Robert Naiman wrote: > Chavez isn't Ahmadinejad, Iran isn't Venezuela. Venezuela isn't > Bolivia or Ecuador, Iran isn't Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan under the > Taliban.
of course. > There's a huge difference between Venezuela and Iran with respect to > personal liberty, for example. Obviously. There is very little > repression in Venezuela. There is significant repression in Iran. That > is an important difference. As I have made clear before and am happy > to make clear again, I do not run with those who dismiss issues of > personal liberty, here or elsewhere. me neither. > Nonetheless, with respect to the matter at hand - the relationship of > the government to the majority of the population with respect to the > provision of basic services - there are significant points in common > between Venezuela and Iran. In Venezuela before 1998 and in Iran > before 1979, the majority of people experienced governments that felt > weak obligation to deliver basic services to the majority of the > population. In Venezuela after 1998 and in Iran after 1979, that is no > longer the case. > > In both countries, there is a history among a significant part of the > opposition of indifference and even hostility to the idea that the > government should provide basic services to the majority. And I think > in the case of Iran, that is evidenced by the example of well-off > people saying that the government is "buying votes" by making payments > to poor people. FWIW, the Iranian individual I quoted isn't rich. He's an engineer (who of course makes a US, not an Iranian, salary). (I don't know why anyone who doesn't know him would presume that he is rich.) I would guess that a lot of people who don't like Ahmadinejad would have a similar assessment (about "buying votes"). One doesn't have to be "well-off" to criticize a government for "buying votes": when I was growing up in the Chicago area, many people who weren't either well-off or Republicans criticized Mayor Daley #1 for buying votes. That's because he did so. BTW, given the racist politics of Chicago, Daley spent more per person buying votes in Irish, Polish, and Italian neighborhoods than in Black ones. > In North America and Western Europe, there is now a 70 year history of > some kind of social democracy, where the government is expected to > provide basic services to the majority of the population, an > expectation that significantly endures even when "the Right" is in > power. > > A lot of people in the world have never experienced that revolution. > So, in considering parts of the world where that is often the case, it > is relevant to note where it is and isn't the case, regardless of > whether we like or dislike the governments concerned in other ways. Right. But there's a qualitative difference between Ahmadinejad and Chávez. While the former seems to be engaging in class Mayor Daley #1 style vote-buying, to a significant extent Chávez is (1) responding to a grass-roots movement which is part of the larger movement of which he is a part and (2) creating institutions not of popular cooptation but of democratic popular participation. Whereas the former is maintaining and strengthening his personal power in a theocratic capitalist system, Chávez is struggling to push and pull Venezuela toward socialism. (As usual, if someone has substantive corrections for these statements, I'd like to hear them.) Money libertarians and GOPsters often criticize the US social security system as "buying votes." Little did they know -- or more likely, they didn't want to know -- that social security is the most successful and efficient pension plan in US history. Its establishment may have "bought" some votes (though most people don't vote based on just one program) but it was a clear improvement over the alternative programs (such as encouraging retired people to live off their children, what mostly prevailed in the "good old days" before OASDI). -- Jim Devine / It's time to Occupy the New Year! _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
