Outraged Chavez puts stop to near-complete shopping mall in Caracas

[spartan]

Venezuela (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/venezuela)'s president, Hugo Chávez, has halted the construction of a shopping mall in the capital and announced that the prime block of urban real estate should be expropriated after being shocked at the "monster" development.

In his Sunday address Chávez said he was heading through downtown Caracas when he was shocked by the sight of a huge, nearly-finished mall amid the high-rise offices and apartments. "They had already built a monster there," Chávez said. "I passed by there just recently and said, 'What is this? My God!'"

He ordered the local mayor to halt construction, and suggested the sprawling six-storey building might be put to better use as a hospital or university. The new Sambil mall was scheduled to open in the La Candelaria district early next year, packed with 273 shops, cinemas and offices. Chávez complained that it would add more traffic to an area that was already so crowded "not a soul fits".

"Stop it, Mr Mayor," Chávez said during his weekly broadcast on Sunday. "And we're going to review all of it. And we're going to expropriate that and turn it into a hospital - I don't know - a school, a university."

The newly-elected mayor of the district, Jorge Rodriguez, told the president he would get the job done, though how remains unclear. Neither he nor Chávez gave any details of possible compensation.

Victor Maldonado, leadzer of Caracas Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Services, said the sudden decision to freeze one of Caracas's biggest investments threatened 3,000 jobs and had led to a "rise in uncertainty" among businesspeople. Constructora Sambil, the company building the mall, was closed for the holidays, and phones at its offices went unanswered.

Chávez, who has nationalised Venezuela's largest phone company, electric utilities and oil projects, suggested the property was too valuable to be left to commerce. "How are we going to create socialism, turning over vital public spaces to Sambil?" he asked. Rodriguez said that downtown communities would be consulted on the most appropriate use for the building. "We're going to respect private property," he said.

Chávez has previously intervened in local issues, scolding local officials about waste collection, and ordering beer trucks to stop selling alcohol on the streets.

Steve Ellner, a political science professor at Venezuela's University of the East, said Chávez sometimes tried to impose decisions when he thought local institutions were not performing as they should.

"Chávez, I think, is correct to a certain extent in criticising this 'monster.' But that's not the way to do things," Ellner said. "Institutions are necessary, and I think that if this revolution is going to be successful in the long run they have to establish new institutions in order to avoid this kind of decision-making process."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/24/shopping-mall-hugo-chavez-venezuela

I would rather see hospitals and universities springing up instead of shopping malls as well but what about all the construction workers employed to build the shopping mall?

Thoughts?

[BIG BROTHER]

Yea, I think that it was a good decision to make the building into a hospital rather than another useless mall.

But I still agree, somewhat with the conclusion of Ellner, I would have like to see that order being given by some city planning workers committee, or another body where the workers decided how the city should develop.

[KurtFF8]

While the working class does need access to commodities that things like malls provide, Caracas is quite poor and it certainly doesn't need more shopping malls, when most of the citizenry can't afford to shop there. A hospital is much more important to have.

[Revy]

How about a homeless shelter? There seems to be a lot of homeless people in Caracas.

[Wanted Man]

It's not "the way to do things". But it's better than letting some corrupt city administration serve the interests of big capital, instead of its citizens.

[JimmyJazz]

He ordered the local mayor to halt construction

...

Chávez has previously intervened in local issues...ordering beer trucks to stop selling alcohol on the streets.

What legal authority does he have to do this, I wonder?


It's not "the way to do things". But it's better than letting some corrupt city administration serve the interests of big capital, instead of its citizens.

If he doesn't have the legal authority to do it, it shouldn't be done. Simple as that.

Maybe Venezuela needs a new legal system (actually, like all capitalist countries, it definitely does), but it doesn't need a president who closes malls by fiat using the force of his personality. This is bullshit.

[Wanted Man]

What legal authority does he have to do this, I wonder?



If he doesn't have the legal authority to do it, it shouldn't be done. Simple as that.
What kind of crap is this? Of course, in a socialist system, this kind of thing wouldn't be necessary, because the people themselves would have the power to do this, without risking the wrath of their bosses. But in the meantime, if some reformist president can do this as well, what's the problem? Oh, right, the capitalists, who have broken the law and sold out the country countless times will cry that it's "illegal". So why exactly should we participate in this?

[JimmyJazz]

But in the meantime, if some reformist president can do this as well, what's the problem?

If some reformist president can do what? Fight suburban sprawl? Do we have some evidence that Caracans don't want/need a shopping center? You can't replace every shopping mall with a hospital or a school, people need to buy things. Yes, malls remain for-profit ventures while hospitals and schools are publicly owned, and that sucks, but it's not my fault Chavez doesn't have the balls to socialize every retail outlet and consumer goods manufacturer represented in the mall. People still do need malls, though, even if he doesn't.

I'm not trying to be contrary for the sake of it, I just don't really see the point of Chavez roaming the city in his presidential car and ordering people to tear down buildings he is personally disgusted by.

As for your comments about capitalist hypocrisy wrt the law, that's obvious, but I don't think the solution when you realize that bourgeois democracy is a capitalist superstructure is to simply break the law whenever you please. The appropriate response is to realize the whole superstructure is bullshit and to focus instead on overthrowing the underlying capitalist system. I frankly see Chavez' action as something like the presidential equivalent of "revolutionary shoplifting"--pointless, and possibly liable to alienate people from genuinely revolutionary illegal activity. Being a socialist doesn't just give you a license to fuck with things, that's stupid. It does give you the right to change the whole system from the bottom-up, but again, it's not my fault that Chavez is refusing to do that.

The bottom line is that tearing down an almost-finished shopping mall is not intrinsically some victory for the Caracas working class. It's just something Chavez felt like doing. Fine, president Bush does whatever he feels like doing too. But if somebody claims to be playing for my team I'd like them to be a little more judicious than that.

[JimmyJazz]

And the reason I went so far as to say "this is bullshit" is because he is giving people the idea that what socialist planning consists of is a president riding around downtown in a black car, pointing to things and saying "tear that down; build this here; these have got to go". If you doubt that people are getting this impression, you probably are not reading enough non-communist discussion boards; I assure you, they are. You and I know that socialist planning look like this (http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/%7Ecottrell/socialism_book/new_socialism.pdf), or this (http://books.zcommunications.org/books/polpar.htm). But other people do not have any idea.

I don't hate Chavez, I appreciate a lot of what he's done, but he's letting his support--and his awareness of the fundamental flaws of capitalism--go to his head and make him do dumb things. Things by which the world is judging "socialism" (whether he really is socialist or not). Maybe if he stopped going around calling himself a Trotskyist (http://www.marxist.com/chavez-trotskyist-president120107.htm) and a Maoist (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/117/story/52959.html) I would not judge him as harshly. But meantime, I do.

[Glenn Beck]

Venezuela and Caracas in particular have a hell of a lot of malls. The opposition folks you hear about so much tend to be a movement of privileged and pretty much parasitic middle class folks who dominated the society entirely in the era of neoliberalism and used the power of the state and the wealth from oil rents to build their own little consumerist bubble society isolated from the majority of their own country. To say that this mall meets any sort of pressing need on the part of the population of Caracas is ludicrous.

HOWEVER: this decision gives a somewhat justified poor impression of Chávez. This decision was impulsive and last minute. From what I have heard this mall was huge and almost finished and Uncle Hugo didn't say a fucking word, nor did anyone else. Construction on this thing should never have gotten started: the government should have nipped it in the bud in the planning stages and used the land for its own purposes. Now much money and time has been wasted, and even more will be wasted repurposing or demolishing these buildings in order to make something that actually meets the people's needs. Chávez's improvisational populist style has had many successes, the coup and the treasonous oil lockout probably would have destroyed the state or at least its revolutionary character without him, but it's no way to run the quotidian affairs of the state and economy. The fact that the folks responsible for the day-to-day management of the state didn't catch this on their own or at least pass a memo up top to ask whether they should approve this construction or not is rather worrisome to me.

[ashaman1324]

chavez is a social democrat. for whoever mentioned maoist and trotskyite.
i disagree with chavez and some of the posters on this one.
i dont know if venezuela needs hospitals or shopping malls more (i would assume hospitals) so i wont comment
chavez (or anyone else) shouldn't be able to stop production alone.

[FreeFocus]

Really, it should be up to neighborhood/community assemblies, but these are not in place. While I'll take a hospital, shelter, or school over a mall any day, I don't have any real knowledge of the neighborhood, what it has, what it lacks, who lives there, etc.

[JimmyJazz]

Really, it should be up to neighborhood/community assemblies, but these are not in place. While I'll take a hospital, shelter, or school over a mall any day, I don't have any real knowledge of the neighborhood, what it has, what it lacks, who lives there, etc.

This.


for whoever mentioned maoist and trotskyite.

That was me, but I was quoting Chavez himself. He's becoming an incredible opportunist (or, perhaps, I am starting to see him for one).

[redguard2009]

I would rather see hospitals and universities springing up instead of shopping malls as well but what about all the construction workers employed to build the shopping mall?


They would have been out of work by early next year anyway. This way, they get to work for another few years tearing the mall down and building a hospital or school in its place. :D Genius, Chavez! Wait until just before construction is finished, so all those workers get maximum wage time... then come in and tell them to strip it back down, and pay them for that, too!

[BobKKKindle$]

What legal authority does he have to do this, I wonder?

It is wrong to assume that just because something is illegal, it must be morally wrong, and should be opposed. The Venezuelan legal system is still part of the superstructure of a capitalist society (albeit a society in the middle of a transition to a post-capitalist mode of production based on the common ownership and control of the productive forces) and so reflects the class interests of the bourgeoisie as the politically dominant class - this means that the legitimacy and sanctity of private property is upheld as the most important legal principle despite the fact that allowing the means of production (including land) to remain in the hands of a privileged elite beyond the control of the working population results in widespread poverty and a lack of empowerment. Under these conditions, decisions which ignore the legal system and serve the interests of the working population should be welcomed, and anyone who wants to radically change the way any society is organized must accept that this process of change necessarily involves illegality, given that revolution itself is an illegal act.


Maybe if he stopped going around calling himself a Trotskyist (http://www.marxist.com/chavez-trotskyist-president120107.htm) and a Maoist (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/117/story/52959.html) I would not judge him as harshly. But meantime, I do.

If Chavez calling himself a Maoist allows Venezuela to receive economic aid and cultivate closer relations with China, then why is it a problem? Chavez's decisions always need to be situated in context - despite the important gains which have been made since the beginning of the Bolivarian revolution including sustained economic growth and improvements in the provision of healthcare as well as other important services, Venezuela is still a relatively poor country, and a country facing the threat of imperialist attack from the United States. This means that Venezuela is in desperate need of foreign allies, both for the purpose of economic development, and military protection against invasion - and given this it makes perfect sense that Chavez is eager to win China's support.

[davidbrooke]

What a waste of resources. If Chavez is going to carry on this "socialist project" with credibility then he should not be allowed to go around places demanding a building being tore down, no matter his what else he could do. He should have asked the community to make a democratic decision what should be up there.

Mind you I would support a university or a hospital being built instead of a mall, but it's upto the community to decide. (And I'm sure they would have opted for services instead).

It seems to me that Chavez is becoming a bigger and bigger obstacle the longer his reign continues.

[BobKKKindle$]

a building being tore down,Nowhere in the article does it suggest that the governments plans to physically demolish the entire building and begin the construction of an entirely new facility without making any use of the work which has already been done by the private firm - it is more likely that the government will convert the shopping center into a more useful structure by retaining as much as possible so as to avoid the use of new building materials. However, even if demolition must take place because conversion would pose serious problems which cannot be overcome, this long-term benefit of a hospital in terms of the impact on the community as well as the country as a whole would surely outweigh any short-term loss.

On the issue of community involvement, the beginning of the article states that the mall was being built in the middle of Caracas. Latin American cities generally follow a concentric ring structure (not due to conscious planning in most cases, but a combination of land-price factors and migration flows) whereby the poorest section of the population lives on the outskirts of the city where land is cheap and the government does not regulate how land can be used - this has led to the growth of sprawling neighborhoods on the hillsides of Caracas known as "barrios", many of which lacked access to basic amenities such as clean water and education until Chavez took power. It is in these "barrios" that major advances have been made in grassroots democracy and the planned use of local resources. By contrast, in the center of Caracas, land is expensive and tightly regulated and so almost all available land is owned by major property developers which focus on providing buildings which serve the interests of the ruling elite, such as high-rise apartment blocs and, as in the case of the article under discussion, shopping malls. This is important, because, as noted above, grassroots democracy has gained support amongst the poorest, whereas the rich continue to rely on the power of private property and especially several of the most powerful media corporations (such as RCTV until the government refused to grant a new licensing agreement) to make their voices heard and obstruct the process of revolutionary transformation. Given that the construction of the mall was taking place in an upper-class area,* the decision to expropriate the land could not have been made by the local community for the simple reason that the local community would not have wanted to convert the mall into a more useful structure, because the elite is already guaranteed access to healthcare and education because they are able to pay for these services privately, unlike the workers of Venezuela, who are dependent on the government, and would benefit from the expanded provision of these services by the state. Grassroots democracy currently only extends to allowing each community to make decisions concerning how resources allocated by the central government should be used within each local area - there is no broader set of structures to make decisions which affect the whole of Caracas. The decision could also not have been made by the Mayor of Caracas, because the capital is now under the control of the conservative opposition, as a result of the recent regional elections. Once we understand this, it becomes clear that the only institution capable of making this progressive decision was the presidency, as the supreme executive organ of the central government - i.e., President Chavez himself.

*Oh Look! "La Candelaria es una zona de clase media eminentemente comercial con casas antiguas combinada con edificios modernos que fue declarada parroquia en 1703 (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/1703)" Source: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parroquia_Candelaria_(Caracas)

As usual, people need to do some more research, and think a bit more deeply, before they make these wild criticisms.

[KurtFF8]

What a waste of resources. If Chavez is going to carry on this "socialist project" with credibility then he should not be allowed to go around places demanding a building being tore down, no matter his what else he could do. He should have asked the community to make a democratic decision what should be up there.

Mind you I would support a university or a hospital being built instead of a mall, but it's upto the community to decide. (And I'm sure they would have opted for services instead).

It seems to me that Chavez is becoming a bigger and bigger obstacle the longer his reign continues.

Indeed, but do we know that the community wanted the mall in the first place? And if that community was made of "upper-middle class" petty bourgeois citizens, then isn't the idea of a socialist state to represent the working class over the bourgeois?

[Mersault]

How dare people want to buy things!

[BobKKKindle$]

How dare people want to buy thingsIf by "people" you mean the Venezuelan proletariat and other oppressed groups, then shopping malls do not allow "people" to buy things. Shopping malls generally a sell a small range of branded goods which are priced beyond the reach of ordinary Venezuelans and appeal mainly to the small number of privileged individuals who have enough money, not to mention enough time, to wander around malls buying these products - in other words, the bourgeois eite. Venezuelan workers living in the barrios, on the other hand, have no reason to travel to the city center and so would not stand to benefit from the constriction of yet another shopping mall, as they can already go to special stores run by the state where they can obtain the things they need at subsidized prices (Source: Venezuelan "Missions" Celebrate Five Year Anniversary (http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/3432)- Venezuela Analysis) In addition, disallowing the construction of one mall is not the same preventing people from buying luxury goods - those with the ability to do so can always go to one of the many other malls spread around Caracas.

[Mersault]

So the solution is to shut down and prevent the building from existing rather than, say, something else...

[BobKKKindle$]

So the solution is to shut down and prevent the building from existing rather than, say, something else..The solution to what, exactly? The problem here is that large numbers of Venezuelans are still in urgent need of healthcare and access to higher education despite the gains which have already been made, due to a historic legacy of imperialism and political oppression, and so from the viewpoint of the Venezuelan proletariat, it is unacceptable that scarce resources such as land and building materials are being used to construct something which benefits the interests of only a small section of Venezuelan society at the expense of the oppressed majority. This situation reflects the fact that the market distributes goods and resources according to how much people have to pay (otherwise known as "effective demand" in the terminology of bourgeois economics) instead of a rationally and ethically justified distribution, consistent with what people need. The solution is to expropriate the land, and divert construction to a more useful purpose - such as "a hospital - I don't know - a school, a university", to quote Chavez.

[Mersault]

The solution to what, exactly?

Whatever prompted the closure of this mall.


The problem here is that large numbers of Venezuelans are still in urgent need of healthcare and access to higher education despite the gains which have already been made, due to a historic legacy of imperialism and political oppression, and so from the viewpoint of the Venezuelan proletariat, it is unacceptable that scarce resources such as land and building materials are being used to construct something which benefits the interests of only a small section of Venezuelan society at the expense of the oppressed majority.

It doesn't have to benefit only a small minority. Presumably if this Chavez has the power to shut down private enterprises he has the power to turn it into something useful.

Also, is there really that much of a shortage of land and wealth? Are people really in need of land? I was under the impression that Venezuela was an oil rich nation.


The solution is to expropriate the land, and divert construction to a more useful purpose - such as "a hospital - I don't know - a school, a university", to quote Chavez.

So is it only one or the other? Hospitals or] a shopping mall? There's no possibility of having both?

[Zurdito]

Chavez didn't know that they were building a huge shopping mall in downtown Caracas, and only found out once it was nearly finished?

I find that hard to believe.

Maybe the reason that he hasn't yet done anything about the fact that the private sector and the multinationals are booming in Venezuela, and have in fact increased their share of the economy since he came to power, is that he just hasn't found out yet! :D

[BobKKKindle$]

You should be aware that according to this (http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/the-venezuelan-economy-in-the-chavez-years/) report issued by the CEPR, entitled 'The Venezuelan Economy in the Chavez years', official statistics on the size of the public sector as a percentage of GDP do not include social spending by PDVSA, the state oil company, which in 2006 contributed $13.3 billion (or 7.3 percent of GDP) to social projects. The oil sector is important for Venezuela, as one of the largest oil producers in the world and a founding member of OPEC, and so once we account for oil revenues it becomes clear that the public sector is much larger then other figures may lead us to believe.

[Devrim]

I suggest that you read the actual report, Bob. Try near the bottom of page 7.

As can be seen in Table 1, the private sector has grown faster than the public sector over the last 8 years, and therefore the private sector is a bigger share of the economy in 2007 than it was before President Chávez took office.9

Which exactly agrees with Zurditto's point.

Your point about oil company social spending has nothing to do at all to do with the GDP.

Devrim

[BobKKKindle$]

Which exactly agrees with Zurditto's point.

You need to read my post. I never contradicted Zurdito's point because he is factually correct. I was merely warning him not to rule out the oil sector, which is not included in standard government statistics, as the footnote to the relevant table in the report points out. In the future, make sure you read what other members post instead of making pointless remarks.

[Devrim]

It doesn't say that the oil sector is not included in the GDP. It says that social spending by the state oil company is not included in the figures for the central government's social spending.

The statement below says nothing about the relative proportions of different sectors to the GDP. What it talks about is social spending as a percentage of GDP (i.e. in comparison to GDP). Not the fraction that social spending contributes to the GDP.


But this does not include social spending by PDVSA (Petróleos de Venezuela, the state oil company), which was 7.3 percent of GDP in 2006. With this included, social spending reached 20.9 percent of GDP in 2006,

To sum up, it has absolutely no relevance to the size of the public sector, which makes this statement 'and so once we account for oil revenues it becomes clear that the public sector is much larger then other figures may lead us to believe' absolute nonsense.

Devrim

[JimmyJazz]

Indeed, but do we know that the community wanted the mall in the first place?

No, we don't. In fact, they probably didn't. The point--mine, anyway--was that Chavez is portraying socialist planning as something (1) haphazard and (2) dependent upon a central leader's "wisdom" regarding how the economy should be. It is neither.

On rethinking, it should be obvious that the capitalist media (including the Guardian) want to paint socialist planning as haphazard/undemocratic, and that all the hard evidence we have is one extremely short and flimsy quote from one speech, with no context. I'll admit that I should have suspended judgment much more than I did. We really don't know what happened with the mall.

----

As for the stuff about legal authority, of course I was saying that it is the Venezuelan system of law that should be changed, not Chavez' socialist vision. I was pointing out the contradiction inherent in reformism (trying to build socialism without changing a political-legal system that was designed to protect private property).

[JimmyJazz]

Nowhere in the article does it suggest that the governments plans to physically demolish the entire building and begin the construction of an entirely new facility

Good point

[KurtFF8]

No, we don't. In fact, they probably didn't. The point--mine, anyway--was that Chavez is portraying socialist planning as something (1) haphazard and (2) dependent upon a central leader's "wisdom" regarding how the economy should be. It is neither.

On rethinking, it should be obvious that the capitalist media (including the Guardian) want to paint socialist planning as haphazard/undemocratic, and that all the hard evidence we have is one extremely short and flimsy quote from one speech, with no context. I'll admit that I should have suspended judgment much more than I did. We really don't know what happened with the mall.

----

As for the stuff about legal authority, of course I was saying that it is the Venezuelan system of law that should be changed, not Chavez' socialist vision. I was pointing out the contradiction inherent in reformism (trying to build socialism without changing a political-legal system that was designed to protect private property).


I don't want to sound like a Chavez apologist but you seem to be contradicting yourself here a little bit. Chavez is not quite engaged in socialist planning in Venezuela right now as it is still a bourgeois state, and he knows it and doesn't claim otherwise. Thus when the capitalists or merchants try to open a new mall for profit, likely not the result of community planning or desires and at the expense of the poor labor that dominates the city, and Chavez steps in to stop it, he isn't "messing up socialist planning" any more than he is "messing up" Capitalist development.

That's an important distinction I think.

[PRC-UTE]

well done by Chávez.

anyone know what the reaction by working class people in the area is to this?

[JimmyJazz]

you seem to be contradicting yourself here a little bit.

I can see why. But I was referring more to the fact that he calls himself a Socialist and surrounds himself with red flags.

Anyway, like I said, I think the stand I took earlier was a bit naive and based on very little hard evidence.

[KC]

Chavez is not quite engaged in socialist planning in Venezuela right now as it is still a bourgeois state, and he knows it and doesn't claim otherwise.

So what exactly is he doing?

[Mike666]

I don't think he should intervene...

[KurtFF8]

So what exactly is he doing?

Well he claims he is trying to transition the state into socialism, via democratic (bourgeois democratic) means. We have been, of course, seeing many of the shortcomings of that approach of course.

[spice756]

If there was a problem that this mall was for rich than allow the mall to be built than after stane run mall.

Than the poor can get stuff and NOT stuff for the movie stars and pop stars at this mall.

[nikolaou]

i read about this and it made me smile : :)

my favorite is where it says "it will lead to a rise in uncertainty among businesspeople... do you really think that will make hugo change his mind? that will make him MORE likely to go ahead with canceling the project.

VIVA LIBRE VENEZUELA