The Devil's Excrement

Jose Rafael Lopez Padrino is a Venezuelan scientist who considers himself a true socialist and thus is against the fake Chavez revolution. Recently he has written a few letters to local daily Tal Cual explaining why Chavez so called revolution has little to do with true socialism. I thought it would be interesting to translate the latest one comparing what a socialist state would do with what is going on in Venezuela.

Socialist revolution
or State Capitalism? by Jose Rafael Lopez Padrino

The Lt. Colonel has
continued his verbosity about the anti imperialist and socialist character of
his political project. An immense shadow of doubt is spread over the Venezuelan
geography, because what little is known about his political proposal points not
precisely towards establishing a socialist experiment, but more towards a
project of a state capitalism.

Certainly what the
Lt. Colonel is proposing as “socialism” is in reality state capitalism, in
which the dominant and production relationships of the past are preserved. The
economic measures recently adopted by the Government (nationalization of CANTV
and Electricidad de Caracas, the creation of mixed companies in the Orinoco Oil
belt) have been put in motion in order to widen the bases for sustaining the
state capitalism that the regime promotes under the mask of a fake socialism
(socialchavismo). These nationalizations (not expropriations) have allowed the Venezuelan State to take control of them, but not
the workers, as it would correspond in a socialist state. The regime has
demonstrated that it does not have the smallest intention of modifying the
social relations of production and the forms of ownership with a true socialist
sense. In effect, the forces and social relations of production, which act in
Venezuelan society, have remained identical since about the midpoint of the
XIXth. Century. Let us recall that it is the relations of production, which
constitute the economic structure of a society, over which the political and
legal superstructures lies upon.

Of which socialism
can we speak about if this regime has allowed the rise of an ostentatious and
spendthrift boli bourgeois class, as perverse and exploiting as those linked to
the Adeco/Copeyano Governments? On top of that, it has allowed a
flexibilization of labor rules (cooperatives and other forms of management
sharing at companies) which area aimed at lowering costs of production and thus
at increasing the rate of return of the profits of the owners.

How can anyone speak
of a revolution that denies the stellar role of the working class (the social
subject of a true socialist revolution) in its political project (“five motors
of socialism”) and which continues its predatory practices on the already damaged
labor conquests and in making illegal the existence of unions? How can one
affirm the anti-imperialist and anti capitalist nature of the process, if you
have handed over our energy resources to the imperial multinationals (Exxon
Mobil, Statoil y Conoco-Philips, Petrobrás, Repsol) and it favors financial
capital devoting multimillion sums of dollars to subsidize bankers with bonds
with high interest rates, while the real economy of the country is in a grave
crisis.

These are all samples
of the true features of the “national socialism of the XXIst. Century “ whose
ideological substrate has nothing in common with the scientific socialism
postulated by old man Marx. These evidences clearly show that this revolution
is not socialist, nor is it going towards socialism. Exactly the opposite! That
is the problem of the gullible and the naïve that still believe in the kindness
of the messianic process of the Lt. Colonel.

This entry was posted on April 7, 2007 at 12:19 am and is filed under Venezuela.