At 15:20 06/06/2007, raghu wrote:
EB may be an idiot, but it seems to me that he has a point about the
land redistribution. Is there infrastructure in place to train and
educate the new landowners? Are the old land-owners compensated for
the repossessed land? Do they have incentives to stay and help with a
transition? Is there any official planning to cope with the inevitable
loss of productivity in the transition period?
(Apologies in advance to Michael L. if this information is well-known
- I haven't got around to reading "Build it now.." yet..)
-raghu.
Shame on you, Raghu! However, I confess you won't find anything in
the book to answer this. (In fact, only the latter parts relate
specifically to Vzla.) This is an area I haven't followed closely. I
can say, however, that many people in peasant co-ops have had
training in specific skills and principles of coops if they've gone
through Mision Vuelvan Caras, others get the same through the various
institutions funding and providing training and means of production
for peasants (several of these institutions are under the ministry
from the communal economy and keep inviting me to see their work...
but who has the time?)-- but there are lots and lots of screw-ups.
It's the nature of the beast. Eg., sometimes the land they get/take
isn't suited to what they were trained for; other times, they wait
and wait for necessary equipment or funding. Remember, all this is
happening fast... and the state institutions still populated by
oppositionists hired before Chavez are not necessarily either
competent or committed. Think revolution.
Then, there's another kind of problem--- the coops which are
successfully producing food, etc and decide, well, let's sell this
stuff to Colombia where we can get dollars and trade them on the
street market for 80% or so more than the official rate for bolivars
instead of selling them locally to the Mercal for bolivars. Think--
deepen the revolution!
michael
ps. a quick note to jim D coming.
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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
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