Chris Doss wrote: >>I think a notable difference between the examples you use and Russia -- correct me if I am wrong, for I am no expert on Latin America by any means -- is that, as far as I know, Argentina and Venezuela have relatively large elites committed to the status quo. The only people interested in the status quo in Russia are a few billionaires, who have either been exiled, jailed, or intimidated. The powers-that-be in the Kremlin are KGB people with a KGB mindset and KGB worldview (which is not neccessarily bad), not a comprador class, if I am using that term correctly. (I don't speak Marxism-Leninese.) They are etatist in ideology and rent-seekers in terms of livelihood.<<
Chris, it is painfully obvious that you don't speak "Marxism-Leninese", if by this you mean the method of analysis pioneered by Karl Marx and adopted by many intellectuals and activists over the past 150 years or so. Russia's path will not be determined by who is the chief executive, but by the underlying class dynamics. The fact that the CEO of Yukos is in jail will have little impact on class formation in Russia, which has essentially gone through two phases. In the first phase, Yeltsin presided over a "crony capitalism" that undermined the geopolitical aspirations of a layer of the former bureaucracy that was for capitalism but opposed to the weaking of Russia's position in the world. Putin came to power with the expectation that he would rein these forces in. This he has done. But in the long run, a Russia bourgeoisie will continue to coalesce because the economy is based on the private accumulation of capital, no matter whether Gazprom is owned by the state or private investors. Since this question of state ownership can be very confusing, I urge PEN-L'ers to look at a piece I wrote on Algeria that was meant to rebut "State Capitalist" theory. The interesting thing is that where they place a minus, Chris places a plus.
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The development model chosen by the new revolutionary government had been conceived by Belgian economist Destane de Bernis whose goal it was to address Algerian needs specifically and the Third World in general. The FLN turned these ideas into a doctrine. The basic premise was that a modernized Algerian economy that achieved rapid industrialization would achieve a high degree of growth that would enable the peasant masses to be absorbed into the new economy. To reach this goal, the most advanced technology would have to be utilized. Not much analysis was done on the impact this path would have on the working-class or peasantry of the nation. It was the nation as nation that took precedent. Bernis would not let anything stand in the way of this modernizing model. He said, "We have decided that our equipment has to be ultra-modern, because it is more profitable in the middle term. We cannot accept machines dating from the 1940s, even if their use would provide jobs for a greater number of workers." The lack of sensitivity to the needs of the working-class has to be understood in terms of the character of the new state which is composed of bureaucratic-military cadre of the FLN and officials from the colonial administration.
While gestures toward self-management of firms and farms were made, the "socialist" government of Algeria appeared more interested in the quantity of growth rather than its quality. In this respect, it shared many of the characteristics of less progressive states in the region that were following a "modernizing" agenda, such as Iran and Iraq. Simultaneous with the technocratic approach to economic development that was taking shape in huge oil and chemical state-owned enterprises, Algeria began to witness the emergence of a private sector. The state sector actually began to fuel the growth of the private sector. Capitalism had never been abolished in Algeria, as it was in Cuba, so there ample opportunities for it to grow in the booming energy-based economy. An Algerian radical newspaper commented in 1983 that "Not only old agrarian and commercial capitalists have invested, but also party cadres, veterans of the liberation war, and even public sector cadres."
Colonel Boumedienne hailed this process. "National capital must play its role and accomplish its duty to the nation, the state is disposed, on its part, to supply it with all guarantees in a defined framework. It is not in the interest of the country that (private) capital remain unproductive." The private sector has grown steadily in Algeria. Charts available in Rachid Tlemcani's book "State and Revolution in Algeria", the source of the information in this post, end prior to 1986, the publication year. The trend is obvious, however. In 1982, private industry accounted for 40% of all jobs in transportation, 70% in agriculture and 75% in commerce.
The US embassy in Algiers published a report the same year that pointed to the existence of 315,000 capitalist firms. There are class loyalties between the bourgeoisie who run these firms and the petty-bourgeois bureaucrats who run state industry. Both tend to view labor as "inputs" to an economy that will produce growth for the nation rather than as an end in itself. Not only does the state sector have a compromised relationship to the domestic private sector, it is linked to international capital in a way totally unlike state firms have been in Cuba up until recently. The state firms in Algeria owe their existence to loans advanced by imperialist banks. The class relationship that underlies this debt is entirely different from those that Cuba owed to the former Soviet Union.
Imperialism uses these debts as leverage to accelerate the bourgeoisification of Algerian society while a similar process never took place in Cuba. In 1975, foreign debt amounted to $504 per Algerian citizen. This amounted to approximately half the per capita income of the urban population and the equivalent of the peasantry's. The World Bank has fostered a typical dependent relationship to Algeria. At the end of 1982, it agreed to fund eleven big development projects, as well as provide nearly a billion dollars for various social projects in Algeria. Private banks have also taken advantage of investment opportunities in Algeria. In 1979, Sonatrach, a big state enterprise, borrowed one-half billion dollars from a consortium that included Chase, Citicorp and United California Bank. Algeria's dependency on the United States has not only been tied to financing of major state projects. It has also been reflected in foreign trade.
After France cut off oil imports from the former colony, the United States stepped into the breach. Big delivery contracts were signed with Exxon in 1972 and Gulf in 1982. Around this time, the US was taking over half of all Algerian oil exports and US companies had large contracts to develop new energy sources. Less than 2% of Algeria's trade was with Third World countries and only 5.7% and 1.2%, respectively, of its exports and imports were with the Soviet block in the early 1980s. The final thing to consider is the relationship of the Algerian state sector and the high-technology engineering companies who were invited in to exploit the natural resources. 95% of the contracts are awarded on a bid system.
Once the contract is won, the foreign firm take total responsibility for the implementation. They hire and impose work discipline in the areas under their jurisdiction. They function as capitalist enclaves in the state sector. Firms like Brown and Root and George Bush's Zapata have established profitable footholds in Algeria with no regard for either the needs of the Algerian workers or the long-term viability of the Algerian economy. "Socialist" Algeria is as much of a boondoggle as Saudi Arabia for these smooth operators. The technocratic model adapted by Algeria in combination with the powerful private sector have led to explosive social contradictions.
full: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/state_and_revolution/algeria.htm
