Social Movements and State Power: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador

286 Pages·2005·3.04 MB·English

by  James Petras

Social Movements
and State Power
Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador
James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer
P
Pluto Press
LONDON (cid:127) ANN ARBOR, MI
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First published 2005 by Pluto Press
345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA
and 839 Greene Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48106
www.plutobooks.com
Copyright © James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer 2005
The right of James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer to be identified as the
authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 7453 2423 1 hardback
ISBN 0 7453 2422 3 paperback
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Petras, James F., 1937–
Social movements and state power : Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador /
James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0–7453–2423–1 (hb) –– ISBN 0–7453–2422–3 (pb)
1. Political participation––Latin America––Case studies. 2. Social
movements––Latin America––Case studies. 3. Argentina––Politics and
government––2002– 4. Brazil––Politics and government––1985– 5. Bolivia–
–Politics and government––1982– 6. Ecuador––Politics and government––
1984– I. Veltmeyer, Henry. II. Title.
JL966.P375 2005
322.4'098––dc22
2005005107
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Designed and produced for Pluto Press by
Chase Publishing Services Ltd, Fortescue, Sidmouth, EX10 9QG, England
Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England
Printed and bound in Canada by Transcontinental Printing
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Contents
Preface vi
Introduction 1
1 Bad Government, Good Governance: Civil Society versus
Social Movements 8
2 From Popular Rebellion to ‘Normal Capitalism’ in
Argentina 28
3 Lula and the Dynamics of a Neoliberal Regime 60
4 Social Movements and State Power in Ecuador 136
5 The Politics of Adjustment, Reform, and Revolution in
Bolivia 175
6 Social Movements and the State: Political Power
Dynamics in Latin America 220
Notes 241
Bibliography 258
Index 271
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Preface
Chavez and the Referendum:
Myths and Realities
Between rightwing frustration and leftwing euphoria, little has been
written about the complex and contradictory reality of Venezuelan
politics and the specifi cities of President Chavez’ policies. Even less
discussion has focused on the division between ideological Washington
and pragmatic Wall Street, between the politics of confrontation
and conciliation, and the convergences and divergences between
Venezuela and the rest of Latin America. Both the right and left
have substituted myths about the Chavez government rather than
confronting realities.
RIGHTWING MYTHS
Myth 1—Chavez is an unpopular president whom the rightwing
opposition is capable of defeating in the referendum. In reality, the
rightwing and its backers in Washington miscalculated on several
counts. First, the weakest moment of the Chavez government was
immediately after the Petroléos de Venezuela (PDVSA) executive
lockout (December 2002–February 2003), when oil prices were
much lower, the economy was devastated, government social welfare
programs were under-funded and grass-roots political organizations
were weak. By the time the referendum took place (August 2004),
one and a half years later, socioeconomic and political conditions
had dramatically changed. The economy was growing by 12 per
cent, oil prices were at record highs, social welfare expenditures were
increasing and their social impact was highly visible and widespread,
and the mass social organizations were deeply embedded in populous
neighborhoods throughout the country. Clearly, the initiative had
passed from the right to the left, but both the US and its opposition
collaborators were blind to the realities. Having lost control of the
state petroleum industry and allocation of funds via the failed lockout
in early 2003, and having lost infl uence in the military after the failed
coup of April 2002, the opposition possessed few resources to limit
the government’s referendum campaign and no leverage in launching
a post-election ‘civic–military’ coup.
vi
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Preface vii
Myth 2—According to rightwing analysts the referendum on the
opposition’s demand that Chavez be recalled from offi ce was based
on the issue of Chavez’ ‘popularity,’ ‘personality,’ charisma, and
‘autocratic’ style. In reality, the referendum was based on class/race
divisions. Non-opposition trade union leaders indicated that over 85
per cent of the working class and working poor voted for Chavez,
while preliminary reports on voting in affl uent neighborhoods and
circumscriptions showed just the reverse: over 80 per cent voted
for the referendum. A similar process or class/race polarization was
evident in the extraordinary turnout and vote among poor Afro-
Venezuelans: the higher the turnout, the higher the vote for Chavez,
as an unprecedented 71 per cent of the electorate voted. Clearly,
Chavez was successful in linking social welfare programs and class
allegiances to electoral behavior.
Myth 3—Among both the right and left there is a belief that the mass
media control mass voting behavior, limit political agendas, and
necessarily lead to the victory of the right and the domestication
of the left. In Venezuela the right controlled 90 per cent of the
major television networks and print media and most of the major
radio stations, yet the referendum was crushed by an 18 per cent
margin (59 per cent to 41 per cent). The results of the referendum
demonstrate that powerful grass-roots organizations built around
successful struggles for social reforms can create a mass political and
social consciousness which can easily reject media manipulation.
Elite optimism in their ‘structural power’—money, media monopoly,
and backing by Washington—blinded them to the fact that conscious
collective organization can be a formidable counterweight to elite
resources. Likewise, the referendum results refute the argument of
the center-left that they lose elections because of the mass media.
The center-left justify their embrace of neoliberalism as a means to
‘neutralize’ the mass media during elections. They refuse to recognize
that elections can be won despite mass media opposition if previous
mass struggle and organization create mass social consciousness.
Myth 4—According to many leftist journalists, Chavez’ victory
refl ected a new wave of popular nationalist politics in Latin America.
Evidence to the contrary is abundant. Brazil under Lula has sold oil
exploration rights to US and European multinational corporations,
provides a contingent of 1,500 troops (along with Argentina, Chile,
etc.) to Haiti to stabilize Washington’s puppet regime there imposed
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viii Social Movements and State Power
through the kidnapping of President-elect Aristide. Likewise in the
other Andean countries (Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia) the
elected regimes propose privatizing petroleum companies, support
ALCA and Plan Colombia, and pay their foreign debts. The Broad
Front in Uruguay promises to follow Brazil’s neoliberal policies.
While Chavez promotes the regional trading bloc, Mercosur, the
two major members—Brazil and Argentina—are increasing their trade
relations outside the region. In effect, there is a bloc of neoliberal
regimes arrayed against Chavez’ anti-imperialist policies and mass
social movements. To the extent that Chavez remains true to his
independent foreign policy, his principal allies are the mass social
movements and Cuba.
Myth 5—The defeat of the referendum was a major tactical defeat of
US imperialism and its local vassals. But a defeat of imperialism does
not necessarily mean or lead to a revolutionary transformation, as
post-Chavez post-election appeals to Washington and big business
demonstrate. More indicative of Chavez’ politics is the forthcoming
$5 billion investment agreements with Texaco-Mobil and Exxon
to exploit the Orinoco gas and oil fi elds. The euphoria of the left
blinds them to the pendulum shifts in Chavez’ discourse and the
heterodox social welfare—neoliberal economic politics he has
consistently practiced.
President Chavez’ policy has always been a careful balancing act
between rejecting vassalage to the US and local oligarchic rentiers
on the one hand, and trying to harness a coalition of foreign and
national investors, and urban and rural poor, to a program of welfare
capitalism on the other. He is closer to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New
Deal than to Fidel Castro’s socialist revolution. In the aftermath of
the three political crises—the failed civil–military coup, the debacle of
the corporate executives’ lock-out, and the defeat of the referendum—
Chavez offered to dialogue and reach a consensus with the media
barons, big business plutocrats, and the US government, on the basis
of the existing property relations, media ownership, and expanded
relations with Washington.
Chavez’ commitment to centrist-reformist policies explains why
he did not prosecute owners of the mass media who had openly
called for the violent overthrow of his government and also why
he took no action against the association of the business leaders
(FEDECAMARAS) who had incited military rebellion and violent
attacks on the constitutional order. In Europe, North America, and
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Preface ix
many other regions, democratically elected governments would have
arrested and prosecuted these elites for acts of violent subversion.
President Chavez has constantly reiterated that their property,
privileges, and wealth are not in question. Moreover, the fact that
these elites have been able to engage in three unconstitutional
attempts to overthrow the regime and still retain their class positions
strongly suggests that President Chavez still envisages their playing
an important role in his proposed development based on private–
public partnership and social welfare spending. After fi ve years in
government and three major ‘class confrontations,’ it is evident that
at least at the level of the government, there has been no rupture
in property or class relations and no break with foreign creditors,
investors, or oil clients. Within the fi scal framework of foreign debt
payments, subsidies to private exporters, and low-interest loans to
industrialists, the government has increased the allocation of state
spending for social programs in health, education, housing, micro-
enterprises, and agrarian reform. The Venezuelan government can
maintain this balance between big business and the poor because of
the high prices and revenue from petroleum exports. Like President
Roosevelt, Chavez’ positive social welfare programs attract millions
of low-income voters, but do not affect money income levels or
create large-scale employment projects. Unemployment is still in
the region of 20 per cent and poverty levels remain at over 50 per
cent. Comprehensive social spending has positively affected the
social lives of the poor but has not improved their class position.
Chavez is both confrontational and radical when his rulership is
threatened, and conciliatory and moderate when he successfully
overcomes the challenge.
Myth 6—The left and right have failed to recognize a divergence of
tactics between an ideological Washington and a pragmatic Wall
Street. The US political class (both Republican and Democrats, the
presidency and Congress) have been actively threatening, intervening,
and supporting destructive lock-outs, violent coups, and a fraudulent
referendum to oust Chavez. In contrast, the major American and
European oil companies and banks have been engaged in stable,
sustained, and profitable economic relations with the Chavez
government. Foreign creditors have received prompt and punctual
payments of billions of dollars and have not spoken or acted in
a fashion to disrupt these lucrative transactions. Major American
multinational oil companies project investing between $5 billion
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x Social Movements and State Power
and $20 billion in new exploration and exploitation. No doubt these
MNCs would have liked the coup to succeed in order to monopolize
all Venezuelan oil revenue, but perceiving the failures of Washington
they are content to share some of the oil wealth with the Chavez
regime. The tactical divergences between Washington and Wall Street
are likely to narrow as the Venezuelan government moves into the
new conciliatory phase toward FEDECAMARAS and Washington.
Given Washington’s defeat in the referendum, and the big oil deals
with key American multinationals, it is likely that Washington will
seek a temporary ‘truce’ until new, more favorable circumstances
emerge. It will be interesting to see how this possible ‘truce’ will
affect Venezuela’s critical foreign policy.
Myth 7—The main thrust of the current phase of the Chavez
revolution is a moral crusade against government corruption and a
highly politicized judicial system tightly aligned with the discredited
political opposition. For many on the left, the radical content of the
‘No’ vote campaign was rooted in the proliferation of community-
based mass organizations, the mobilization of trade union assemblies,
and the decentralized democratic process of voter involvement based
on promises of future consequential social changes in terms of jobs,
income, and popular political power.
Moralization campaigns (anti-corruption) are commonly associated
with middle-class politics designed to create ‘national unity’ and
usually weaken class solidarity. The left’s belief that the mass
organizations mobilized for the referendum will necessarily become
a basis for a ‘new popular democracy’ has little basis in the recent
past (similar mobilizations took place prior to the failed coup and
during the corporate bosses’ lock-out in mid-April 2002).1 Nor do
government-sponsored moralization campaigns attract much interest
among the poor in Venezuela or elsewhere. Moreover, the focus of
the Chavista political leaders is on the forthcoming elections for
parliament, not in creating alternative sources of governance. The
left’s facile projection of popular mobilization in the post-referendum
period creates a political mythology that fails to recognize the internal
contradictions of the political process in Venezuela.
CONCLUSION
The massive popular victory of the ‘No’ vote in the Venezuelan
referendum gave hope and inspiration to hundreds of millions in Latin
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Preface xi
America and elsewhere that US-backed oligarchies can be defeated
at the ballot box. The fact that the favorable voting outcome was
recognized by the Organization of American States (OAS), President
Jimmy Carter, and Washington is a tribute to President Chavez’
strategic changes in the military, guaranteeing the honoring of the
constitutional outcome. At a deeper level of analysis, the conceptions
and perceptions of the major antagonists among the right and the
left, however, are open to criticism: the right for underestimating
the political and institutional support for Chavez in the current
conjuncture; the left for projecting an overly radical vision on the
direction of politics in the post-referendum period. From a ‘realist’
position, we can conclude that the Chavez government will proceed
with his ‘New Deal’ social welfare programs while deepening ties with
major foreign and domestic investors. His ability to balance classes,
leaning in one direction or the other, will depend on the continued
fl ow of high returns from oil revenues. If oil prices drop, hard choices
will have to be made—class choices.
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