Oil Wars
Ongoing analysis of events in Venezuela and Iraq
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
They work hard for their money
Yesterday while the restless and bored threw
rocks and burned cars the rest of Venezuela went
about its business. That included Chavez himself
who kept doing what he does best making life
better for the poor and working class who had
been ignored for decades by previous governments.
Yesterday it was the turn of some long neglected
senior citizens to see Chavez make their lives a whole lot better.
First, a little background is in order. In the
1999
<http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Constitutions/Venezuela/ven1999.html>Venezuelan
Constitution Article 88 reads:
The State guarantees equality and equity between
men and women in the exercise of their right to
work. The State recognizes work in the home as an
economic activity that creates value added and
produces social welfare and wealth. Housewives
will be eligible for Social Security in conformity with the law.
Good words and a great concept. But as we all
know beautiful concepts such as this often simply
remain on paper. Not in Chavezs Venezuela
though. Last year
<http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/209/1/>this
Article was implemented with the government
starting to pay hundreds of thousands of
housewives a stipend equivelant to 80% of Venezuelas minimum wage.
This represented a huge boost to the income and
quality of life for a large segment of the
population which previously had been neglected.
However, even that did not fully implement
Article 88 of the Constitution. That had to wait
for yesterday when Chavez incorporated 50,000
elderly housewives into the Venezuelan social
security. These women, who would otherwise have
no pension and no other means of support, often
lived in indigence. By Chavez fully implementing
Article 88 of the Constitution these women will
have their needs met and will live in dignity
dignity to which they are entitled by a lifetime
of hard work. With this move there is one less
marginalized group in Venezuela and Venezuela is a better society for it.
And that was not all. Historically a very large
percentage of the Venezuelan workforce has
labored in the informal sector of the economy.
Although the Chavez government has created
hundreds of thousands of new jobs and most
Venezuelans now work in the formal sector there
are still millions laboring in "informality".
Besides having an often low and unsteady income
these workers are generally excluded from the Social Security System.
Chavez has worked hard to remedy that too. He has
promulgated a law of Social Services which is for
senior citizens who were formerly not eligible
for Social Security. Under this new program they
get a monthly payment equal to 60% of the minimum
wage. Again, this will not have them living lives
of luxury. But it does provide an important
safety net for those who had not had one before.
Last year 105,000 senior citizens were
incorporated into this program. Yesterday, 100,000 more were made eligible.
In one fell swoop 150,000 needy senior citizens
got a huge boost in their standard of living.
Hundreds of thousands more were helped by his
having the Social Security system catch up on back payments owed.
Recently weve seen how almost all important
macro-economic indicators are better under this
government. But if this government didnt care so
much about the welfare of average Venezuelans
that would matter little much of all the new
wealth that has been created would simply end up
in banks abroad as it often did under previous governments.
Fortunately Venezuela now has a government that
makes sure the money winds up in the hands of
average Venezuelans and of Venezuelans who have
worked so hard, for so little, for far too long.
Of course, Im sure the same people who are
cheering on the rock throwers today will find
fault with all this: these are handouts, they
are wasteful and corrupting, or simply it is
unsustainable. Maybe. But I think all of that
carping was very elequently answered many years
ago by a famous leader who when the same
criticisms were leveled at his attempts to get a
country back on its feet and create more social justice said:
Governments can err, Presidents do make mistakes,
but the immortal Dante tells us that divine
justice weighs the sins of the cold-blooded and
the sins of the warm-hearted in different scales.
Better the occasional faults of a Government that
lives in a spirit of charity than the constant
omission of a Government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.
The ice has long since melted in Venezuela thanks to President Chavez.
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posted by ow : 8:31 PM
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Director, Programme in 'Transformative Practice and Human Development'
Centro Internacional Miranda, P.H.
Residencias Anauco Suites, Parque Central, final Av. Bolivar
Caracas, Venezuela
fax: 0212 5768274/0212 5777231
http//:centrointernacionalmiranda.gob.ve
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
