A recent poll found that 4% of voters support the Green Party of the United States.  This is a considerable achievement.  In recent decades, the third parties that were able to move beyond statistically insignificant levels of support in presidential elections were those that were formed by persons who were known previously to the public (Ralph Nader, Ross Perot, John Anderson), and their party structures dissipated following the elections.  The Greens have attained a level of popular support without benefit of a known personality, and they have developed permanent party structures that include candidates for various offices at different levels of government.  

     The emergence of the Greens is fully understandable in light of contemporary national and global dynamics.  The two principal parties in the United States have responded to the national economic and commercial decline and the structural crisis of the world-system by safeguarding the interests of the corporations and turning their backs on the people.  In contrast, the Green Party affirms the responsibility of government to protect the rights of the people.  The Green Party Platform upholds the social and economic rights of the people, advocating free tuition at public universities and vocational schools, universal health care, a minimum living wage for all, and measures to guarantee affordable housing.  Its platform includes affirmation of the fundamental moral principles of modern democratic revolutions, including respect for the sovereignty and self-determination of nations and for the right of workers to organize.  

     The Green Party Platform has good proposals for the creation of employment. It advocates public funding to create living-wage jobs in such areas as “environmental clean-up, recycling, sustainable agriculture and food production, sustainable forest management, repair and maintenance of public facilities, neighborhood-based public safety, aides in schools, libraries and childcare centers, and construction and renovation of energy-efficient housing.”  It calls for government subsidies for renewable energy companies, which among other benefits, would generate employment.

       Consistent with the widespread feeling among the people that the political process is not responsive to their needs, the Green Party Platform calls for reform of the electoral process, and it has several good proposals that would strengthen the capacity of officeholders to be independent of the demands and expectations of the corporate elite.  The proposed reforms include the enactment of proportional representation voting systems, full public funding for election campaigns, equal television and radio time for candidates, and the prohibition of corporate contributions to election campaigns.

      Although the political gains and moral commitment of the Green Party ought to be appreciated by the people, we must recognize that current objective and subjective conditions make possible a level of popular support for an alternative party of the Left much higher than four percent.  I believe that the inability of the Green Party to attain more support is a consequence of its limitations, which is revealed in the party platform, a document that is ahistorical, unphilosophical, and unreflective (see “The Green Party Platform” 8/26/2016).  In order for the Green Party to begin to play during the next thirty years the role that an alternative party of the Left can and must play, the party must incorporate into its leadership persons who are capable of leading the Green Party toward becoming a party that: is characterized by philosophical understanding, historical consciousness and political reflection; redefines what a political party is and does; takes seriously its mission of taking power; and is capable of forming alliances with various social movement organizations in all popular sectors.

     Philosophical understanding.  We all have perceptions of reality and opinions of what ought to be done.  But what is the foundation on which we can truly discern the true and the right?  This is the central philosophical question, and popular social movements (but not academic philosophy departments) have been teaching us the answer: we understand social reality from below.  Marx was the first to demonstrate this, by forging a comprehensive understanding of human history and the capitalist world-economy from the vantage point of the emerging Western European working class, thus moving Western European understanding beyond the conceptions of German philosophy and British political economy, which had been formulated from the vantage point of the bourgeoisie.  The Marxian breakthrough represented a threat to the established world order, inasmuch as it provided the epistemological foundation for the emancipation of the people.  Recognizing this, the dominant class has successfully marginalized the work of Marx.  Moreover, through donations and grants to universities, the dominant class has guided higher education toward a bureaucratization that has ensured that knowledge would not be formulated from below, and that it would be fragmented into specializations.  And so it was left to the charismatic leaders of the socialist revolutions of the world to further develop the insights of Marx, gradually creating a comprehensive understanding of human history and the capitalist world-economy, formulated from below, an understanding that has become a heritage of the popular social movements of the world.

      Inasmuch as the economic, political and cultural system in which we live is a world-system and a world-economy, in seeking to look at reality from below, we must take seriously the vantage point of those who form the dominated and superexploited sector of the entire world-system, and not merely the excluded in a particular nation.  Thus we must examine reality from the vantage point of the colonized.  We must seek to understand the insights of the charismatic leaders who have led the anti-colonial and anti-neocolonial movements formed by the peoples of the Third World during the last 200 years, which have sought to attain both national and social liberation.  In the discourses of leaders lifted up by the people and formed in heroic struggle, the insights from below can be found, enabling us all to discern the central dynamics of the world-system, thereby making possible united liberating political action by the people.

       Global historical consciousness.  What insights can be attained when we take seriously the discourses of the charismatic leaders of the Third World movements for national and social liberation?  Above all there emerges the understanding that the modern world-system and capitalist world-economy were built on a foundation of European conquest and colonial domination of vast regions of America, Africa and Asia; and that the Third World movements for the most part accomplished political independence but not true sovereignty and genuine independence, resulting in a neocolonial world-system in which the essential economic structures of the colonial era are preserved.  Thus, global structures continue to promote the development of the core nations as they promote the underdevelopment of the peripheral nations of the Third World.  

     In addition to enabling understanding of the foundation of the modern world-system, global historical consciousness, acquired through listening to the voices of the neocolonized, enables us to discern that the world-system is no longer sustainable.  Built on a foundation of conquest and expanding for four centuries through the conquest of new lands and peoples, the world-system has run out of lands and peoples to conquer, and thus it is no longer capable of its form of development, skewed to the advantage of the core nations.  It has entered a profound structural crisis, the signs of which have been evident since the 1970s.  This means, as the leaders and movements of the Third World understand, that the world-system must abandon the logic of domination in favor of a logic of cooperation, if is it to attain a new equilibrium.

      Fortified with global historical consciousness, an alternative political party of the Left would be able to delegitimate the ideology of the corporate elite and the strategy of the two political parties allied with it. It would be able to explain to our people that current US foreign policy cannot attain its objective of preserving US domination, because the world-system itself is no longer sustainable on a basis of domination. Aggressive economic and militaristic polices, although based on a certain logic, that of domination, have deepened the global crisis, have increased the decline of the United States, and have placed the earth and humanity at risk, as a consequence of the fact that they are inconsistent with current needs of the world-system.  An alternative direction is not only demanded by our fundamental values; it also is necessary.

     National historical consciousness.  Global historical consciousness helps us to understand our own nation in global context, and it would enable an alternative political party of the Left to debunk the dominant historical narrative of US ideology.  That narrative has many of our people believing that the United States has been a land of opportunity in which many ordinary people, many of them immigrants, experienced upward mobility through hard work.  But looking at US history in global context, we see that the economic ascent during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries of New England and the mid-Atlantic colonies was made possible by a lucrative trading relation with the Caribbean, in which middle class farmers of the English-American colonies sold food and animals to Caribbean slaveholders, who found it most profitable to use sugar income to purchase food and animals, rather than cultivate and raise them on their plantations.  It thus can be seen that the farmers of the English-American colonies, in addition to their work ethic, also possessed a blind eye with respect to the morality of slavery.  Their strategic economic and geographic location, combined with their capacity to be indifferent to the morality of their trading partners, enabled them to become middle class farmers who were accumulating capital.  A similar story would be repeated in the first half of the nineteenth century in a somewhat different form, as slaveholders in the US South sold cotton to northern US industry, inasmuch as the middle class farmers/merchants with accumulating capital were transferring capital into industry.  This North-South core-peripheral economic relation was central to the spectacular ascent of the United States during the nineteenth century.  In understanding the role of these regional economic relations in US commercial and industrial ascent, we see that the industrial expansion of the United States was rooted in slavery, or more precisely, the amoral capacity of upwardly ascending farmers and merchants to engage in lucrative trading relations with slaveholders.

     The rapidly expanding US industry needed factory labor, so the shores of the United States were made open to immigrants, mostly European peasants, during the nineteenth and the first quarter of the twentieth centuries.  These immigrants also experienced upward mobility, benefiting from an expanding national economy, built on slavery, and on an expanding world-economy, based on new European conquests in Africa and Asia.  The factory jobs that the new immigrants could attain, since they were in advanced and new industries in a core nation, were relatively good-paying, and the higher income enabled higher levels of education for the children of the factory workers. Persons of color, however, were excluded from this process of upward mobility, due to customs of racial segregation and job discrimination. Thus, the upward mobility of white immigrants in the United States was made possible not only by slavery but also by patterns of racial discrimination.

     By the time the United States decided to end racial discrimination in employment in 1964, the industrial expansion of the United States was coming to an end, and the world-system was entering a profound structural crisis.  The opportunity window was being closed just as the doors of racial barriers were being opened.  This dynamic made necessary a political will to pay the accumulated social debt to persons of color, in the form of programs of community development, employment, and education.  But the debt was not payed.  To the contrary, the people, both blacks and whites, were abandoned.

     An alternative political party armed with national historical consciousness could educate our people with respect to these basic dynamics.  In doing so, it would delegitimate the dominant ideological discourse. And it would discredit the leaders of the two political parties, who catered to the discourse and to the interests of the corporate elite, for their own gain.  It could call upon the people to cast aside the historically inaccurate narrative and to reject the political parties that have betrayed the nation and the people; and to support an alternative party that has attained, through its commitment to understanding and to justice for the people, a capacity to lead the nation in an alternative direction, in defense of the people.

     Political reflection.  What it is the meaning of democracy?  Elite control of the US political process and US educational institutions and news media has had the consequence that popular reflection on the meaning of democracy has been limited.  An alternative political party of the Left should endeavor to stimulate popular reflection on the concept of democracy, including an analysis of the class, racial and gender dynamics of the American Revolution, and the evolution of these dynamics since 1776.  It could put forth the proposition that democracy includes not only the protection of civil and political rights but also economic and social rights as well as the right of the self-determination and sovereignty of nations.  It could propose constitutional amendments that would guarantee the protection the social and economic rights of citizens, as has been done in new progressive constitutions in Latin America, and that would mandate that US foreign policy respect the sovereignty of other nations.  

      Redefining what a political party is and does.  Taking as an example the efforts of socialist movements and nations to develop popular councils, an alternative party of the Left could seek to form regular meetings among neighbors and co-workers for the purpose of public discussion and dialogue.  It could disseminate reading materials for discussion, taking as its example the publication and distribution of pamphlets during the American Revolution, such as Tom Paine’s Common Sense.  The meetings and reading materials would be the basis not only for the nomination and election of candidates to office at various levels of government, but also for political reflection and for the development of global and national historical consciousness among the people.  The party would be not only an electoral party, but also a social movement organization that educates and organizes the people.

     Taking seriously the mission of taking power.  We in the movements of the Left are so accustomed to our powerlessness and marginality, that often it is difficult for us to internalize the idea that an alternative political party seeks to take political power.  Sometimes we debate among ourselves tactics that seek to pressure those in power to adopt particular measures, losing sight of the fact that the more just and sustainable world that we seek can only be attained when a party of, by and for the people takes power and, once in power, struggles to implement policies that promote the will, interests and needs of the people.  In the Green Party Platform, some of the proposals were put forth in the form of demands to the government.  But we should be consistent and clear on this point.  An alternative political party should not put forth demands.  It should make promises to the people, which will be implemented when the people bring the party to power.

     In order to take power, an alternative political of the Left would have to attain the support of the majority of the people.  Often, the discourse of the Left lacks consideration of what kind of arguments it would take to convince the majority.  It indulges in self-expression, satisfied that it has expressed its views, rather than reflecting on the kind of discourse that would be necessary to attain a majority consensus.  An alternative party of the Left in the United States should be sensitive to the fact that many of our people have conservative values with respect to religiosity, marriage and sexuality.  These are private and personal matters, and governments and social movements should respect such views and should interfere with them only when they violate rights, and in these cases, with sensitivity.  With respect to reproductive rights, for example, the discourse of the Left should affirm the right of abortion in a form that is sensitive to those who believe that abortion is morally wrong.  It should explain that society has no option but to uphold the right of each woman to make a difficult decision without state interference, even as it affirms the right of persons and organization to be opposed to and to teach against abortion.  It could propose full public support for all available options, without intending to promote either abortion or adoption, and it could commit itself to the development of a kind of society that provides support to all parents in the difficult and important task of child-rearing.  Similarly, with respect to gay rights, the party should affirm the rights of all to select partners, without suffering discrimination or exclusion; but the party should be careful to avoid the appearance of celebrating a lifestyle that some define as sinful, or of denigrating those with more conservative views. In all issues that have the potential to divide our people, an alternative party of the Left should seek to defend what is right in a form that is sensitive to the values of our people, recognizing that, if it is going to take power, it cannot afford to alienate the people. Progressive social goals, standing in opposition to the interests of the corporations, cannot possibly be attained if the people are divided, and the discourse of progressive movements must be formulated with sensitivity in relation to issues that divide our people.

     Popular coalition.  The people of the United States are characterized by ethnic, class, occupational, religious and gender diversity.  All of our people in their diversity have formed organizations that seek to protect and defend their basic rights.  An alternative party of the Left must actively seek coalition with the various organizations that our people have formed, always being careful in its discourse to adopt language that is fully inclusive, and does not offend any the sectors of our people.  The discourse of an alternative party of the Left should be offensive only to the corporations and to the one percent who want to preserve special privileges.  

     An alternative political party of the Left that redefines what a political party is, that leads a coalition of popular organizations, and that educates the people toward an alternative national and global historical narrative is attainable.  The current economic decline of the nation and the structural crisis of the world-system establish conditions favorable to fascism, but they also strengthen the possibilities for an alternative party of the Left that is rooted in philosophical, historical and scientific understanding as well as the fundamental values of modern democratic revolutions, and that, as a result of the exemplary commitment of its leaders, is able to earn the trust and confidence of the people.

     The Green Party could evolve to be such a party.  But in order to do so, it has to recognize its current limitations.  It has to turn for help to those who could assist it to move to a more advanced stage, for the good of the people and the nation.

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     The Green Party Platform reflects limited understanding of the historical development of global structures of domination.  This limitation is a consequence of a subtle form of Eurocentrism, in which we intellectuals and activists of the developed world do not seek to learn from the leaders and intellectuals of the Third World, whose social position as colonized provides the social foundation for understanding structures of domination.

     The limited historical consciousness and subtle Eurocentrism of the Green Party Platform is manifest throughout the document and in various ways.  (1) It scarcely mentions colonialism, neocolonialism and imperialism, and it provides no evidence of awareness of the central tenet of the Third World perspective, namely, the colonial and neocolonial foundation of the world-system.  It makes specific recommendations with respect to a few Third World nations (Iran, Palestine, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Kurdistan and Hawaii) which more or less point to a progressive agenda in foreign affairs, and it vaguely calls for cooperation with all the world; but it falls far short of explaining the need for a redirection of US foreign policy toward North-South cooperation.

     (2)  The Green Party Platform demonstrates limited awareness of the great struggles for national and social liberation that have propelled the peoples of the Third World for the last 100 years.  It does not mention the Chinese Revolution, the Vietnamese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, the Sandinista Revolution, and the Bolivarian Revolution, all of which have had significant impact on the foreign policy of the United States and the consciousness of the popular movements in the United States.  It calls for democratic reform of the United Nations, without acknowledging that this is an historic and contemporary demand of the Third World project.  It advocates reform of Free-Trade Agreements, without recognizing that progressive and Leftist Latin American governments have been developing alternatives to FTAs and have been pursuing a strategy of South-South cooperation in a quest for a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system.

    (3) The Green Party Platform displays a stunning lack of historical consciousness with respect to the United States.  It offers a couple of cryptic comments with respect to US history: “Our nation was born as the first great experiment in modern democracy;” and “Historically, America led the world in establishing a society with democratic values such as equal opportunity and protection from discrimination.”  It makes no effort to analyze the class, race and gender limitations of the American Revolution nor the evolution of these dynamics from 1776 to 1980.  It considers that belief in white supremacy was the cause of slavery, without understanding that African slavery in the Caribbean, Brazil and the US South was an economically-motivated integral structure of European colonial domination, and that racism emerged as a justification of this global political domination and economic superexploitation.  

     (4) The Green Party Platform demonstrates a limited understanding of US imperialism.  It rejects US neoliberal policies since 1980, without appreciating that imperialist penetration of foreign lands has been central to US policy since the beginning of the twentieth century, a consequence of its arrival to the stage of monopoly capital.  The Platform makes no effort to analyze neoliberalism as a new stage of imperialism; or as a neo-fascist violation of the tenets of imperialism that is rooted in the profound structural crisis of the world-system.  It treats contemporary problems as a consequence of the post-1980 neoliberal turn, without appreciating that they have long and deep historic roots.

     In addition to being ahistorical and Eurocentric, the Green Party Platform is decidedly unreflective.  It calls upon the people “to think deeply about the meaning of government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” but it does not provide leadership in reflecting on the meaning of democracy.  It merely proposes citizen participation, with apparent unawareness of alternative structures of popular democracy that have been developed in Cuba and in other nations.

      Consistent with its ahistorical, Eurocentric and unphilosophical perspective, the Platform presents the Green Party as an alternative to capitalism and socialism, without reflecting on the development of socialism in Third World nations for the last 100 years, and especially its manifestations in such nations as China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Egypt, Tanzania, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. The Platform displays a distrust of the state, without appreciating that a strong state, controlled by delegates of the people and acting decisively in the interests of the people, is the key to checking the power of large transnational corporations, as the history of Third World socialism shows.

     The Green Party Platform rightly affirms the fundamentals: the right of all nations to self-determination and sovereignty; the social and economic rights of all citizens of the United States and the world; the need for ecological sustainability; the principal of gender equality; and the importance of a reduction of US military expenditures.  But in order for an alternative political party to arrive to political power, it must obtain the support of the people, which would require it to demonstrate an understanding of the sources of the serious problems that the nation and humanity confront.  For in demonstrating such understanding, the Party would be showing to the people its capacity to lead the nation in a more positive direction.  And it would be showing its moral commitment, because no party could arrive to such understanding without the strong moral commitment of its leaders. Fortified by an evident understanding of historical and social dynamics and by fidelity to fundamental moral principles, such a party would be capable of earning the confidence and the support of the people.  This possibility for the evolution of the Green Party will be the subject of my next post. 

      On the CNN Green town hall, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein suggested that there was little difference between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.  She expressed concern for Trump’s words, but equal concern for Clinton’s actions, focusing especially on the former Secretary of State’s role in wars and military interventions in the Middle East.  She lamented the line of argument in favor of choosing the lesser evil, for it prevents us from voting in accordance with our values.

      I maintain that there is a significant difference between Clinton and Trump, and that all progressives should come together in an anti-Trump movement in support of the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Reflecting on the difference between liberalism and fascism, I have arrived to the conclusion that the Democratic Party has actively participated in the national turn since 1980 from liberalism to a new form of fascism with respect to foreign affairs, but not with respect to domestic affairs.  Meanwhile, the discourse of Trump implies, although not consistently, a continuation of fascism in the international arena, and a turn to fascism in domestic affairs.

     Both liberalism and fascism are forms of capitalist-class domination, and both have emerged as projects with global projections.  They differ with respect to strategies of domination.  The central global strategy of liberalism is domination of other lands through imperialism, a policy that seeks to economically, financially and ideologically penetrate other national economies with the support and cooperation of their national bourgeoisies and their governments.  Liberalism provides military support to cooperative governments throughout the world, including military governments, with the expectation that these governments will maintain control of their populations, including its radical and revolutionary sectors, through a combination of reformist concessions and repression.  Liberal policy dictates that direct military intervention by the core powers should be used only as a last resort.  Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to this restraint on military invention as being a “good neighbor.”

     For the most part, liberalism was the international policy of the United States from the 1890s to 1980.  Prior to the collapse of the European colonial empires, the United States, as an ascending power with a dramatically expanding economy, increasingly was able to economically and financially penetrate independent but poor nations, without having political control.  During the first half of the twentieth century, the United States increasingly projected itself as a global power that represented a progressive alternative to the European colonial empires.  The United States emerged from World War II as the global hegemonic power in a world that was in transition to a neocolonial world-system.  As the dominant economic power, the United States was able to economically, financially and ideologically penetrate formally independent nations of the Third World.

     Whereas liberalism is a viable international policy for a hegemonic nation with a decisive productive, commercial and financial advantage over other core nations, like the United States from 1946 to 1973, fascism is a more viable strategy for a core nation without such advantage.  In its classic twentieth century form, fascism involves the military seizing of control of the forces of production, commerce and banking, and the placing of them under military government control. Accordingly, fascism requires only military advantage, and not productive, commercial and financial advantage.  

     The United States began to lose its productive, commercial and financial advantage during the 1970s.  There were various factors that drove this phenomenon, including overspending in the military and insufficient investment in new forms of production as well as spending in excess of productive capacity.  Such hegemonic decline has been a normal tendency in the world-system, as hegemonic core powers spend in self-destructive ways that reflect and seek to maintain hegemony, whereas other core powers are more dedicated to improving their productive capacity in order to catch up.

     Beginning in 1980, the American power elite responded to the declining economic position of the United States by using its control of international financial institutions to impose neoliberal economic policies on the world.  The neoliberal turn violated the rules of imperialism and the neocolonial world-system.  Neoliberalism took away the limited national autonomy permitted by neocolonialism, thus undermining the economic interests of the national bourgeoisie and erecting greater barriers to the true sovereignty of the formerly colonized nations of the world (see “The characteristics of neocolonialism” 9/16/2013 as well as “IMF & USA attack the Third World project” 7/29/2016).  With its increasing control of the international media of information, the global elite presented this new phase of aggression by the core powers as a new era of democracy and free trade.
     
     The neoliberal turn was a short-term fix.  It facilitated the flow of capital from neocolonies to the core.  But the influx was not used to address the productive and commercial decline of the nation, so the United States continued its relative economic decline.  At the same time, it was clearly maintaining its military advantage, becoming more and more dependent on military spending and the military-industrial complex.  The combination of increasing military strength and declining economic capacity relative to other core nations made logical a turn to a foreign policy increasingly characterized by the direct military seizing of economic advantage through wars of aggression.  The neoconservatives grasped this logic, and they seized the attacks of September 11, 2001 as an opportunity for an ideological turn to greater militarism in foreign affairs.  An endless and all-embracing war against terrorism became an ideological frame for US foreign policy.  

      The turn to neoliberal global economic warfare, wars of aggression, and military interventions represents a definitive break with the neocolonial system, and it marks a turn from liberalism toward fascism.  Like classical fascism, it involves cooperation between the state and the bourgeoisie.  But it is a new form of fascism, in that transnational corporations have a stronger position in the alliance, and it is presented as a model of corporate control rather than state control.  

     Today’s liberals, well represented in the Green Party, reject this turn to a new form of fascism.  They yearn for an earlier purer era in which the United States maintained its dominance of the world-system and pursued its imperialist policies in the context of a world-system that pretended to respect the sovereignty of nations.  Even national elites of the great majority of formerly colonized nations participated in the pretense, giving it an apparent legitimacy, at least among the peoples of the core nations, who for the most part could not hear the protests of the popular movements of the Third World.  Liberals would like to somehow return to the pre-1980, pre-neoliberal, less militaristic and apparently more democratic world.

     Democratic presidential administrations have fully participated in the post-1980 turn from liberalism to neo-fascism in international affairs.  In this sense, the Green Party presidential candidate is right: there is not a great difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties with respect to foreign policy.  Both parties have responded to the US economic decline with increasing militarism.  Both are specialists in identifying external enemies in order to justify enormous military expenditures and constant preparedness for wars of aggression and military interventions.

      But what is the difference between liberalism and fascism in domestic affairs, and what does Trump’s discourse imply in this regard?  In the domestic arena, liberalism seeks to seduce the people through modest material rewards and ideological manipulation; whereas fascism uses force, violence, fear and repression.  Liberalism permits us to say and write anything we want, and to form any organizations to promote our values.  The corporate class has control of the public discourse through domination of the political leadership, the mass media and the educational system; therefore, it is confident that few of the people will give a serious hearing to radical organizations with an alternative agenda.  Liberalism for the most part does not imprison leaders of organizations promulgating an alternative direction for the nation, believing that they are not a threat to the established liberal, neocolonial and imperialist order.

      But there is no doubt that our people today are ill at ease, anxious as a result of developments that they do not understand, including the increasing political instability of the world-system and the continuing productive and commercial decline of the United States.  As a result, they could be more receptive to reasoned explanations of the possibilities for a more dignified nation and more just world, if they were to be presented with such a well-founded and well-presented alternative project.  At the same time, they are increasingly vulnerable to cunning messages that tap into their fears and anxieties.

     I have written in previous posts of the importance of Charismatic Leaders in revolutions.  Charismatic leaders are exceptional persons, gifted in their capacity to understand, with a profound commitment to moral principles and an unwavering fidelity to the people.  The charismatic leaders of revolutions are the prophets of our era, defending the cause of justice for the oppressed and the poor.  But there are other voices that emerge to influence the people in times of crisis.  These false leaders or false prophets are the opposite of charismatic leaders.  Whereas the charismatic leader has the capacity to appeal to the hopes and dreams of the people, the false leader appeals to the fears and anxieties of the people.
 
     Donald Trump is a master at the invention of messages that connect to the fears and anxieties of the people.  He has successfully exploited: popular anxiety that the government is not responding adequately to an uncontrolled immigration that is perceived as a threat to employment; a sense of loss among the people with respect to a national decline in traditional values pertaining to marriage, sexuality and religiosity; popular feeling that the nation has lost the power that it had in the world for most of the twentieth century, especially in the period 1946 to 1963; and a popular sentiment that the criminal justice system is too soft on criminals and not sufficiently supportive of police. As I have listened to soundbites of Trump’s discourses on television, I frequently have found myself saying, “This guy is on to something; he knows how to connect to the sentiments, fears and anxieties of our people.”  In my view, his only real slip-up was when he got into a polemic with the Islamic and immigrant parents of a US soldier killed in the line of duty, for in this case his anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant discourse was offending another deeply-felt popular sentiment, namely, patriotism and support for our troops in foreign lands.  

    If Trump arrives to power through a discourse that exploits popular fears and anxieties, what would be the next step?  Will there be arrests of leaders of progressive organizations, claiming that these organizations are supporting terrorism?  Will there be arrests of all persons considered socialist, under the pretext that these organizations are a threat to national security?  Will there be arrests of leaders of black organizations, with the pretense that they are preparing for an armed assault on police?  Will there be mass arrests of homosexuals, claiming that they undermine the moral fabric of the nations?  Such actions could be supported by significant numbers of the people, if manipulated into a frenzy by distortions of facts. Although the Green Party Platform condemns the increase in government surveillance of the people since September 11, 2001, Greens should not lose sight of the fact that surveillance is one thing; mass arrests, organized gang violence, and selective assassinations are another. We would be naïve to think that what has occurred since September 11 in the United States is anywhere near what could occur as the national and global crisis deepens, or what in fact occurred in Nazi Germany or in US-backed military dictatorships in Latin America. 

    Although it is difficult for many progressives to vote for Hillary Clinton because of her participation in what I describe as the turn to neo-fascism with respect to foreign policy, we must keep in mind that she and the Democratic Party remain committed to liberalism with respect to domestic affairs.  Although the Democratic Party has participated in the increased vigilance of citizens since September 11, it does not indulge in the scapegoating of racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual minorities or immigrants, as does Trump.  The rise to power of Hitler in the 1930s teaches us that scapegoating can be a precursor to policies of repression that could include large-scale arrests of leaders and the closing of progressive organizations and alternative media, nullifying freedoms of speech, press and organization and forcing many persons into exile.  Although the Democratic Party will continue to embrace global neo-fascism, there is little sign that it wants to turn to a new form of fascism on the domestic front.  On the contrary, it constantly invokes the discourse of inclusion, tolerance, diversity and multiculturalism.  It appears to be seeking a popular consensus on a balance of global neo-fascism and domestic liberalism

      The bourgeois freedoms of speech, press, and association, for the most part protected in the United States, fall far short of implying a truly democratic society.  But they are important rights.  In Latin America, after the fall of the military dictatorship and the transition to representative democracy, popular organizations were able to take advantage of these rights to form new political parties that were able to take power and redirect the domestic and foreign policies of their nations.  We in the United States must appreciate the importance of these rights, and we must act decisively to reject any discourse or candidate that implies a possible threat to them.  They are the foundation of our future emancipation, and they are an important national constitutional heritage that we have the duty to preserve.

     We also should keep in mind the limitations of the Green Party. Although strong enough to effect the outcome of the presidential election in key electoral college states, it does not have any possibility of influencing US policy after the elections, regardless of who wins.  

     Taking into account the importance of the preservation of constitutional rights, the possible threat to them implied by the discourse of Trump, and the impossibility of the Green Party to emerge as a serious political actor through the 2016 elections, the Green Party presidential candidate should withdraw, and call upon her supporters to vote for Clinton.  This would be the most honorable conduct at the moment, and therefore it would contribute to the strengthening of the Green Party in the long term, especially if done in a form that makes a reasoned and eloquent explanation and appeal to the people.  At this stage in its development, the progress of the Green Party is not measured by the percentage of votes that it receives in a presidential election, but by its capacity: to develop structures of popular education, including the identification and development of effective teaching strategies and materials; to expand its number of active local organizations, including projects of social action and popular education;  and to elect candidates at various levels, with the election of representatives to the US Congress being especially important, which ought to be a definite possibility in districts with high percentages of blacks, Latinos, and/or Native Americans.  At this stage, the most important function of a presidential candidate is not to garner votes, but to establish a presence in the public discourse.

     Independent of its conduct in the 2016 elections, the Green Party has much work to be done before it can present itself as a serious alternative to corporate liberalism in transition to fascism.  Its platform reflects what could be called white US liberalism or perhaps bourgeois liberalism.  The Green Party Platform is ahistorical, unphilosophical, and Eurocentric.  It demonstrates that the Green Party does not yet have sufficient understanding to redirect the foreign policy of the United States toward a necessary cooperation with the nations of Latin America and the Third World in the development of a just, democratic and sustainable world-system.  These are themes that I will pursue in the following posts.


Key words: Green Party, Jill Stein, Hillary Clinton, 2016 elections

     On August 13, Harry Targ published in his blog, “The Diary of a Heartland Radical,” a post in commemoration of the ninetieth birthday of Fidel, entitled “Fidel Castro at 90: US-Cuban Relations, the Road Ahead.”

     Historical consciousness is of fundamental importance for understanding the issues that we today confront, and as is typical of his posts, Harry provides an overview of Cuban history and the history of US-Cuban relations.  And he demonstrates an appreciation of the fidelity of the revolution led by Fidel to the Cuban movement for national and social liberation and to the promise to the people made in conjunction with the attack on Moncada barracks of July 26, 1953.

      However, I have two critical comments with respect to Harry’s post.  First, I believe that we intellectuals of the Left in the United States must educate our people concerning the colonial foundations of the present-day world-economy.  In this respect, Harry’s description of colonialism and neocolonialism is insufficient, for it does not touch upon the economic structures developed during the colonial process. This is fundamental to our understanding of the world-economy today, for colonial economic structures are still in place and continue to create development in the West and underdevelopment in the Third World. And this is central to understanding the Cuba, for the Cuban Revolution seeks to transform global economic structures as a necessary precondition for the true sovereignty of the formerly colonized nations.  (See various posts on the Origin and Development of the World-System and on Neocolonialism; see also “Cuba: The historical and global context” 6/12/2014; “Cuba and the United States” 6/13/2014).

      Secondly, as I have expressed in a previous post (“The role of US intellectuals, Part I” 8/5/2015), I am not in agreement with Harry’s characterization of the new economic and social model that has been unfolding in Cuba since 2012.  Harry believes that the “economic reforms” promote “work-place democracy” and “empower workers.”  In my view, this is a misreading of current Cuban dynamics, invoking a rhetoric that one scarcely hears in Cuba.  The new model has been formulated by the party as a response to the growing dissatisfaction among the people with respect to the material standing of living, a phenomenon that has emerged as a consequence of two significant trends since the early 1990s, namely, international tourism and economically-motivated emigration.  Both trends are results of the economic adjustments made necessary by the collapse of the socialist bloc, and both imply an increasing concrete awareness among the people of the standard of living of the developed economies of the North, establishing in popular imagination a reference point that is impossible for an historically underdeveloped nation to duplicate.

      In the current debate in Cuba, “workplace democracy” is not the issue.  Quite the contrary, since 1959, the development of mass organization and structures of popular power have created structures for the empowerment of the people, including workers, all of whom are organized in the Confederation of Workers of Cuba.  The problem is that the control by workers and by the people of structures that themselves have control over limited resources can be very satisfying and fulfilling to some of the people, because of the opportunities for leadership that they provide; but not for many of the people, especially those whose perspective is focused on material goods.

      So the people have said that the standard of living ought to be higher, and hearing this, the party is searching for ways to improve the productive capacity of the nation.  The new model is developing various strategies to improve production, including the development of cooperatives, which Harry applauds, but also including a relaxing of some restrictions of foreign investment as well as the expansion of small-scale private enterprise, which Harry does not applaud.

      Harry and many of his colleagues of the Radical Philosophy Association, who have sponsored interchanges in Cuba for more than twenty years, champion the development of cooperatives, and they call upon all those in solidarity with Cuba to support the cooperatives and the work-place democracy that they represent, seeing them as an alternative to the private entrepreneurship in Cuba that the Obama administration is supporting.  The Radical Philosophy Association and the Obama Administration are in a battle for the soul of Cuba, the former proclaiming “cooperatives,” and the latter providing financial support for private enterprise.

      Both the Radical Philosophy Association and Obama believe that the private enterprise being promoted in Cuba by the party and the government contradicts or potentially undermines Cuban socialism.   But this is a mistaken belief, because it is small-scale private enterprise, and it is being developed in the context of socialist principles, such as: an economic and social plan directed by the state; a significant level of state-owned enterprises; strong state intervention in the economy; the control of the media by the state; and the overwhelming predominance of socialist consciousness at all levels of the educational system.  Recognition of various forms of property in a socialist economy is one of the basic principles of the new forms of socialism that have been emerging in Latin America, proclaimed as “socialism for the twenty-first century.”  

      We also should question if anyone from the United States, whether it be the Radical Philosophy Association or Obama, has the moral authority to offer guidelines for the future development of the Cuban nation.  Few of the Left would doubt that the Obama administration is imperialist and ethnocentric, arrogantly believing that the United States has the right to shape the structures of the world.  But what should be said of US Leftists who believe that they know the correct road for the future of socialist Cuba?  I am reminded of what a Cuban academic said to me a number of years ago: “The worst imperialists are the Leftists.”

      I believe that we US Leftist intellectuals must acknowledge that socialist and progressive movements in the United States have accomplished far less than their counterparts in Latin America, and especially the Cuban Revolution; and that we in the United States have much to learn from progressive and socialist movements in Latin America.  Rather than supporting tendencies within Latin American movements that are consistent with our conception of socialism, we should be oriented to studying the strategies of the Latin American movements, understanding how they accomplished as much as they have, and trying to figure out what this might mean for strengthening socialist or progressive movements in the United States.  We socialists and progressives in the United States do not have the experiential foundation for formulating socialist concepts to be recommended to other nations, especially since the fall of the Revolution of 1968 during the 1970s.

     Harry’s concluding recommendations reveals the limitations of a perspective that has not learned from Latin American examples, where Leftist intellectuals and activists formed alternative political parties that have taken power.  Harry calls upon activists and solidarity organizations to continue with their efforts in pressuring Congress to end the blockade of Cuba and in educating the people with respect to Cuba.  Harry seems to imagine the possibility of US Leftists contributing to the empowerment of workers in Cuba, but not the possibility of the empowerment of the people of the United States.


Key words:  Cuba, socialism, cooperatives, Harry Targ

     Fidel Castro is 90 years old today, August 13, 2016.

     Fidel has a special place in modern history as a defender of the oppressed, as a person with such deep respect for moral principles that he could never accept the proposition that they were impossible to implement.  He has constantly and persistently acted on the premise that a different and more just and sustainable world is possible.  

     He led a revolution that came to power through armed struggle, forcing the tyrannical dictator to flee the country.  But once in power, it turned military barracks into schools, committed to the principle that education was the most powerful arm that a people and a nation could possess.

     He directed a revolution that was anti-imperialist, totally rejecting the continuous imperialist policies of the United States.  But it was not a revolution that cultivated hatred toward the United States.  From the earliest days of its taking of power, it constantly has been open to dialogue with the United States, and it has called for a negotiation of differences on a basis of mutual respect.
 
     He forged a patriotic revolution that above all else defended the sovereignty of Cuba.  But it respected the sovereignty of all nations.  A just and sustainable world, it understood, could only be built on a foundation of solidarity among all nations and peoples.  

     He came of age in the context of a corrupt and ignominious neocolonial republic, shaped from its beginnings to serve US imperialist interests.  He developed a thorough knowledge of the events and important figures of Cuban history.  Reading on his own as an adolescent about the nationalist wars and social movements against colonial Spain and the neocolonial United States, he developed not an abstract historical perspective, but a concrete interpretation rooted in the practical needs of the people and the nation.  He read and appreciated the nineteenth century Cuban revolutionary José Martí, interpreting him from the vantage point of the popular movements during the neocolonial republic.

     He developed his political consciousness at a time when Western Marxism had fallen into Eurocentrism.  Reading on his own as a university student the works of Marx, Engels and Lenin, he fashioned a reconstruction of Marxism-Leninism from the perspective of the neocolonized.  Synthesizing the works of Marx and Lenin with the teachings and writings of Martí, his speeches establish an important advance in Marxist-Leninist theory (see “Fidel adapts Marxism-Leninism to Cuba” 9/9/2014).

     He developed an understanding of Marxism that rejected dogma and reductionism.  He formulated an ethical and humanist revitalization of Marxism, in which socialism is understood as constructed by persons with consciousness, possessing a new mentality.  The cultural formation of the person, able to read and to think, is the essence of the socialist revolution.

     He has been described as a military genius.  He created and directed a guerrilla army that overthrew the US-backed military dictator in twenty-five months; and he directed the defense against the US-supported invasion at the Bay of Pigs, overcoming the invading force in seventy-two hours.  From Havana, he directed Cuban troops in Angola, a successful campaign against South African troops that protected the independence of Angola and ultimately led to the fall of apartheid.

     As he led the Cuban Revolution, he repeatedly demonstrated an exceptional mastery of the art of politics.  (1) In 1953, he discerned the need for dramatic action, moving beyond verbal protest.  Accordingly, he led an attack on the Moncada military barracks, galvanizing the people to heroic political action, and opening a new stage in the Cuban Revolution.  (2) He was sensitive to the concrete needs of the people, and he formulated a program that responded to their specific grievances, proclaimed in conjunction with the Moncada attack.  (3) He appreciated the need to educate the people in stages, bringing them to socialist consciousness only after concrete popular needs had been addressed.  (4) He saw the importance of popular unity, and he possessed the capacity to unify the various popular currents, combining flexibility with a persuasive presence.  (5) He understood the need for the revolutionary government to take decisive steps in defense of the people, even when they provoke the hostility of the national bourgeoisie and the neocolonial hegemonic power.  (See “Moncada: a great and heroic act” 9/2/2014; “The Moncada program for the people” 9/5/2014; “Reflections on “History will absolve me” 9/8/2014; “Fidel adapts Marxism-Leninism to Cuba” 9/9/2014; “Unifying the Cuban revolutionary process” 9/17/2014; “The pluralism of revolutionary unity” 9/18/2014; “Decisive revolutionary steps of 1959” 9/22/2014; “The Agrarian Reform Law of 1959” 9/23/2014; “The defining moment of the Cuban Revolution” 9/24/2014).

     In the 1960s, understanding the importance of scientific knowledge in social and economic development, Fidel initiated a process of national commitment to the development of science and to the formation of scientists, which would continue to unfold for the next fifty years, with very impressive results today.  From the outset, Fidel had a vision of developing scientific research and knowledge in response to health needs, and not driven by the market.  And he has had an integral vision of health, seeing human health as connected to animal health, and seeing the connection of both to nature.  A variety of research and teaching centers have been developed, including such fields as biotechnology, nanotechnology, genetic medicine, minimum access surgery, and computer and informational sciences.  He has been constantly present in the development of new centers and on anniversary celebrations, thanking the scientists and researchers for their work, inquiring concerning the latest discoveries, making suggestions, and in general demonstrating the commitment of the Cuban revolution to scientific development.

      In 1970s, appreciating the limitations of representative democracy, Fidel led the nation in the development of alternative structures of popular democracy (see “Cuba, United States, and human rights” 4/9/2015).  He recognized the need for the eventual replacement of his personal leadership with that of a vanguard, and he thus led the development of a new communist party, uniting three revolutionary parties, which ultimately would function to lead the revolutionary process.  

     In the early 1980s, as the global powers turned to neoliberalism, Fidel called upon the nations of the Third World to be faithful to their historic project of national and social liberation.  Working with a team of Cuban economists and speaking as Chair of the Non-Aligned Movement, he presented an analysis of the crisis of the world-economy.  He maintained that the crisis is rooted in fundamental structures established during European colonial domination of the world, but US economic policies during the 1960s and the 1970s deepened the crisis.  US policies had negative consequences for the world-economy as well as the US economy, and they had disastrous consequences for the Third World.  He maintained that inflation (caused by US spending beyond its productive capacity), the elimination of the gold standard for the dollar, a US monetary policy of high interest rates, declining terms of trade, and declining investment in production had catastrophic consequences for the Third World, leading to a dramatic growth in the Third World external debt. Moreover, the external debt, combined with the increasing power of transnational corporations, constituted a serious threat to the sovereignty of Third World nations.  At the same time, rather than recognizing their responsibility in creating a global crisis, the global powers and the transnational corporations took advantage of the weakened position of the Third World to impose their own ideology and economic policy, seeking short-term profits.  In response to this situation, Fidel called upon the nations of the Third World to struggle for cancellation of the Third World debt, for fundamental structural change in the world-economy, and for a more just world-system.  He advocated strong action by Third World states, seeking diversification of production, the development of high technology industries, and mutually beneficial trade among the nations of the Third World, thus breaking the core-peripheral relation between the Third World and the developed capitalist economies (see “Fidel speaks on the global crisis, 1983” 7/25/2016; “Fidel proposes new global structures, 1983” 7/27/2016).

     In the early 1990s, with the collapse of the socialist bloc, Fidel led the Cuban nation in the development of an autonomous structural adjustment plan, demonstrating how to make economic adjustments without sacrificing commitment to moral principles and without abandoning the people (see “The Cuban structural adjustment plan” 8/1/2016).  As the Cuban economy recovered, he led the nation in developing strong ties with the progressive and Leftist governments that symbolized the new political reality in Latin America in the early twenty-first century.

     During the five decades in which he was the active leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel was constantly committed to a society based on human knowledge and creativity and on social justice; a society in which everyone has the right to learn and to develop, no one should be abandoned, and the most vulnerable should be protected.  But in addition to moral commitment, Fidel has demonstrated an advanced understanding of the dynamics of the world-system.  With an integral historical and global perspective, formulated from the vantage point of the neocolonized, Fidel’s capacity for understanding surpassed that of the overwhelming majority of historians, social scientists and philosophers.  At the same time, he repeatedly demonstrated mastery of the art of politics, discerning the strategies necessary for the attainment of social and political goals.

       These qualities are exceptional; beyond what one would think possible for a human being.  Observing this for more than twenty years, I could not fail to recall my university study of Max Weber’s typology of three forms of authority, and his description of charismatic persons who possess authority on the basis of their exceptional qualities.  Moreover, as I studied revolutions in other lands, I could not help but observe that triumphant revolutions often were led by persons with exceptional understanding, extraordinary commitment to social justice, and uncommon mastery of the art of politics.  So I have concluded that Fidel represents the general phenomenon of the emergence of charismatic leaders in revolutionary processes, who include Toussaint, Lenin, Ho, Mao, Chávez, and others.  (See various posts in the category of Charismatic Leaders).  

      After his retirement in January 2009, Fidel was no longer constantly present.  But he has continued to be present in an important way, writing articles periodically that were published in Cuban newspapers as “Reflections of Fidel.”  Among other themes, his reflections expressed support for the new Leftist tendencies in Latin America, conveyed concern for the ecological balance of the earth, and condemned the neofascist wars and the movement toward a global military dictatorship.  

      By the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century, the Communist Party of Cuba was ready for its vanguard mission. Composed of committed persons who have developed an advanced understanding, party members are highly respected by the people, and they are intellectually and morally prepared to lead.  In November 2010, the party presented guidelines for a new economic and social policy, responding to the desires of the people and the unfolding national and international economic situation.  After significant modification of the proposal through an extensive popular consultation, the new model was approved by the National Assembly in 2012.  The party today is leading the people in the implementation and development of the new economic and social model.  Thus, one can observe today in Cuba what can be described as the institutionalization of charismatic authority through the creation of a vanguard political party that bases its theory and practice on the teachings of the charismatic leader, the historic leader of the revolution from 1953 to 2009.

     Fidel has appeared from time to time to give his support to the development of the new social and economic model, which is principally designed to increase national production in order to improve the standard of living of the people.  He has praised party members for their intelligent and active participation in the process, and he particularly has noted the impressive capacities of young leaders that have been formed by the revolution.  “I am confident,” he proclaimed, “that the youth of Cuba will fulfill its duty.”

     There is a special bond of affection between Fidel and the Cuban people.  But Fidel is especially appreciated by Cuban intellectuals, artists, and scientists, who analyze his special capacities from the vantage point of their professions and fields of study.  Fidel also is appreciated by well-known intellectuals of Europe and Latin America, such as the French journalist Ignacio Ramonet, the Argentinian social analyst Atilio Borón, and the Brazilian intellectual and Dominican priest Frei Betto, who have had opportunity to observe his exceptional capacities.

     In the days leading up to the anniversary of the ninetieth birthday of Fidel Castro, there has been a clamor that the major media of communication has not heard.  It is the proclamation of popular organizations throughout the world, declaring: “Thank you, Fidel, for your commitment; thank you for your defense of the people; and in the context of a world increasingly turning to barbarity, thank you for your fidelity to moral principles.”  

     Thank you, Fidel.

​

Posted August 3, 2016

     World-system structures, forged by the European colonial powers from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, are characterized by the exportation of raw materials from peripheral zones, on a base of forced and low-waged labor; and by the exportation from the core of industrial manufactured goods.  In reaction to the underdevelopment and poverty that resulted from world-system structures, anti-colonial popular movements emerged in the peripheralized regions, and they were able to forge independent states.  But the newly independent nations confronted various economic and political obstacles to the transformation of the core-peripheral relation (see various posts on the origin and development of the world-system; see also posts in the category neocolonialism).      
 
     In Latin America, independent republics were established during the period 1810 to 1825, but during the period 1850 to 1900, British and US control of commerce facilitated semi-colonialism.  During the twentieth century, US imperialist policies made possible a more complete commercial, financial and ideological penetration of Latin America, creating a more developed system of neocolonialism under US hegemony.  During this entire period of semi-colonialism and neocolonialism, raw materials flowed from the region, as they had during the period of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism (see various posts on the Latin American history as well as “The characteristics of neocolonialism” 9/16/2013).

     In the case of Venezuela, petroleum surged as the principal raw material export during the period of 1917 to 1960.  The petroleum companies were foreign owned and largely unregulated.  As the result, the Venezuelan state received little income from petroleum, and the benefits to the economy and the people of Venezuela were minimal. During the period, a popular movement emerged to demand greater national control of the petroleum industry.  After 1960, this became the prominent popular demand, such that the period of the 1960s and 1970s is known as the era of petroleum nationalism, in which the people were demanding that the state maximize its income from the exportation of petroleum.  During the period, the management of the companies became increasingly Venezuelan, as the foreign companies sought to respond to the demands of the popular movement and ensure political stability.  A gradual and cooperative transition to Venezuelan state ownership was unfolding.  

     Petroleum nationalism culminated in the nationalization of the petroleum industry and the formation of a state-owned petroleum company (Petróleos de Venezuela, Sociedad Anónima, or PDVSA) in 1976.  Inasmuch as the companies were under Venezuelan management by 1976, the nationalization changed ownership from international petroleum companies to the Venezuelan state, but it did not change the management of the companies in Venezuela.  And inasmuch as the Venezuelans that managed the companies had been socialized into the norms and values of the international petroleum companies and had internalized the perspective of international capital, the 1976 nationalization of the companies had little effect on their behavior.  PDVSA adapted itself to the neocolonial world-system, exploiting petroleum in accordance with the norms and interests of the international petroleum industry, rather than utilizing the petroleum industry as an integral part of a development plan for the nation.

     After nationalization, the Venezuelan state relaxed its oversight of the petroleum companies, believing that the industry was now under national control.   However, this was not really the case, as Venezuelan managers were directing PDVSA from the perspective of the international petroleum companies.  By creating a false impression of national control of the industry, nationalization had the consequence of creating more autonomy for the petroleum industry.  

      Like the foreign owned oil companies in other neocolonized countries, PDVSA sought to reduce payments to the Venezuelan state. Accordingly, PDVSA adopted a strategy of channeling surpluses to investments in production and sales, thus minimizing profits and corresponding payments to the state.  

     In the 1980s, PDVSA internationalized its investments in production and sales.  It bought refineries and distributorships in other countries in order to transfer surpluses out of the country, thus avoiding payments to the Venezuelan state.  

     With the turn to neoliberalism in 1989, the government of Venezuela greatly reduced its regulation of foreign investment in all branches of commerce, industry and finances.   With respect to the oil industry, PDVSA was given responsibility for supervising the “opening” of the country to foreign investment.  Under PDVSA supervision, many international petroleum companies formed joined ventures, with terms highly favorable to the foreign companies, and without consideration of national development.

     PDVSA, therefore, had emerged as a state within the state, with significant autonomy and with limited control by the state.  It did not seek to develop the petroleum industry and to attract foreign investment in the industry in a form that was integrated with a project for national development.  

     During the 1990s, there began to emerge popular rejection of the neoliberal project, as a consequence of its negative consequence for the people.  This dynamic included a condemnation of the role of PDVSA and its failure to contribute to a national development project. In this scenario, there emerged the post important charismatic leader of the beginning of the twenty-first century, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, whom we will discuss in the next post.


Key words: petroleum, PDVSA, nationalization, Venezuela, neoliberalism
​

Posted August 4, 2016

     In the context of the popular rejection in Venezuela of the neoliberal project imposed by the global powers with the collaboration of Venezuelan political and economic elite, and in a situation of popular disgust with the failure of the nationalization of the petroleum industry to promote national economic development (see “The neocolonial era in Venezuela” 8/3/2016), Hugo Chávez emerged as a charismatic leader with the capacity to describe the global and national structures of domination in understandable terms, and who was able to optimistically project an alternative political reality.  He thus possessed the capacity to forge that consensual reflection and united action necessary for a social transformation in defense of popular interests and needs.  He emerged as the central leader in the forging of a new political reality in Venezuela and in Latin America. The emergence of charismatic leaders with exceptional gifts of understanding and political leadership is a normal tendency in revolutionary processes (see various posts in the category Charismatic Leaders).
  
     Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías was born in Sabaneta, a rural village of Venezuela, on July 28, 1954.  Chávez describes his family as a poor peasant family.  His father was a school teacher who earned his teaching diploma by studying part-time.  Although his mother and father lived nearby, he was principally reared by his grandmother, a peasant woman who was half indigenous.  He describes himself as a mixture of indigenous, African, and European (Guevara 2005:14-15, 71-72, 76).

     In 1971, at the age of 17, Chávez entered the Military Academy of Venezuela, and he earned a commission as a Second Lieutenant in 1975.  His study during his years in the military academy established the foundation for his revolutionary formation.  He read the writings of Simón Bolívar, Mao Zedong and Che Guevara, and he developed a perspective that he describes as a synthesis of Bolivarianism and Maoism.  He investigated these themes further in a master´s program in political science at Simón Bolívar University.  He continuously read books of historical, political, social, and literary significance during his military and political careers, and he advised young people to develop the habit of reading.  He frequently recommended particular books in his discourses, famously exemplified by his recommendation of Noam Chomsky’s Hegemony or Survival during an address to the UN General Assembly and his gift to President Barack Obama of Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America (Guevara 2005:78-79; Chávez 2006:104).

    During the 1970s and 1980s, he had considerable success leading young officers in the forming of a reform movement within the military. On February 4, 1992, with the participation of approximately 100 fellow officers, he directed an attempted coup d´état, with the intention of overthrowing the government and convening a constitutional assembly. The coup failed, and he was imprisoned.  Upon his release in 1994, he resigned from the military and formed the Bolivarian Fifth Republic Movement, again with the intention of convening a constituent assembly, but now seeking to attain power through the electoral process.  He was elected President of Venezuela in 1998, in spite of the ignoring of his candidacy by the mass media, and he assumed the presidency on February 2, 1999.  He immediately issued a decree calling for a constitutional assembly.  Elections for a new constitution were held, and a new constitution was approved, establishing the Fifth Republic.  In 2000, he was elected to a six-year term as president under the new constitution, and he was subsequently re-elected, with nearly 63% of the vote, to a second term from 2007 to 2013.  He died of cancer in 2013 (Guevara 2005:9-39).

     Hugo Chávez understood that the underdevelopment of the peoples of Latin America, Africa, and Asia is a consequence of colonial domination.  Citing Andre Gunder Frank, he asserts: “Underdevelopment is a characteristic of development.  Our underdevelopment is a consequence of the development of the imperialist countries.  They only arrived at the level of development that they have after having invaded and sacked immense territories of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.  If not, they would not be at the level of development that they are” (Chávez 2006:132). 

     Chávez understood the negative effects of neoliberalism, which he condemned in moral terms.

     He castigated the subservient behavior of Latin American elites before US imperialist intentions:

​    Chávez believed that US imperialist policies are a threat to the survival of the human species, and that the peoples in movement must prevent this from happening.

    In contrast to US imperialism and US imposed neoliberalism, Chávez promoted a concept of autonomous economic development that he described as “a model of endogenous development that is not imposed on us by anyone, neither the Creole elite nor the imperialist elite, our own economic development” (Chávez 2006:319).  This model seeks to develop national production, giving emphasis to the development of energy, agriculture, and basic industry, and providing support for small and medium producers.  Endogenous development is rooted in the cultures and traditions of the peoples, particularly the indigenous peoples, and it has to be developed with a consciousness of history.  The study of history often has been only partially developed in the educational systems of neocolonial republics, and historical consciousness also has been undermined by the ideologies of the empire.  Chávez maintained that history must be rediscovered.

     Chávez believed that humanity stands at a critical time in world history.  “The capitalist model, the developmentalist model, the consumerist model, which the North has imposed on the world, is putting an end to the planet Earth.”  We can observe such phenomena as global warming, the opening of the ozone layer, an increasing intensity of hurricanes, the melting of the ice caps, and the rising of the seas.  Moreover, in the social sphere, rather than accepting their superexploitation and social exclusion, the peoples of the world are increasingly in rebellion.  Humanity is approaching a critical point, in which “in the first five decades of the twenty-first century it will be decided if in the future there will be life on this planet or if their will not be life.”  It is a question, he believed, of “socialism or barbarism,” citing Rosa Luxemburg (Chávez 2006:195, 256)

     At this critical and decisive moment in human history, Chávez possessed that hope in the future of humanity that is the hallmark of the revolutionary (see “The revolutionary faith of Fidel” 9/15/2014).  He believed that “the great day of liberty, equality, and justice is arriving.” This is exemplified, he believed, by the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, which is constructing a “socialism of the twenty-first century” that will not be the same as the socialisms of the twentieth century.  It will be “a socialism renewed for the new era, for the twenty-first century. . . .  It will not have only one road; it will have many roads. It will not have one model; there will be many variants of socialism.  It will have to adapt to the circumstances of each country, of each region. . . .  Socialism for Latin America cannot be a replica, it has to be a great and heroic creation, a heroic construction of our peoples” (Chávez 2006:193, 198).

    Socialism of the twenty-first century is based on a renewed formulation of traditional values.  “Socialism of the twenty-first century ought to begin to consolidate new values that are not new, they are old values but one must renew them, one must strengthen them. . . . For us here in Venezuela, for example, and I believe that it is valid for a good part of Latin America and the Caribbean, Christianity is a current that pushes and feeds our socialism in construction.  This socialism of the twenty-first century has much of Christianity for the Venezuelans, as it has much of Bolivarianism and Marxism” (Chávez 2006:200).

     Chávez was an inspiring voice that resurrected the dream of national liberation formulated in the period 1948 to 1979 by charismatic leaders of the Third World and the Non-Aligned Movement (see “The Third World Project, 1948-79” 7/20/2016), calling the people to political action in the development of an alternative to the neoliberal project imposed by the global powers (see “IMF & USA attack the Third World project” 7/29/2016).  And in the tradition of Fidel, Ho Chi Minh, and Nyerere, he saw socialism as a necessary component of national liberation (“Fidel adapts Marxism-Leninism to Cuba” 9/9/2014; “Ho synthesizes socialism and nationalism” 5/8/2014).  In the next post, we will look at the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, forged under his leadership.

​References
 
Guevara, Aleida.  2005.  Chávez, Venezuela, and the New Latin America.  Melbourne: Ocean Press.
 
Chávez Frías, Hugo. 2006.  La Unidad Latinoamericana.  Melbourne: Ocean Sur. 
 
 
Key words: Chávez, Venezuela, socialism, Bolivarian Revolution

Posted August 5, 2016
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     The central proposal of Chávez’s Bolivarian Fifth Republic Movement was the establishment of a constitutional assembly to bring to an end the Fourth Republic of Venezuela, which was adapted to neocolonial domination and to rule by a Venezuelan elite.  When Chávez assumed the presidency on February 2, 1999, one of his first acts was to sign a decree calling for a constitutional referendum.  The opposition sought to annul the decree through challenges to the Supreme Court, but the referendum was held, a Constitutional Assembly was elected, and a new Constitution was developed and approved.  Chávez terminated his presidency under the Fourth Republic after only two years and ran for president under the new Constitution.  In 2000, he was elected under the new Constitution to a six-year term from 2001 to 2007.  In 2006, he was elected (with nearly 63% of the vote) to a second term from 2007 to 2013.  He died of cancer in 2013.   

     The Chávez government sought to institutionalize the process of the popular participation that had been emerging during the 1980s and 1990s.  The government initiated the development of structures of Popular Power that include community councils, workers’ councils, student councils, and councils formed by small farmers, which are incorporated into confederations of local, regional, and national councils.  Chávez envisioned the gradual integration of popular councils into the state, “progressively transforming the bourgeois state into an alternative state, socialist and Bolivarian” (Chávez 2006:317, 325-27).  

     The government of Hugo Chávez sought to reduce the autonomy of PDVSA and to incorporate its resources into a project of national development.  The Chávez government appointed new directors of PDVSA, replacing the directors appointed by previous governments. With the new leadership of PDVSA, the state income from petroleum increased significantly, and the new funds were directed toward various social projects in education, health, and housing as well as to wage increases, financial assistance to those in need, and the elimination of foreign debt.  Most of the social projects are designated as “missions.” 

     A literacy program, Mission Robinson, was developed with Cuban support.  Named for Simón “Robinson” Rodríguez, who was Simón Bolívar’s teacher, it taught one million people to read in 2003. Other missions in education emerged:  Mission Ribas, named after independence hero José Felix Ribas, is a program for the completion of high school; Mission Sucre, named after Antonio José Sucre, one of the heroes of the Latin American revolution of 1810-24, is a scholarship program for university education; and Mission Vuelvan Caras provides opportunity for vocational training (Guevara 2005:50-54, 141).

      Mission Barrio Adentro is a medical mission that is financed by the Venezuelan state and relies upon the participation of 20,000 Cuban doctors, providing health care services in the poorest regions and neighborhoods of Venezuela.  In 2004, Mission Barrio Adentro attended 50 million cases, providing free health care services and medicine (Chávez 2006:110-11, 241-42).

    The government of Chávez played a leadership role in forging the unity and integration of Latin America and the Caribbean as well as South-South cooperation.  I will describe these processes, which retake the historic dream of the Third World, in subsequent posts in this series of posts on the Third World project.

     As a popular revolutionary project that seeks to attain the true sovereignty of the nation and to develop its own endogenous project of national development, the Chávist Bolivarian Revolution is a threat to the neocolonial world-system, which requires the subordination of the nations of the world to the Western neocolonial powers.  Since the emergence of the revolution, the US government has sought to undermine it through the support of those sectors in Venezuela that have interests in opposition to the revolutionary project, sectors that in one way or another benefit from the neocolonial world order.  These sectors include: the technocratic elite that managed the petroleum industry prior to 1998; the business elite, owners of import-export companies; leaders of the union of petroleum workers, who occupied a privileged position relative to the majority of workers; the landed estate bourgeoisie, historic beneficiaries of the core-peripheral relation; and the traditional political parties, junior partners in the imposition of neocolonial structures and in the implementation of neoliberal policies. These opposition sectors control the private media of communication, and they can count on international financial support and the active engagement of the US embassy. 

      During the period of the Chávez presidency from 1998 to 2013, the opposition generated much conflict, but the Chávist forces prevailed. However, with the death of Chávez in 2013, the opposition escalated its tactics, and they have created a complicated situation for Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, as we will discuss in the next post. 

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References

Guevara, Aleida.  2005.  Chávez, Venezuela, and the New Latin America.  Melbourne: Ocean Press.

Chávez Frías, Hugo. 2006.  La Unidad Latinoamericana.  Melbourne: Ocean Sur.  


Key words: Chávez, Venezuela, socialism, Bolivarian Revolution

Posted August 9, 2016

        At his presidential inauguration in 2014, Nicolás Maduro observed that he is the first worker president in the history of Venezuela, and that he is the first president who is Chavist, that is, an activist in the Bolivarian Revolution led by Hugo Chávez.  Maduro is a former bus driver who received his formation in political, historical and ethical consciousness through union leadership.  During the neoliberal era, he was a candidate of the old Socialist Party for president.  He later became a leading member of the Bolivarian Fifth Republic Movement of Chávez.  He was minister for foreign affairs of the Chávez government, and he attained a level of international recognition for his elegant discourses in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution in various international fora.  When Chávez became ill with cancer, he called upon the Bolivarian Movement to name Maduro as his successor, a request made, he said, “from my heart.”  Initially serving as interim president, Maduro was elected president for a full term in 2013, in accordance with the 1998 Constitution.

     The Maduro presidency has been characterized by an escalation of the strategies of the Right to destabilize the government of Venezuela, seeking to take advantage of the death of Chávez.  In February 2014, fascist gangs were organized to attack citizens and property, and the international media falsely presented the violent groups as peaceful student protestors.  There were calls for US intervention.  But Maduro weathered the storm.  The government arrested and prosecuted, in accordance with the law and the constitution, thirteen persons.  And it proposed dialogue with the moderate opposition, with the promise of attending to any legitimate demand or grievance.  Thus, the government was able to prevail in the first stage of the conflict by isolating the violent extreme Right.

     The Venezuelan economy, however, is overly dependent on oil income, and it imports many necessities, such as food and medicine.  The government of Chávez gave emphasis to taking control of the oil industry, channeling oil revenues to social missions, and developing a foreign policy of cooperation and unity with Latin America and the Caribbean, offering favorable terms of oil purchases as a dimension of the policy.  The diversification of the economy and increasing national production were long-term goals, but they have not yet been achieved, and the national economy remains overly dependent on oil and on the importation of necessary goods.

     In 2014, there was a sharp decline in oil prices.  Seeking to take advantage of this situation to promote destabilization, Venezuelan import-export companies, which form an important part of the opposition, ceased with their importation and sale of necessary goods, thus producing shortages and inflation.  In addition to this economic war, violent gangs were organized.  The international news media began to portray Venezuela as a country in crisis and civil disorder.  

     Most people think in concrete terms about the problems they confront, and not with a political, economic, and historical perspective. When problems like shortages and high prices occur, most people blame the government, and they do not necessary have a clear understanding of the sources of the problem.  In the case of Venezuela, the opposition created a problematic situation for the people through its economic war, and then it sought to take advantage of this situation, blaming the government for it.  Many people did not have sufficient political consciousness to reject the opportunistic opposition for its treasonous behavior in defense of its particular interests and in defense of foreign interests.

     The experience of revolutions teaches us that a popular revolution can attain the active and committed support of twenty-five to forty percent of the people.  There will emerge an opposition of ten to fifteen percent, composed of those economic sectors with a particular economic interest in the preservation of the old order, a consequence of its privileges in the neocolonial world-system; and of middle class or urban individuals who are confused by the ideological distortions of the mass media, controlled by the corporations.  Thus, there are approximately fifty percent of the people that are neither with the revolution nor with the opposition in a committed form.  Their lack of commitment has the consequence that they have a less developed understanding of the national and global political and economic issues. For the most part, they support the revolution, as long as things are going relatively well, and they are not called upon to make sacrifices. But the revolution can temporarily lose the support of the “ninis” (neither for nor against the revolution) under particular conditions. 

      The economic war of 2014 and 2015 in Venezuela had the consequence that the Bolivarian Revolution lost the support of the “ninis” in the parliamentary elections of December 2015.  Political parties of the opposition had formed a coalition, the Table for Democratic Unity (MUD for its initials in Spanish).  With MUD parliamentary candidates speaking in vague terms in favor of change, the opposition coalition took a majority of the seats, although the party of Chávez remains the largest single political party.  

     But MUD did not arrive to a parliamentary majority with a political platform.  It envisions a return to the neoliberal past, a vision not expressed to the people in the parliamentary campaigns.  The more that MUD proposes or implements neoliberal policies, the more it risks popular rejection.  So the strategy of the parliamentary opposition has been to seek to remove Maduro from office prior to the completion of his term, and to destabilize the constitutional process, possibly ensuring its control of the government in a post-Chávez era through US military intervention.

      In the face of this situation, the government of Maduro has called for respect for the constitutional process, maintaining that the parliamentary majority ought to recognize the constitutional limits of its authority and respect the authority of the executive and judicial branches and the counsel on elections.  In response to the economic war, the government has attempted to supply necessary goods at lower prices in state stores, but the process is complicated by the phenomenon of opportunistic individuals purchasing goods and reselling at higher prices.  In addition, the government has intensified and expanded its efforts in the diversification of the economy, the expansion of national production, and the further development of popular councils.  

      It is to be expected that the unfolding global popular revolution will have its setbacks.  The forces opposed to its agenda are powerful, inasmuch as they include the governments of the most powerful nations as well as the largest international corporations, which control the international media of communication; and they include those sectors of the national bourgeoisie connected to international capital. Moreover, the transformation of the established structures of the world-system, which promote the underdevelopment of the majority, confronts many obstacles.  We must constantly keep in mind two fundamental facts.  First, those who oppose the popular revolution have no viable alternative proposal.  They can only imagine the continued implementation of neoliberal economic policies and the unleashing of neo-fascist wars.  They point the road toward the certain continuing spiral of decline into chaos and violence and the possible extinction of humanity.  Secondly, the achievements of the Third World popular revolutions for national and social liberation are remarkable. They have accomplished fundamental structural transformation of some nations, and they have formulated a consensual Third World proposal for a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system, pointing to an alternative road for humanity.

     The road of social transformation has its setbacks, but humanity is on that road, led with wisdom, dignity and courage by the formerly colonized peoples of the earth.  We the peoples of the North must find the wisdom and the courage to discern the unfolding human drama and to stand committed with the political and moral alternative emerging from below.


Key words: Venezuela, Maduro, opposition, economic war, Bolivarian Revolution

Posted August 11, 2016

     Bolivia, a landlocked country in the mountains, historically has been the poorest country in South America.  It is the most indigenous country of Latin America, with 61% of the population identifying themselves as pertaining to one of several original nations of the region.

      In accordance with the norms and patterns in the development of the modern world-system, Bolivia has played a peripheral role in the world-economy, supplying raw materials for the core nations on a foundation of cheap labor.  Systems of forced labor were imposed following Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, which included the indigenous nations of present-day Bolivia.  During the course of time, first silver, then tin, and then natural gas and petroleum were extracted and exported to the industrializing economies of the North

     From the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries, Bolivia’s peripheral function in the world-economy existed alongside autonomous indigenous communities, which were agricultural societies with communal forms of land ownership.  As the world-economy expanded, it increasingly consumed indigenous land and autonomy, such that by 1930, the indigenous lands comprised only one-third of national territory, and the numbers of landless peasants exceeded the number of persons living in indigenous communities.

     Bolivian mine workers, peasants, and factory workers formed a popular movement during the twentieth century, resulting in a government committed to the developmentalist project from 1930 to 1985.  As was the case generally in Latin America, the project was forged through an alliance between the popular sectors and the national bourgeoisie.  It made some concessions to popular demands and provided some protection for national industry, without threatening the interests of foreign corporations.  

     Beginning in 1985, the neoliberal project of the global powers was imposed in Bolivia, resulting in the elimination of the modest protective measures for the people and for national industry that were put in place from 1930 to 1985.  In the 1990s, mass mobilizations emerged, protesting specific measures that were part of the neoliberal package. From 2000 to 2006, the popular movement intensified, with mass mobilizations, road blockings, general strikes, work stoppages, and hunger strikes, culminating in the resignation of the president in 2005 in the midst of a generalized chaos.

      As the renewed popular movement unfolded in the period 1990-2005, new political parties were formed, and they were effective in undermining popular support for the traditional political parties that had cooperated with the imposition of the neoliberal project.  One of the parties was the Movement toward Socialism (MAS), a federation of social movement organizations and unions, founded in 1995.  Its principal leader was Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer who had been born and raised in a poor town in the Bolivian high plains and who emerged as a leader in the coca farmers’ union.  Proposing a constitutional assembly and the nationalization of the natural gas and petroleum companies, Morales won the presidential elections of December 18, 2005.  

     The newly-elected government of Evo Morales immediately sought to put into practice an alternative economic model based on control of the natural resources of the nation and the establishment of national sovereignty.  Seeking to break the core-peripheral relation, it followed a vision of an autonomous development that responds to the demands of the popular movement, which includes indigenous organizations, peasant organizations, unions of workers in the petroleum and gas industries, professionals, and small and medium sized businesses.

     In accordance with his campaign promise and a fundamental popular demand, Morales convoked a Constitutional Assembly, which assembled to begin the formulation of a new Constitution on August 6, 2006.  Although confronting various maneuvers by the opposition, the new Constitution was approved by popular referendum on January 25, 2009, with 61.4% of the vote.  The new Constitution recognizes the autonomy of the indigenous communities, and thus it establishes the Plurinational State of Bolivia.  The Constitution establishes a maximum extension of land of 5000 hectares for personal property; it guarantees access to health services, education, employment, and potable water as constitutional rights; and it prohibits the establishment of a foreign military base in the country.

      The government of Evo Morales renegotiated contracts with natural gas and petroleum companies, resulting in a great increase in state revenues, which are used to develop a variety of social programs, including programs in literacy and credit for small farmers. The Morales government has initiated a land-reform program, beginning with the appropriation of land that was unproductive or that was fraudulently obtained, a common practice during the era of the neoliberal governments.  And Bolivia became the third member of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), joining Venezuela and Cuba.  

     By 2007, a counterrevolution had taken shape, formed by the owners of the large estates, large-scale businesspersons, leaders of the traditional political parties that benefitted from the previous political-economic order, and transnational corporations.  The US government has provided financial support to the counterrevolution. But Morales and MAS have been able to maintain political control.

     In 2009, Evo Morales was re-elected president of Bolivia with 64.22% of the popular vote.  MAS won a majority in the National Assembly, including a two/thirds majority in the Senate.  MAS won control of six of the nine departments of the country and 228 of the 337 municipalities.

     Along with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and Rafael Correa of Ecuador, Evo Morales has emerged as one of the charismatic leaders in the new political reality that has been forged in Latin America, which has challenged not only the neoliberal project but also the structures of the neocolonial world-system.  Reflecting this reality, Bolivia served in 2014 as the President of the G-77 plus China, and Morales led an anniversary commemoration in which the presidents adopted a declaration, “Toward a New World Order for Living Well.”  In a subsequent post in this series on the Third World project, we will discuss this declaration, which is an indication of the international leadership of Evo Morales, and which echoes historic declarations of Third World charismatic leaders before international fora during the period 1948 to 1983.   

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Bibliography
 
Moldiz Mercado, Hugo. 2006. “Crónica del proceso constituyente boliviano” in Contexto Latinoamericano: Revista de Análisis Político, No. 1 (Sept-Dec), Pp. 10-22.
 
__________.  2008.  Bolivia en los tiempos de Evo.  Mexico City: Ocean Sur.
 
__________.  2008. “Bolivia: la recta final” in Contexto Latinoamericano: Revista de Análisis Político, No. 7, Pp. 15-27.
 
__________.  2010. “Revolución democrática en Bolivia,” IX Conferencia de Estudios Americanos, Centro de Investigaciones de Política Internacional, Havana, Cuba, November 19, 2010. 
 
Puente, Rafael.  2010. “Bolivia: la nueva Constitución, meta y punto de partida” in Contexto Latinoamericano: Revista de Análisis Político, No. 12, Pp. 19-26.
 
Stefanoni, Pablo.  2007. “¿A dónde va la Bolivia de Evo? Balance y perspectivas en un año de gobierno” in Contexto Latinoamericano: Revista de Análisis Político, No. 3 (April-June), Pp. 82-90.

 
Key words: Bolivia, Evo Morales, MAS, socialism