venezuela

The Bolivarian process won't go anywhere much into the direction of genuine communism. What's pretty much happening there is the following: the 'Venezuelan' people are being encouraged to manage their own exploitation side by side with the state. It's an attempt to keep them faithful to the current system of capitalism, because now they have a more pervasive illusion that goes beyond the 'electoral system' we have in the First World. They can put in their 'input' in what are really extra-state institutions.

But none of it actually involves any genuine self-organised movement of the working class fighting for their own emancipation, independent of and against both capital and the state. There's no expression of an actual need to abolish wage labor and generalised commodity production.

If ONLY there'd been a million threads, and a whole blog, dedicated to this topic, you wouldn't have to c/p state propaganda onto Libcom would you?

What a moronic remark. "A socialist city"? Somehow, I doubt that goods and services in Ciudad Caribia will be produced on the basis of from each according to their ability, to each according to their need.

Yeah Michael Albert's fucking bizarre take on Venezuela is pretty neatly deconstructed in Revolution as Spectacle: http://libcom.org/blog/book-review-venezuela-revolution-spectacle-rafael-uzc%C3%A1tegui-09092011

Vicent I lived for a year in Venezuela and I maintained a blog here during that time: http://libcom.org/blog/caimandelbarrio

If you're a Tweeter, check out @latinlibnews, which has periodic updates on Venezuela (although right now the Mexican teachers' struggle is taking centre stage). @latinlibnews also did a special podcast on Venezuela & chavismo with a PhD student who lived with militants in the Consejos comunales: http://www.tmponline.org/2013/05/07/latin-libertarian-news/

There's also the English language section of Caracas-based anarchist newspaper El Libertario: http://www.nodo50.org/ellibertario/english.html

I don't think there are many workers' councils in Venezuela. There are certainly some community councils, which are either empty husks enforcing the diktats of central govt, or are battling against attempted hijacked by central govt. there's no decentralisation process going on in Venezuela, au contraire, the state is highly paranoid, centralised and repressive. All the while, the sale of natural resources to foreign companies continues, the economy struggles and the quality of life for most Venezuelans (unattached to the state bureaucracy) worsens.

Like I say, in almost 14 years of chavismo, Libcom has discussed Venezuela umpteen times. You'd do well to do a forum search.

In vicent's defense, I've also found it really difficult to find a nice clear and concise overview of Chavez and the 'Bolivarian revolution'.. yeah, there are loads of 14-page threads full of flaming or articles about particular aspects but not much in terms of an introductory text.. maybe I've missed something, if someone could flag something up it'd be a help to me as well as to vicent, I think..

I'd second Caiman's shameless self-promotion though , his blogs on Venezuela are probably the best place to start that I know of..

I looked into the co-ops a bit a few years back. One of the big things was that since the workers are technically self-employed, they bypass minimum wage laws. Consequently, while there is self-management of sorts in some firms, it comes at a literal cost in living standards. I think Rafael Uzcátegui's book talks about this, and there's definitely some stuff in El Libertario if you can read Spanish.

Yes JK hits the nail on the head re: coops. I believe for a while the Tories were mooting coop structures for much the same reason. This maybe of interest: http://libcom.org/library/venezuela-vetelca-story-first-ever-bolivarian-factory

OK Vicent I've written a lot - A LOT - about Venezuela, as well as Mexico, Spain, etc, and I'm currently in Turkey where there's also plenty to be said. I'd happily churn out 1000s of words on a daily basis (I love the sound of my voice/keyboard tiki-taka ) but I also have to earn a living and I do all of this voluntarily.

Now, however, if Libcom were to pay me something nominal...

What evidence do you need? If you follow @latinlibnews, you'll see that it's almost universally accepted that the Guardia Nacional had something to do with it. The local authorities have been involved in a violent struggle with the Yukpa for years now, and Sabino had already lost a number of family members to assassination. I'm not sure when all the facts will come to light, and the most common tactic of the state in Venezuela is use the current climate of horrific insecurity (Venezuela racks up on average 22,000 homicides/year, in a population of 27 million) as cover for political assassination.