By Thomas Ponniah, rabble.ca, December 12, 2012
“Build
and promote the eco-socialist and productive economic model, based on a
harmonious relationship between human and nature that guarantees the rational,
sustainable and optimal use of natural resources while preserving the processes
and cycles of nature.”
-
Venezuela's
Second Six-Year Plan (2013-2019)
-
In
June 2012, Venezuela released its draft second six-year plan (English translation). This is a fascinating document: it
outlines a program for 21st-century socialism along the following trajectories:
consolidate national independence, construct Bolivarian socialism, make
Venezuela a social, economic and political power within Latin America and the
Caribbean, contribute to the development of a multi-centric and multi-polar
international society that guarantees world peace, and a remarkable final
section focused on preserving life on the planet via the development of an
eco-socialist model of economic production.
In my
co-edited volume The Revolution in Venezuela: Social and Political Change Under Chávez (Harvard University Press 2012), I
noted that the Bolivarian process was oriented by contradictory commitments to
greater economic redistribution, cultural recognition and political
representation. For example, despite its flaws, that is, its undermining of
traditional democracy, its centralization of power, and its crippling dependence
on charismatic leadership, the government has advanced social development in
numerous ways. Chávez's policies reduced extreme poverty from 19.9 percent in
1999 to 7.2 percent by 2009 and overall poverty from 50 per cent to 28.5 per
cent in the same time period; enacted an anti-sexist and anti-racist
constitution that has been followed with numerous policies advancing the cause
of women, Venezuelans of African descent and indigenous communities; and has
tried to deepen participatory democracy via numerous referenda and citizen
engagement in policy-making and implementation.
The
second six-year plan demonstrates that the Bolivarians have expanded their
radical framework by introducing a substantial commitment to eco-socialism.
Here are a few of the proposals that the document makes: promote actions at the
national and international levels for the preservation of water sources and
reservoirs; support integrated management of watersheds, biodiversity,
sustainable management of seas, oceans, and forests; continue to encourage the
recognition of the access to water as a human right for all; dismantle and
combat the international schemes that promote the corporatization of nature,
environmental services and ecosystems. Throughout its time in power, the administration
has tried to tackle the various inequalities associated with class, status and
power and now it is openly moving to integrate ecological concerns into its
policy framework.
The commitment to environmental renewability is predictably, in
light of our historical-cultural context, not an unambiguous one: Tamara
Pearson has written a thoughtful analysis of this Second Six-Year Plan and
notes that while the proposals are rousing they exist in contrast to a number
of other objectives in the document. The six-year plan also emphasizes
industrialization, doubling the production of petroleum, and accelerating the
manufacture of cars. These latter proposals may aid the country's overall
social development but will likely not enhance sustainable development. It is
unclear how the country will be able to pursue its diverse aims. What is
evident is that the Chavistas have stayed in power, despite relentless
Venezuelan and international opposition, because for the past 13 years they
have put forward broadly popular goals and then found creative ways of
fulfilling the majority of them. The government's genius lies in its ability to
pursue its social justice goals without being overwhelmed by its external enemies
nor undermined by its internal antinomies.
While
the commitment to ecological sustainability is in contradiction with numerous
desires, from this state it is nonetheless a significant step forward. The
Bolivarian process, because of its resilience and its oil wealth, remains at
the vanguard of the Latin American left, and perhaps of the global left. Once
again via its latest program, Venezuela's leadership has sketched the bridge
that progressives of all types need to cross: a genuine alternative to
neoliberal modernity will only be found in a creative fusion of ecological
aspirations with various struggles for equality.
For
those interested in further discussion of the country's newest plan, I will be
part of a panel
discussion,
"A Socialist Alternative? The New Venezuela Post-Election Six-Year Plan
and Human Development," organized by the York Institute for Political
Economy Initiative, Centre for Social Justice, and the Socialist Project held
on Thursday, Dec. 13 at 6:30 p.m. in Room 1 on the second floor of the Centre for
Social Innovation at 720 Bathurst Street in downtown Toronto.
Thomas
Ponniah was a Lecturer on Social Studies and Assistant Director of Studies at
Harvard University from 2003-2011. He remains an affiliate of Harvard's David
Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and an Associate of the
Department of African and African-American Studies.
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