not a revolution per se. So this can be a lesson to leftists who think the world will magically get better if only "person X" were to win office.

[Q]

On what was stated already I would like to add that we shouldn't have too much faith in Chavez. He initially got to power in 1998 on a "democratic" program. But over the years he grew gradually more as a left-wing populist, which is not the same as a socialist. He's indeed a reformist that slowly tries to "reform" capitalism, but refuses to break with it.

I disagree on Sendo's first post: if Chavez were to nationalise the economy in, lets say, a 100-day program, then there would be nothing that the capitalist clique could do in that short term. Especially if the army guards the industrial sites to prevent anything from being shipped out.

But this is not happening, perhaps because Chavez doesn't want to, but more importantly because he balances between two classes: the popular masses which pulls him left and the capitalist clique and state apparatus which puts him back on the right.

So, to answer the question of the topic starter: Venezuela isn't socialist as it hasn't ended capitalism, therefore the material inequalities of society remain and there are a lot of poor people as a result.

The only way out is an organisation of the working class around a clear revolutionary program. Sadly, a revolutionary mass party is something that Venezuela currently lacks :(

[Red Rebel]

There is a part in John Pilger's The War on Democracy (find the video on youtube yourself), where he asks Chavez why there are so many poor people still in Venezuela. It is about 10 minutes into the video. IIRC Chavez response is that the material gain is not the purpose of socialism. That it is the American way of life and is "stupid." Watch the video for Chavez's actual words.

[el_chavista]

Venezuela is a "rich country" with an 80% of poor people. It's a demonstration of the inability of the capitalist system to make everybody gain for a regular living. Of course you can find magnates. But low class people got to build their home by themselves.
The real estate deficit was about 1.5 million when Chávez was elected in 1998. And believe me, you need a very efficient public administration to cope with that problem.

[chegitz guevara]

Too many communists have a fetish with immediate nationalization of all sectors of the economy. In State and Revolution Lenin wrote that the transition from private property to socialist property would take many years. Of course, the civil war meant that the workers state needed to nationalize much of Russia's economy, but the moment the civil war was over Lenin argued and won the argument to re-introduce private property. Fidel Castro argued to both the Sandinistas and the Bolivarians not to make the same mistakes Cuba had made, and to carry out their programs more slowly. If the workers have no understanding of how to manage or coordinate their economy, nationalization would be a disaster.

In any event, Chavez' position is rather precarious. He depends on support not just from the poorer sections of the society, but from a new middle class that sees in Chavez a way to break the stranglehold on the economy that the old middle class and oligarchs have. Should Chavez move forward too quickly, the new middle class would turn against him, as they did in the recent referendum. Without their support, the Bolivarian revolution fails at this stage. The working class, the lumpens, and the peasantry, aren't yet ready to seize Venezuela for themselves.

[Q]

Too many communists have a fetish with immediate nationalization of all sectors of the economy. In State and Revolution Lenin wrote that the transition from private property to socialist property would take many years. Of course, the civil war meant that the workers state needed to nationalize much of Russia's economy, but the moment the civil war was over Lenin argued and won the argument to re-introduce private property. Fidel Castro argued to both the Sandinistas and the Bolivarians not to make the same mistakes Cuba had made, and to carry out their programs more slowly. If the workers have no understanding of how to manage or coordinate their economy, nationalization would be a disaster.

In any event, Chavez' position is rather precarious. He depends on support not just from the poorer sections of the society, but from a new middle class that sees in Chavez a way to break the stranglehold on the economy that the old middle class and oligarchs have. Should Chavez move forward too quickly, the new middle class would turn against him, as they did in the recent referendum. Without their support, the Bolivarian revolution fails at this stage. The working class, the lumpens, and the peasantry, aren't yet ready to seize Venezuela for themselves.
There are two main differences between Lenin and Chavez:
1. Chavez is not ending capitalist rule over society (in a political sense).
2. Chavez only nationalises when he's pressured to do so.

I agree with you that nationalising-under-workers'-control (or the term I personally prefer: socialising) everything right away is not possible. But Lenin did argue for nationalisation of the most important sectors in the economy (infrastructure, communication, finance, food distribution and heavy industry), only to introduce private property where this was still usefull. Marx once proposed to "buy out" the capitalists on proven need in a society where workers are in power, and I agree with this approach.

And indeed: the workers in this stage aren't ready to seize power for themselves as of yet. But without a revolutionary mass party, it may never be able to do so. So this should be our focus as Marxists at the moment in Venezuela. At the moment is looks like the United Socialist Party of Chavez will become a bureaucratic monstrum, but work inhere is very much possible because of the huge number of members, although I'm not sure of the activity which is of course a very important factor in entryistic work.

[nanovapor]

:)

Good analysis, real good. Rome wasn't built in a day, Venezuela is poor, but less poorer than before, it is richer now with 21st Century Socialism

nanovapor


The problem with top-down socialist reforms is that they can't be immdeiate. Chavez has doubled the wages of bottom 10% of his country, but change comes slowly is aimed long-term as he expands social security and works on bolivarian councils.

If he were to announce a mass confiscation of capital everyone would "cash in their chips" and leave Venezuela with little industry or infrastructure.

One socialist country in a sea of capitalism is on thin ice as it is. It is getting better with the partnership with Bolivia and Cuba, but Chavez still has to worry about the Wall streets of the world sabotaging his economy with an engineered crash.

[el_chavista]

Chavez' ideology is a mess of thoughts taken from the Socialism of the XXI century, the Chinese "one country two systems" stuff and others. But in the Socialist United Party there are many former communist activists. We'll see.

[spice756]

sorry for this old post but I don't want to start a new one that was talked about before.My views are Venezuella like Bolivia is far from socialism.Why do people here glorify Venezuella and Bolivia ?

I don't think Chavez is a socialist he is more of a democratic socialist :(that just wants to control capitalism and have a welfare state.Well nationalize some business here and there does not make him a socialist , he has to go all the way.All I know he has nationalize oil and the media.

He is not a socialist just a wannabe socialist like wannabe socialist in Bolivia

I guess it is too good to be true.




On what was stated already I would like to add that we shouldn't have too much faith in Chavez. He initially got to power in 1998 on a "democratic" program. But over the years he grew gradually more as a left-wing populist, which is not the same as a socialist. He's indeed a reformist that slowly tries to "reform" capitalism, but refuses to break with it.



This is why I don't have faith in election they just claim to progress
to socialism and cought in cross fire of the working class and elite.A revolution is better.Just overthrow the elite and rich.

[BIG BROTHER]

venezuela is rich, even though it has been under imperialist rule for many years. Most venezuelans are poor because Venezuela is still capitalist. As simple as that.

[sixdollarchampagne]

Someone said Chavez must be careful not to move too fast. It is worth noting that in February 2009, Chavez will have been in power for ten years. And, from what I have read, the enterprises that have been natioonalized have become capitalist cooperatives, so the nationalizations, unlike in Cuba, do not lay the basis for a planned economy.

In Cuba, 80% of the industry was nationalized within two years. And Cuba is only ninety miles from the imperialist behemoth. Real revolutions move towards the creation of planned economies, to escape the capitalist boom and bust cycle. Chavez and chavismo, preserving capitalism after ten phreaking years in power, are simply 100% bull shit. We see how true this is, when we remember that, in spite of all Chavez' rhetoric, he is still selling 1.5 million barrels of oil to US imperialism every day. Some anti-imperialist! :thumbdown:

[el_chavista]

As a "leftist populist" Chávez is not that bad. He does things that no other politic dares to do in the USA's backyard: helping Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia and Ecuador; rising controls and taxes to the oil big companies, spreading that the "scientific socialism" is the best political system for the people.
Your "signatures" explain it all, "6$ch.."

[spice756]

But you need to ask has jobs and education improve under him ?How is the schools and healthcare.

What is holding him back.

Those are the real questions people should be asking.

[ajs2007]

Venezuela is still a capitalist country, the revolution has not been completed - yet. Chavez may be a socialist, but, to his credit, he realises that one person cannot bring about socialism and it has to be the task of the workers themselves. Hence for example, the building of the PSUV. That's not to say that Chavez is as radical as he should be, he isn't.

Anyway, to get back to the point, Venezuela is a capitalist country hence there is a great deal of poverty, high unemployment and all the other evils of capitalism.

[Davie zepeda]

What do you want them to skip the whole socialist phase and go into communism no where not doing that mistake again take it slow build the economy from bottom up so the nation is able to sustain it self before moving to a plan economy which at this moment it would be a complete failure due to the backward tech and domestic out of production.See you people don't realize Latin American country's domestic economy is destroyed the united state's and other country's can get are resources virtual free And then sell those same thing's to us . we virtual have no domestic output everything is made in the us then sent sold to us or other country's do the same we are completely backwards we are self need capitalism to build are infrastructure or we would completely collapse example Nicaragua is unable to survive on it's own why because it's economy is horrible Venezuela keeps Ortega afloat while he struggle to build a strong economy .

[spice756]

Latin American country's domestic economy is destroyed the united state's and other country's can get are resources virtual free


Well if US capitalist own the industry than that is who owns the resources .




And then sell those same thing's to us . we virtual have no domestic output everything is made in the us then sent sold to us or other country's do the same we are completely backwards we are self need capitalism to build are infrastructure or we would completely collapse example Nicaragua is unable to survive on it's own why because it's economy is horrible Venezuela keeps Ortega afloat while he struggle to build a strong economy


I thought the US had lots of industry down there own by US capitalist ? Lots of offices and factories down there??

[Davie zepeda]

Yeah my point but first you need to take it back !

It's not directly own by the u.s but more like puppet's and there the master .
From what i saw there were more Israel buildings than u.s .