> From: Chris Burford <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Coincidentally I was doing a Google search and came across this > contribution to LBO-talk in October 2001 by Greg Schofield, which seems to > put the issue well. > [Unfortunately his email address no longer seems to be working. If anyone > can forward me his current address, I would be grateful.]
Hello Chris, Even though Greg and I live in the same city, we had some serious disagreements during his time at LBO-talk and we would certainly have disagreed on this issue. My point was not to lionise free trade. The Venezuelan situation raises many questions in my mind. I mean, for example, protectionism, like land reform, is very far removed from a genuinely socialist/communist society, assuming that _is_ what Chavez and the Bolivarians want to achieve. To me, the reference to the early 19th C. USA is not enouraging, because even at best, it seems to assume that "protectionist" strategies can (1) be detached from the real, historical class relations in which they occurred and (2) used to achieve a totally different kind of society. If, in the short to medium term, the Bolivarians _do_ intend predominantly state and/or worker owned enterprises, the "development" which protectionism is supposed to nurture will still have a socially destructive aspect/element, for which the Bolivarians will be blamed, even if they are no longer in power, and even if they take steps to ameliorate the social fallout. In general, I disagree with what I call the "quantity theory of socialism", which to me was discredited by the Oil Shock, the stagflation which followed and the neoliberal (counter)revolution. I mean, consider that in the early 1970s more than 50% of the workforce in some OECD states was in the public sector! Some people thought it would creep onward and upward but they were wrong. Of course things _can_ turn around quickly, but that level of state ownership is at present unthinkable in any developed state. And as Marx predicted, once industrialisation (e.g the establishment of functioning ISI) is achieved, as far as the bourgeoisie is concerned, protectionism has served it's purpose, can be dispensed with and the Venezuelans, English, Australians or Filipinos are no closer to a society in which "the free development of the individual is the condition for the free development of all." regards, Grant.
