From: Rakesh Bhandari (rakeshb@STANFORD.EDU)
Date: Thu Jan 01 2004 - 15:29:23 EST
Dear Paul, I don't think we are getting very deep in this discussion; this is definitely at least partially my fault as I have only read a few pieces on Chavez's govt. 1. Re: new constitution. you don't really say anything but as far as I can make out; there has been a consolidation of executive power vis-a-vis the legislature. 2. coups are never consonant with Marxian politics. Neither for that matter are Bolshevik Party forms. 3. I do not equate the Cuban experiment with Chavez's rule. 4. I have not advanced an blanket case against nationalism. 5. Whoever called the strike does not matter now; Chavez cleaned house of indigeneous technical talent, leaving Venezuela dependent on foreign help and foreign investors whom he has treated very well indeed; the state oil industry is now even weaker. Despite his rhetoric Chavez's policies are often neo liberal in content. 6. You do not deny that Chavez circulates very simplistic ideas about the power of OPEC to set the price of oil. 7. You argue that all the trade union leaders are corrupt. Fine, but the rank and file industrial workers do not seem to find much for themselves in Chavez's govt whose strongest electoral base seems to be street vendors. 8. You argue that leftist opposition is never leftist. This is argument by definition: loyalty to Chavez is leftism. 9. I don't know much about well paid academics--and what is well paid in your opinion--do you know what rent is like in the San Francisco Bay Area? 10. How are you defining labor aristocracy--any worker who does not demonstrate fealty to the Party or the leader? Actually David's ideas about the motive forces behind imperialism seem closer to Karl Renner's than Engels'. Are street vendors the true proletariat as opposed to steel workers? 11. You never did specify the source of the rent that Chavez hopes to appropriate. Rakesh
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