Rethinking Socialism in Latin America



Rethinking Socialism in Latin America

Ted Goertzel

goertzel@camden.rutgers.edu

Paper prepared for the International Conference on a Changing Cuba in a Changing World, Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies, Graduate Center, City University of New York, March 13-15, 2008.

Socialist rhetoric is undergoing a surprising revival in Latin America today. The new enthusiasm is not for the social democracy of the Chilean or Uruguayan Socialist Parties.[i] Nor is it for the archaic but still “actually existing” socialism of the Cuban revolution.[ii] It is for something called “Twenty-first Century Socialism,” associated primarily with Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.[iii] Chávez’s rhetoric links socialism strongly with Bolivarian nationalism and angry anti-Americanism. [iv] It is much less clear about its social and economic content.[v]

When Venezuela’s Catholic bishops asked Chávez to clarify exactly what he meant by “socialism,” he told them they should “look for the answer in the works of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin and in the Bible…the first book is the Bible, the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Sermon on the Mount.”[vi] He claims that Jesus is the “greatest socialist that ever lived”[vii] But he also says “I am a Trotskyist, I am very much of Trotsky’s line, the permanent revolution.”[viii]

Chavista legislator Carlos Escará Malavé lauds the true socialist as a person whose “love for the revolution is the same as the love which he has for his mother, a pure love, sacrificing, infinite, committed and unconditional.”[ix] For Escará Malavé, “socialism represents the sword of all the men and all the movements who have fought and continued to fight for the liberty and equality of human beings [and] for the rights of the oppressed.” Its heroes include the native Venezuelan chieftains Tamanaco and Guaicaipuro, the zambo (African and Amerindian mixed race) rebels Andresote and José Leonardo Chirino, the anti-Spanish conspirators Manuel Gual and José María España, the Mexican revolutionaries Benito Juárez and Pancho Villa, as well as Argentine independence leader Jose de San Martín, Cuban independence leader José Martí, and communist revolutionaries Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.

So conceived, socialism is the battle cry of victims against oppressors, whomever or whatever they may be. It is “the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, the soul of soulless conditions,” as Karl Marx said of religion. The parallel between religious and socialist sentiments has not escaped notice. Brazilian federal prosecutor Luiz Francisco de Souza published a 1200 page book called Socialism: A Christian Utopia in which he argued that “capitalism is based on the worship of the golden calf…it lives off of the cult of greed, which is at the root of all evils.”[x] He advocated a society based on need, not greed.

Brazilian friar and liberation theologist Frei Betto fervently hoped that Lula da Silva’s presidency would usher in a socialist utopia. He and his fellow activists on the left of the Workers Party dreamed that “between the seduction of capitalism and the messianic sectarianism of the left, we had found in the Workers Party the political instrument that would conduct Brazil to a new level of civilization.” They wanted much more from Lula than economic growth and cash payments to the poor. As Frei Betto says, “even if the country achieved growth rates comparable to China, even if the quality of life of the population would compare to that of the Scandinavian countries, even if there is order and progress – that would still not be what was hoped for from the Workers Party.” [xi] Frei Betto sought a world where “infinite values will prevail over finite ones and social relationships will be transformed into the practice of love for the other.”[xii]

That is a great deal to expect from a politician. Neither Lula nor Chávez are the Messiah, a fact which Lula understands very well. Lula created a stir by telling critics he is not a “socialist” but a “social democrat.”[xiii] And, indeed, he is. But “social democracy” evokes the British Labour Party or the established Socialist Parties of Scandinavia, Spain and Portugal. These are parties of the rose, not of the hammer and sickle.

That is not enough for Hugo Chávez, or for Bolivian President Evo Morales or Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa. It is hard to imagine anyone shouting “social democracy or death.” These socialists seek to smash the oligarchy. But what would they do once the oligarchy is smashed and they are in power?

So far as I can determine, only one scholar has written extensively on the economics of twenty-first century socialism - Heinz Dieterich, a German who has lived mostly in Mexico since 1970.[xiv] Dieterich is an eccentric thinker who seeks to revive a nineteenth and early twentieth vision of socialism as a society in which everyone will have the same income. The market will be abolished. Goods and services will be exchanged according to the number of labor hours it takes to produce them, not according to supply and demand. Dieterich believes that socialism failed in Eastern Europe because its leaders were unable to realize these ideals.

These ideals inspired early utopian socialist communities, many of which had a religious foundation. They have been put into place, with modest success, by the Israeli kibbutzim. But these were small, voluntary communities. Until now, they have never been successful on a societal level, except in fiction such as Edward Bellamy’s nineteenth century classic Looking Backward. Why should it be possible to realize such a vision in the twenty-first century? Because. Dieterich claims, today we have computers! Dieterich adopts the argument of European thinkers Arno Peters, Konrad Zuse, Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell that modern digital computers make it possible to efficiently manage a planned economy without market mechanisms.[xv] The essence of Arno Peters’ theory is that all work should be reimbursed at the same hourly rate and all goods should be priced based on the number of hours needed to produce them. Cockshott and Cottrell’s scheme is more complex, but it also leads to a completely egalitarian world in which everyone receives the same income. Much of the first edition of Dieterich’s book on twenty-first century socialism is translations from Peters whose little known work on this topic is otherwise available only in German.[xvi] Cockshott and Cottrell’s book Towards a New Socialism is available in English quite appropriately as a free internet download. [xvii] Dieterich proposes to have it translated into Spanish.

These ideas are at the fringe of European socialist thought and have had little impact elsewhere in the world. Critics argue that the scheme is impossible without establishing a market in “labor coupons” which would have the same defects as financial markets.[xviii] Cockshott and Cottrell’s own computations show that “market prices are well correlated with the sum of direct and indirect labour content,” so it is not even clear that valuing things in this way would change prices much.[xix] Under such a system there would be no material incentives to increase productivity or respond to consumer demand because everyone would receive the same hourly wage no matter how much they produced or how much demand there was for their product. Decisions about investment in new products or improved technology would have to be made by a government bureaucracy

Venezuelan Defense Minister Raúl Isaías Baduel took Dieterich’s ideas quite seriously. Baduel was one of Hugo Chávez’s most important supporters in resisting the right-wing coup d’état in 2002. He is an observant Catholic who took Chávez’s pronouncements about Christian socialism quite seriously. He wrote a prolog to Dieterich’s book in which he urged Venezuelan intellectuals to take up President Chávez’s challenge to “invent the socialism of the twenty-first century.” He asks “where are the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of mathematicians, statisticians, economists, systems engineers, programmers, and information systems experts, committed to socialist ideology and with the change to a system different from capitalism, who will form the central planning team that will have the formidable and enormous mission of replacing nothing more and nothing less than the market and the businessmen?”[xx]

Baduel soon became disillusioned. In his July 2007 retirement speech as Defense Minister, he observed that, “the term socialism does not have a uniform homogeneous meaning for all the people talking about it.”[xxi] He opposed “state capitalism” which he believed is what failed in Eastern Europe and called for a socialism that respected “bourgeois” concepts such as the division of power. Within a few months, however, he broke with Chávez and with the concept of “socialism” altogether, concluding that a socialist state is contrary to the Christian view of society because “it grants the state absolute control over the people it governs.”[xxii]

Dieterich has little or nothing to say about the politics of twenty-first century socialism, although at some points he refers to it as a form of “participatory democracy.” Chávez talks about “participatory and protagonistic” democracy, which seems to mean rule by social movements and activist organizations instead of by formal state institutions. His primary thrust has been to try to increase both his personal power and the power of social movements loyal to him. He claimed to be moving to fully implement socialism in 2007, defining it by five steps to give him and his movement a monopoly on political power: [xxiii]

1. Legislation giving President Chávez the right to pass laws by decree, without Congressional approval, for eighteen months.

2. A revision of the constitution to permit his re-election to an indefinite number of terms.

3. Establishing volunteer popular education brigades to “demolish the old values of individualism, capitalism and egoism.”

4. Organizing regional governments, weakening the power of elected mayors and governors.

5. Establishing “community councils” to replace the “obsolete bourgeois state” with a “revolutionary state.”

The defeat of the December, 2007, referendum to “reform” the constitution was a devastating setback to this agenda, and public opposition to Chávez’s plans is reported to be stiffening especially among college students and the middle classes.[xxiv] The opposition is fueled by threats to democratic legality and press freedoms and by food shortages and other economic problems caused by attempts to control supermarket prices by administrative fiat.

Participatory democracy is an attractive idea, but not a new one. In Brazil, the Workers Party long prided itself on its initiatives in participatory budgeting, but it has largely abandoned the slogan because of political resistance to bypassing established democratic institutions.[xxv] Instead of emphasizing participatory democracy, the Workers Party decided on “Socialism” as its guiding theme at its Third National Congress in August, 2007. This was done to at the urging of the left wing of the Party which has been discontented with Lula’s social democratic party. The document includes considerable anti-capitalist rhetoric and nostalgic references to the Party’s militant past. At the same time, however, it emphasizes that “the challenge which confronts us in this new century is to reconstruct a socialist alternative with liberty,” and that this would involve “construction of a new economy in which economic growth and the redistribution of income will live together harmoniously.”[xxvi] The platform defines “socialism” as a system with competitive multiparty elections, full respect for human rights, and a mixture of private, cooperative and state ownership of property. Lula is correct that “social democracy” is a more accurate descriptive term for that kind of society, but that term is associated with the Workers Party’s chief rival, the more centrist Party of the Brazilian Social Democracy.

Cuba has had half a century to build socialism, but it does not much resemble twenty-first century socialism as described by Dieterich. Dieterich has not yet been able to get the Cubans to publish his book on the island, and he denounces Cuban social science for its lack of imagination.[xxvii] Cuban social scientist Dario Machado Rodriguez denounces him as Eurocentric and out of touch with socialist reality as lived by the Cubans.[xxviii] Dieterich responds that Cuba is not truly socialist, yet not state capitalist either. Lacking a good term for the Cuban society, he characterizes it as “an economy primarily of the market, not chrematistic.”[xxix] (Chrematistic is an Aristotelian term for seeking to accumulate wealth). This is an especially awkward circumlocution for what used to be called “actually existing socialism.”

Some Cubans support the goal of building a non-market economy based on moral incentives. Camila Piñeiro Harnecker has written about the importance of building an economy based on solidarity and moral incentives. She argues against the pressure to introduce market mechanisms in the Cuban economy, arguing that that “the fundamental problem with the market is that it uses mechanisms of motivation based on egoism, which makes it difficult to be able to later adopt others based on solidarity.”[xxx] In the same journal, editor Juan Valdés Paz criticizes her observations as being abstract and not rooted in Cuban experience, and Aurelio Alonso argues that what Cuba needs is “less fear of people making money.”[xxxi] Most observers off the island assume that Cuba will move towards a market economy after Fidel dies.[xxxii]

Meanwhile, the Chilean Socialists have fully accepted market economics. Two of the most prominent leaders from the Allende era, Carlos Altamirano and Erich Schnake, have written thoughtful autobiographical works about their reasons for abandoning revolutionary socialism for social democracy.[xxxiii] They see no need to change the name of their Party, but they define “socialism” as a market economy with a strong interventionist state to distribute benefits to the poor. Several prominent Workers Party leaders close to Lula da Silva, including José Dirceu and José Genoino, have gone through similar changes in their views with very important consequences for Brazilian public policy.[xxxiv]

The kind of participatory democracy Dieterich writes about is best practiced in small, voluntary communities and cooperatives. In the aftermath of the Argentine collapse of 2002 some communities set up non-cash exchange systems that attempted to value commodities on their “true” labor value instead of on market price. Some of the landless farmers’ settlements in Brazil have set up communal systems where produce is shared equally within the community. The Brazilian government encourages workers’ cooperatives with tax subsidies and exemption from some of the rigidity of Brazilian employment law. But these are small-scale enterprises, and individuals who do not choose to participate are free to leave and seek employment in the market economy. Even in Israel, the kibbutzim are a small part of the economy and many of them are “privatizing” by setting up pension plans with market investments.

Chávez’s government has spent billions of dollars supporting a large number of cooperatives and other alternative enterprises, reportedly employing more than 5% of the labor force as of 2006. [xxxv] If these are successful, they could provide a long-term basis for developing non-market alternatives. Betsy Brown and Bob Stone argue that they have the potential to fulfill a number of the aims of the Bolivarian revolution, including combating unemployment, promoting durable economic development, competing peacefully with conventional capitalist firms, and advancing Chávez's still-being-defined socialism.” [xxxvi] They also note many problems. The cooperatives are dependent on government grants, and some people set up phantom coops just to get the grants. Some enterprises are listed as coops on paper, but function as traditional enterprises with hierarchies and unequal salaries. It may prove very difficult to sustain viable cooperative enterprises in an economy corrupted by massive oil revenues.

Dieterich concedes that there is no mass base for the true socialism of his theories in Latin America at this time and advocates uniting Latin America into a protectionist bloc to develop industries he believes have been stifled by global imperialism. This has been the main thrust of Chávez’s foreign, funded by the sale of oil to the United States at high market prices. In this context, the socialist rhetoric may be little more than a device to provoke the United States into taking Chávez more seriously.

Latin American socialists are much clearer about what they oppose than about their positive vision of the future. They are more important as an impediment to capitalist development than as an alternative to it. Many Latin Americans are uncomfortable with the impersonality and chaotic order of capitalism. Alberto Carlos Almeida observes that "resistance to market economics has been strong in Brazil because it involves an impersonal form of economic organization in a personalist society." [xxxvii] He cites survey data showing that seventy-three percent of the respondents in a 2002 election survey agreed that the government should control the prices of all products sold in Brazil. Fifty-one percent thought that all wages and salaries in private companies should be controlled by the government.

Fabio Giambiagi bemoans “the powerful influence of an anticapitalist spirit” that he believes weakens the dynamism of the Brazilian economy. Giambiagi contrasts Brazilian culture to that of the United States where, in his view, everyone strives to be a “winner.” In Brazil “success frequently generates suspicion and distrust,” and people who do poorly are viewed sympathetically as victims of circumstance. [xxxviii]

These anti-capitalist attitudes are challenged by strong consumerist impulses. Chilean Marxist theorist Marta Harnecker observes that consumerist attitudes are a major obstacle to the left everywhere in Latin America. She bemoans the fact that “the culture transmitted by the media is not a culture of community but one of individual hedonism. People assign more and more importance to the comfort and question the legitimization of consumerism less and less…people are not content to live within their means, but prefer to live in debt and therefore need a steady job…the masses are more interested in consuming and entertainment than in public affairs.”[xxxix]

“Twenty-first century socialism” is not a viable alternative for Latin America in the twenty-first century. It is an option for traditional rural settlements and for voluntary communities of idealists. The jury is still out on Chávez’s attempt to build a sustainable cooperative economy with massive subsidies from oil revenue. At best, these cooperatives are likely to be only one segment of an economy driven largely by profit-oriented companies, at least for the foreseeable future. Giving poor people loans to start small private sector businesses may be a more successful strategy. Socialists are most likely to make a positive contribution if they work to overcome the challenges of building viable alternative enterprises. If socialist rhetoric is used to demonize the private sector it can only retard Latin America’s struggle to overcome its backwardness relative to North America, Europe and, increasingly, Asia.

-----------------------

[i] Partido Socialista de Chile. 1990. Declaración de Principios. . Partido Socialista del Uruguay, Declaración de Principios, .

[ii] Marifeli Pérez-Stable, ed. 2007. Looking Forward: Comparative Perspectives on Cuba’s Transition. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

[iii] Sustar, Lee. 2007. “Chávez and the meaning of twenty-first century socialism,” Znet: International Socialist Review, . Marco Herrera, Chávez: Socialismo del Sigle XXI, Publicaciones de la Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo, 2005. Bowman, Michael. 2007, July 9. “Many Venezuelans Uncertain About Chavez’ `21st Century Socialism,’” Voice of America, .

[iv] “Hugo Chávez vrs Bush,” YouTube Video, .

[v] Simon Romero, “Chávez Begins New Term Vowing Socialism.” New York Times, January 11, 2007. Hugo Chávez, “Palabras del presidente reelecto,” 8 January 2007, . “Hugo Chávez vrs Bush,” YouTube Video, .

[vi] Hugo Chávez, “Palabras del presidente reelecto,” 8 January 2007, .

[vii] Romero, op. cit.

[viii] Hugo Chávez, “Palabras del President Reelecto,” 8 January 2007. .

[ix] Carlos Escarrá Malavé, “Presentación: A manera de diálogo con el autor,” in Heinz Dieterich, Hugo Chávez y el Socialismo del Siglo XXI, Segunda Edición revisada y ampliada. Edición Digital, 2007, p. XXIX. .

[x] Luiz Francisco de Souza, Socialismo: Uma Utopia Cristã. São Paulo: Editora Casa Amarela, 2003, p. 1148.

[xi] Frei Betto, Calendário do Poder, Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2007, pp. 524-525.

[xii] Ibid, p. 527.

[xiii] La Jornada, “Lula genera malestar tras afirmar que a cierta edad ya no se es de izquierda,” December 14, 2006. .

[xiv]. Heinz Dieterich, Hugo Chávez y el Socialismo del Siglo XXI, Segunda Edición Revisada y Ampliada. Edición Digital, 2007, p. 2. . Dieterich, Heinz. El Socialismo del Siglo XXI. 2002. .

[xv] Cockshott, Paul and Allin Cottrell, Towards a New Socialism. London: Spokesman Books, 1993.

[xvi] Dieterich, Heinz. El Socialismo del Siglo XXI. 2002. . Peters, Arno. Was ist und wie verwirklicht sich Computer-Sozialismus: Gespräche mit Konrad Zuse. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 2000.

[xvii] Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell, Towards a New Socialism, 1993 and later editions. Free download at: .

[xviii] Len Brewster, “Review Essay on Towards a New Socialism,” The Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, Vol 7, No 1, Spring 2004, pp. 65-77. .

[xix] Paul Cockshott and Allin Cottrell, “Labour time versus alternative value bases: a research note,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol 21, No 4, pp. 545-549. .

[xx] Baduel, op cit., p. XII.

[xxi] “El Código Baduel: Discurso del general en el acto de entrega de su cargo,” .

[xxii] Raúl Isaís Baudel, “Why I Parted Ways With Chávez,” New York Times, December 1, 2007.

[xxiii] Ángel E. Álvarez. 2007. “Venezuela 2007: los motores del socialismo se alimentan con petróleo,” Revista de Ciencia Política, Volumen Especial, pp. 265-289. .

[xxiv] The Economist, “The Wind Goes Out of the Election,” December 6, 2007. .

[xxv] Benjamin Goldfrank and Aaron Schneider, “Competitive Institution Building: The PT and Participatory Budgeting in Rio Grande do Sul,,” Latin American Politics and Society 48: 1-32, 2006.

[xxvi] Partido dos Trabalhadores. Socialismo. 3o Congresso do PT. August 2007. .

[xxvii] Dieterich, Heinz. “La ciencia social cubana, Darío Machado y el Socialismo del Siglo XXI,” Rebelión Web Site, 2007. .

[xxviii] Machado Rodriguez, Dario. “En Cuba rechazamos la práctica de escribir artículos prepotentes dedicados a demostrar lo equivocados que estaban los otros,” Rebelión Web Site, 2007, .

[xxix] Dieterich, Heinz. “The Alternative of Cuba: Capitalism or New Socialism,” Axis of Logic, April 12, 2006. .

[xxx] Piñeiro Harnecker, Camila. “El socialismo requiere la solidaridad y esta no se construye apelando al egoísmo,” Temas 52, Oct-Dec 2007.

[xxxi] Juan Valdés Paz, “Notas sobre otras notas y el socialismo del futuro,” “El socialismo requiere la solidaridad y esta no se construye apelando al egoísmo,” Temas 52, Oct-Dec 2007. Interview with Aurelio Alonso by Manuel Alberto Ramy, Temas 52, Oct-Dec 2007.

[xxxii] Marifeli Pérez-Stable. 2007. Looking Forward: Comparative Perspectives on Cuba’s Transition. University of Notre Dame Press.

[xxxiii] Altamirano, Carlos . Dialética de una Derrota. Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno. 1977. Altamirano, Carlos and Hernán Dinamarka. Después de Todo. Santiago: Ediciones B Chile. 2000. Schanake, Erich. 2004. Schnake: Un Socialista con Historia. Santiago de Chile: Aguilar, 2004.

[xxxiv] There's a Place for All Kinds of Socialists at Brazil's Power Table," Brazzil Magazine, January 20, 2008.  ." Genoíno's Path from Guerrilla to Socialist Lite in Brazil's Congress,"  Brazzil Magazine, November 14, 2007. 

[xxxv] Betsy Bowman and Bob Stone, “Venezuela’s Cooperative Revolution,” Dollars and Sense: the Magazine of Economic Justice, 2006. .

[xxxvi] Ibid.

[xxxvii] Alberto Carlos Almeida, Por Que Lula? Rio de Janeiro: Editora Record, 2006, p. 33.

[xxxviii] Fábio Giambiagi with Marcelo Nonnenberg. Brasil: Raízes do Atraso. Rio de Janeiro: Elsevier, 2005, pp 204-205.

[xxxix] Marta Harnecker. Rebuilding the Left. London: Zed Books, 2007. p. 17.

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download