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https://tinyurl.com/yabrv9qy As widely reported, Venezuela is immersed in a major economic, social and political crisis that shows no signs of early resolution. Among its pressing problems, says Steve Ellner, are four-digit annual inflation, an appalling deterioration in the standard of living of both popular and middle sectors, and oil industry mismanagement resulting in a decline in production. The report by Ellner, a long-time scholar and resident of Venezuela, is highly recommended for its analysis of the economic situation and the constellation of political forces, as well as the limited options facing the government headed by Nicolas Maduro. President Maduro was re-elected May 20 with a 68% majority but 54% of registered voters abstained due to the call for an electoral boycott by the major opposition coalition. Compounding the countrys many home-grown difficulties, some of which were triggered by the sharp drop in global oil prices of recent years, is the economic war being waged internationally against Venezuela. As Ellner explains, Washingtons hostile actions, which have escalated since Obama incredibly labelled Venezuela an extraordinary threat to national security of the USA, have impacted the Venezuelan economy in many ways. The Trudeau government is playing a major role in this offensive against Venezuelan sovereignty, its economy and political leadership. It is participating in the OAS-sponsored Lima Group of right-wing Latin American governments aimed at isolating Venezuela internationally. Immediately following Maduros victory in the May 20 election, Ottawa slapped new sanctions on Venezuela, accusing the countrys leaders of murders and other human-rights abuses, and hinting that Canada might ask the International Criminal Court to prosecute Maduros government. Venezuelas crisis heavily impacted by the decline in state oil revenues has led many, including some on the left, to question the resource extraction and export strategies characteristic in varying degrees of all the progressive governments elected in Latin America over the last twenty years. Those strategies have deep roots, however, in the history and social structures of Latin America established by foreign conquest and occupation and as they have evolved in the two centuries since most countries gained their formal independence from their colonial masters. An outstanding analysis of the 20th century background is Fernando Coronils book The Magical State: Nature, Money, and Modernity in Venezuela, first published in English in 1997 and later translated into Spanish by a Cuban, Esther Pérez. Coronil (1944-2011) was a Venezuelan anthropologist who spent much of his academic career teaching in the United States. Fernando CoronilA classic of Latin American economic and social history, Coronils book was published by Nueva Sociedad in 2002, then reissued in 2013 by the publisher Alfa, in Caracas. One of the fundamental books for understanding Venezuela, write the editors of Nueva Sociedad in its March-April 2018 edition (No. 274), it helps us to advance in an analysis of current problems in Venezuela in light of a rentier model that began in the 1930s and has lasted under the Bolivarian Revolution, which today is facing its most critical moment. The 2013 edition of the book contains a prologue by Venezuelan sociologist Edgardo Lander, reproduced in almost its entirety in Nueva Sociedad. Published below is my translation of Landers text. Where Lander quotes Coronil (indented text), I have substituted the English text from his book, with the relevant page references. Coronil wrote in advance of the recent work by Marxist ecosocialists such as Paul Burkett and John Bellamy Foster on the ecological content in Marxs work, most of which is still unknown in Latin America. One can only speculate as to how a reading of their studies might have modified his critique of Marxs alleged failure to incorporate nature in his analysis of the process of wealth creation. A further caveat for readers in the Canadian petro-state, where the Trudeau government is so committed to ecologically disastrous tar-sands extraction and export that it has contrary to all economic logic nationalized Kinder Morgans Canadian assets to ensure construction of the TransMountain bitumen pipeline expansion to the west coast. There is a fundamental difference between Venezuela, where rent from oil is the main source of state income, and Canada with its developed manufacturing and service sectors and diversified economy. As Trudeau says, the TransMountain pipeline is an integral part of his governments Pan-Canadian Framework on fighting climate change even though the Framework text does not mention pipelines, and his fossil fuels expansion strategy completely belies his claims about Canadas leading role in fighting climate catastrophe. But mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction account for just over 8% of Canadas GDP, and energy products (oil, natural gas, etc.) account for about 14% of Canadas exports. Thats a huge difference from Venezuela, as documented by Lander and Coronil. Its the difference between a highly developed settler state in the imperial metropolis and a peripheral underdeveloped state in the global South. Full: https://tinyurl.com/yabrv9qy _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
