Challenging the Washington Consensus Hugo Chavez and Me - Tariq Ali

[flamingdem]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/03/07/hugo-chavez-and-me/#.UT-PN-i7f6Z.facebook

Once I asked whether he preferred enemies who hated him because they knew what he was doing or those who frothed and foamed out of ignorance. He laughed. The former was preferable, he explained, because they made him feel that he was on the right track. Hugo Chávez’s death did not come as a surprise, but that does not make it easier to accept. We have lost one of the political giants of the post-communist era. Venezuela, its elites mired in corruption on a huge scale, had been considered a secure outpost of Washington and, at the other extreme, the Socialist International. Few thought of the country before his victories. After 1999, every major media outlet of the west felt obliged to send a correspondent. Since they all said the same thing (the country was supposedly on the verge of a communist-style dictatorship) they would have been better advised to pool their resources.

I first met him in 2002, soon after the military coup instigated by Washington and Madrid had failed and subsequently on numerous occasions. He had asked to see me during the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. He inquired: “Why haven’t you been to Venezuela? Come soon.” I did. What appealed was his bluntness and courage. What often appeared as sheer impulsiveness had been carefully thought out and then, depending on the response, enlarged by spontaneous eruptions on his part. At a time when the world had fallen silent, when centre-left and centre-right had to struggle hard to find some differences and their politicians had become desiccated machine men obsessed with making money, Chávez lit up the political landscape.

He appeared as an indestructible ox, speaking for hours to his people in a warm, sonorous voice, a fiery eloquence that made it impossible to remain indifferent. His words had a stunning resonance. His speeches were littered with homilies, continental and national history, quotes from the 19th-century revolutionary leader and president of Venezuela Simón Bolívar, pronouncements on the state of the world and songs. “Our bourgeoisie are embarrassed that I sing in public. Do you mind?” he would ask the audience. The response was a resounding “No”. He would then ask them to join in the singing and mutter, “Louder, so they can hear us in the eastern part of the city.” Once before just such a rally he looked at me and said: “You look tired today. Will you last out the evening?” I replied: “It depends on how long you’re going to speak.” It would be a short speech, he promised. Under three hours.

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Politicians like him had become unacceptable. What he loathed most was the contemptuous indifference of mainstream politicians in South America towards their own people. The Venezuelan elite is notoriously racist. They regarded the elected president of their country as uncouth and uncivilised, a zambo of mixed African and indigenous blood who could not be trusted. His supporters were portrayed on private TV networks as monkeys. Colin Powell had to publicly reprimand the US embassy in Caracas for hosting a party where Chávez was portrayed as a gorilla.

[Demeter]

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Imagine a country where real incomes of most people have not increased for decades, where the wealth divide is expanding while many live in severe poverty, including many seniors who lack adequate retirement; a country where the GDP grows at an inadequate 1.4% and on a per capita basis is shrinking; and where unemployment and inflation are rising. Where thousands die annually because they lack access to health care; and where post high school education is out of reach because it is too costly. Also, imagine this country is in debt to foreign governments.

No doubt this would be a country with a failing economic system, perhaps even a collapsing one, that would need a major overhaul and re-invention.

Now imagine that a decade later poverty had almost disappeared and foreign debts were paid off, the wealth divide was shrinking quickly, the GDP tripled its growth rate, health care was widely available and the numbers of doctors was increasing. And, youth graduating from university more than tripled while seniors with pensions quadrupled. This would sound like an economic miracle.

But in fact, it has actually happened. While much of the first paragraph sounds like the current situation in the United States, we have not made this transformation. We remain in a collapsed and limping economy that is unfair to most Americans.

How did this turn around occur and where? It occurred because a people and their new government rejected policies of cuts to social programs, privatization of essential services and ended non-progressive taxation. The country, Venezuela, rejected neoliberalism and put in place a democratized economy to support the people based on public investment, participatory budgeting, cooperatives, public banks and redistribution of property.



Growth (Average Annual Percent)

Of course, the US corporate media, politicians and pundits do all they can to prevent Americans from knowing about the transformation of Venezuela. If Americans knew what worked in Venezuela they would reject the cuts to social programs, austerity, privatization and concentrated wealth of the US economy and demand economic democracy.

But Americans are figuring it out on their own. Yes! Magazine recently published an excellent infographic that shows how worker owned business cooperatives actually help to build the local economy. Cooperatives are an important part of the foundation of a new democratic economy in the US.

Lessons for a new economy do not only come from Venezuela. After Switzerland voted in a landslide to limit executive bonuses, other countries in the EU are moving in that direction. Shrinking the wealth divide is part of the democratization of an economy, and it is desperately needed in the United States.

There are lessons we can learn from within our country and around the world to begin to build a new, sustainable economy for the 21st century, but to make changes, we also need facts about what is going on. New information is coming out about wasted war dollars and what the FDIC has been doing for years when it comes to settlements with banks for their improper behavior. We need awareness of the reality of increased homelessness. And we can’t fool ourselves when there is one good month of jobs figures into thinking that the economy is mending.

One thing we do have is plenty of solutions to fix this economy in a new era where sustainability and equity become priorities. Like the Venezuelans, we can reject neoliberalism at home and build our new economy for people and the planet.

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