Where can socialism go?

brianthebard

When the USSR fell people proclaimed the death of socialism. Now almost two decades on, cuba is still socialist, and with US influence in Latin america slowly being pushed out, democratically elected socialist or leftist representatives have been elected in almost every state, bar Columbia (where the US's war on drugs means they are still dictating policy there). Che's dream of a socialist united Latin america is edging closer.

Is this a fair assessment of the situation? How far can these governments go? They are unlikely to become like cuba, but already Morales and Chavez have nationalised many business sectors. Liberation theology means there is no (or very little) conflict between religion and politics, so the working classes are not asked to chose. Can a new, soft socialism emerge in this region? what influence can this have globally?Thoughts?

Kama

The realignment of Latin America is one to watch, no doubt. I'm a big fan of Evo Morales, and the the Bank of the South getting out of the IMF net. Not so sure there's *that* little conflict between religion and society.

brianthebard

Well, much less conflict than there would be here for instance, or even in a lot of Europe? I'm also a fan of Morales. I think a proper, non US influenced union between latin american governments is ready to be set up.

Kama

From what I hear its largely there; I laughed long and hard at 'We are the Axis of Good'. The failure of the coup against Chavez was the point at which I noticed the worm seemed to have turned. Looking at the success of the indigenous and farmers movement with Evo, and the general shift away from a neoliberal aegis cheers me up a lot. Developments like participatory budgeting and the Bank of the South are encouraging signs for the future.

brianthebard

Think i read somewhere that there were riots and strikes by opposition in peru,i think if morales sorts that properly we'll really know which way things are headed.

Kama

Well, there's a situation slightly analagous to Northern secessionists in Italy; a richer province wants to secede from the country. Its a possible Tibet-stick with which to beat Evo tbh. Btw did see him on the Daily SHow??

His response to the ironic 'well yeh we're corrupt and our democracy is a sham' of Jon Stewart is pretty fantastic imo.

Frankie Lee

I've been thinking a lot lately about learning spanish and moving to south america, I have a strange feeling the northern hemisphere is about to go pear shaped.

Kama

With the exception of friends who came back with endoparasites, I hear only good things hehe. Never been firther south than Chiapas/Belize myself, want to do a Brazil visit.

brianthebard

Kama wrote: »

Well, there's a situation slightly analagous to Northern secessionists in Italy; a richer province wants to secede from the country. Its a possible Tibet-stick with which to beat Evo tbh. Btw did see him on the Daily SHow??

His response to the ironic 'well yeh we're corrupt and our democracy is a sham' of Jon Stewart is pretty fantastic imo.

nope havent but will check it out when i get a chance.I was also thinking about learning spanish-pity i suck at languages.

g5fd6ow0hseima

Theres always Guyana

Kama

Meh for beating languages there's no substitute for immersion imo; once you have to speak to eat etc, you learn pretty quick, the 'ol brain kicks in.

Something there about necessity being the mother of invention...

SkepticOne

I'm not sure socialism works with democracy. Eventually people get tired of collectivisation and stagnation and vote it out. Countries like Cuba are forced to use repressive measures to maintain the ideology.

Kama

I'm less convinced by that Skeptic. For one thing, the modern welfare state, for all its failings, is a generally socialist program; if you read Marx, such insane socialist demands such as pensions and health care were among the crazy commie demands. A strong argument can be made that the success of Europe has been the synthesis of collectivist-socialist and individualist-liberal models.

And an argument can be made that socialist states on models like this perform well competitively; state investment in human capital (as in our education system), health care, and a welfare safety net don't necessarily have to be viewed as inefficient Satanic 'anti-market' forces. There are high costs to the social consequences of exclusion in a laissez-faire model.
Often a 'minimalist' night-watchman state can become hugely expensive, paradoxically, if its the one picking up the human refuse the market system cannot or will not integrate; vide the US prison population.

The Nordic Market-Socialist model didn't run on repression, and generally had higher standards of democracy and transparency than more 'Anglo' capitalist regimes. Perhaps when you say socialist, you mean a communist autarky? The thread, as you probably noticed, is on the democratic turn of Latin America towards more socialist policies, in part due to the failures of a neoliberal market model in the hemisphere.

Perhaps people also occasionally get tired of exploitation, and vote it out?

SkepticOne

What I think is being raised by brianthebard is different to the social provisions of Nordic countries. Almost all capitalist democracies (and indeed non-democracies) have some form of social provision and this is not a bad thing in my opinion. The socialism of Cuba as mentioned in the opening post is a very different thing although there were some market reforms introduced after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Although it is open to debate it looks to me that Venuzuala, with its nationalisation programme, is going in the direction of Cuba rather than of Sweden. Whether it gets there is another matter. I think it can only get so far without ditching democracy. Possibly Chavez realises this.

Kama

I always find it amusing that Chavez is painted as the great anti-democrat, having survived a coup attempt to institute a more market-friendly regime, increasing popular democratic participation, and abiding by democratic results that he disagreed with.

If we put 2 poles, the direction of neoliberalism, and the direction of an early Sweden, he seems to be moving towards Sweden. And he has thusfar done this constitutionally. If the people keep electing him, what's the problem?

SkepticOne

Kama wrote: »

I always find it amusing that Chavez is painted as the great anti-democrat, having survived a coup attempt to institute a more market-friendly regime, increasing popular democratic participation, and abiding by democratic results that he disagreed with.

If we put 2 poles, the direction of neoliberalism, and the direction of an early Sweden, he seems to be moving towards Sweden. And he has thusfar done this constitutionally. If the people keep electing him, what's the problem?

The coup attempt was undemocratic but this does not make Chavez who resisted it democratic.

It looks to me that he's going in a quasi-Marxist direction which is neither Nordic style capitalism with social provision nor free-market liberalism.

Kama

Indeed, he's going in a different direction to both. I'm all for that. If we have a variety of approaches in the world, on the whole it will be easier to see what works. One of my problems with the neoliberal project (I have many) is the inability to allow difference. I regard diversity as a core necessity for social evolution, and homogeneity as potentially regressive; so I'm for Europe in terms of subsidiarity, but against on one-size-fits-all, for example.

Nope, it doesn't make him democratic, but its a ironic thing given that those who backed the coup also call him undemocratic. The asociation-links of Capitalist-democratic/noncapitalist-antidemocratic just doesn't hold up that well imo.

He seems to be increasing social provision from a low base, largely petrodollar funded, developing education and health care. I can't argue with that, I regard them as primary necessities, and ones whose delivery tends to be highly unequitable in a market-liberal scenario, especially in 'developing' countries.

SkepticOne

Kama wrote: »

Indeed, he's going in a different direction to both. I'm all for that. If we have a variety of approaches in the world, on the whole it will be easier to see what works.

Aspects of his regime, I think most people will have no problem with. It is the autocratic tendencies that I would find worrying. Whereas you can have capitalist countries that are authoritarian, it seems intrinsic to Marxist style socialism that authoritarianism is required.

Kama

I'm cagey on attributing qualities as intrinsic to ideologies; generally found they can go in all sorts of weird combinations. Autocracy and authoritarian tendencies turn up regardless of political compass.

I'm also curious as to your definition of Marxist-style...most socialism is genealogically Marxist with very few exceptions.

SkepticOne

I suppose the view that the means of production should ultimately not be in private hands is what I'm talking about, the centrally planned economy and so on. Communism as practised in the Soviet Union and China would be examples of this. I draw a distinction between this and, say, Nordic capitalism with social provision. It is the first type that I believe necessarily leads to authoritarianism although as I have said, you can also have authoritarian capitalist societies as well as non-authoritarian ones.

Kama

Well, socialism doesn't necessarily means statist. Ownership by workers co-operative on libertarian socialist lines is one direction, or Proudhonian mutualism on a decentralised model. A socialist program doesn't necessarily mean a centrally planned economy on Communist lines. I suspect you are exclusively identifying socialism with a statist-communist-authoritarian model, which many socialists are in opposition to. Pretty broad church hehe.

An early argument of the social democrats was that due to the deleterious effects of capitalism, it could be meliorated by a redistributive welfare function; taking the idea of Kaldor-Hicks equilibria, that winners *can* compensate losers, and actually doing so to some extent.

In contradistinction to you, I find the laissez-faire market model to tend towards authoritarianism also, due to the consequence of over-centralization of capital and the means of production in a small number of hands, with consequent inequality and a tendency for the repressive state apparatus to enforce this inequality, which has been typical of the Latin American experience, and to which the turn towards a more socialist direction is at least partially a response to.

There's also the *large* issue of corporate ownership; in a sense I don't regard this as 'private' ownership in the same way as say you or I owning something is. But thats a whole different issue...

brianthebard

SkepticOne wrote: »

Aspects of his regime, I think most people will have no problem with. It is the autocratic tendencies that I would find worrying. Whereas you can have capitalist countries that are authoritarian, it seems intrinsic to Marxist style socialism that authoritarianism is required.

the socialism that you regard as authoritarian is leninist-stalinist in nature,where a small elite holds power 'for the good of the people'.This is a position lenin philosophised himself and in part led to the communist party split.This is not marxist.Whether chavez is marxist either is another question-i believe he is marxist via trotskyite-guevaran tendencies.Of particular importance to this system is the need to be seen to be self-determinate,something which would be taken for granted in the nordic system but which is not the case in a post colonial US influenced society.In addition the tradition of rule by populist parties and leaders in SA must have some bearing on Chavez's style of leadership.Does that make it authoritarian?No,not yet.

Frankie Lee

I think a lot of people buy into the American propaganda depicting Chavez as a dictator when it could not be further from the truth.
All elections he won were fair and when the constitution was voted down, he accepted it and didn't shove it back at the people again which goes to prove maybe Venezuela is more democratic than here or the EU in general.

Kama

True, Chavez is presented as a total antidemocratic demon in the States. Looking to ones own garden would be more helpful.

I love the bit in the docu during the coup where at the end he likens the constitution to the Popul Vhu. WIsh I had better Spanish so I could know what he's actually saying in Alo Presidente hehe.

Now, some things he's done are seen as authoritarian in tendency; extending terms limits for example. But so long as this is done democratically, I have absolutely no issue with it.

SkepticOne

brianthebard wrote: »

the socialism that you regard as authoritarian is leninist-stalinist in nature,where a small elite holds power 'for the good of the people'.This is a position lenin philosophised himself and in part led to the communist party split.This is not marxist.Whether chavez is marxist either is another question-i believe he is marxist via trotskyite-guevaran tendencies.Of particular importance to this system is the need to be seen to be self-determinate,something which would be taken for granted in the nordic system but which is not the case in a post colonial US influenced society.In addition the tradition of rule by populist parties and leaders in SA must have some bearing on Chavez's style of leadership.Does that make it authoritarian?No,not yet.

Lenin was a Marxist as was Stalin. The Soviet Union, like a number of other countries, was an attempt to put Marxist principles into practice. Perhaps Chaves wants a more democratic Marxism but it looks as if he is gradually consolidating power towards himself.

Kama

And if this power is democratically granted to the executive branch? Venezuela seems considerably more democratic than the 'scare' examples you use, of Stalinist Russia etc. I haven't seen the kulaks liquidated yet...if he does, then obviously I'm against him. But he hasn't.

We see similar centralization of power in the executive having taken place in America, with the Bush presidency, and in the UK under Blair. Now, a lot of people disapprove of one and approve of the other hehe, but thats a slightly different matter. There's 2 issues here; one is centralization of power, the other is social ideology.

brianthebard

SkepticOne wrote: »

Lenin was a Marxist as was Stalin. The Soviet Union, like a number of other countries, was an attempt to put Marxist principles into practice. Perhaps Chaves wants a more democratic Marxism but it looks as if he is gradually consolidating power towards himself.

you completely ignored the point that centralized power and a small authoritian leadership goes against marxism.Yes lenin and stalin began as marxists but developed their own ideology as per my previous post.

marco murphy

Stalin didn't have a monopoly on Socialism, no one does. No need to be so dogmatic.
I am not sure has any true Socialist state existed.

brianthebard

Poblachtach wrote: »

Stalin didn't have a monopoly on Socialism, no one does. No need to be so dogmatic.

Who is that directed at? Do you mean Marx?

I am not sure has any true Socialist state existed.

Again what is that directed at?

marco murphy

brianthebard wrote: »

Who is that directed at? Do you mean Marx?


Again what is that directed at?

Sorry. Sort of agreement with you. People seem to believe Stalin exclusively represents Socialism and Communism.

Yes lenin and stalin began as marxists but developed their own ideology as per my previous post.

Correct.

DadaKopf

ScepticOne wrote:

Perhaps Chaves wants a more democratic Marxism but it looks as if he is gradually consolidating power towards himself.

See, this is where things get misinterpreted. Aside from the credentials of Chavez's 'socialism for the 21st century', the apparent consolodation of power has more to do with populism than marxism. It is the vast social and economic inequalities, within a populist political culture, that gives rise to this centralisation. In Argentina, Perón commanded the devotion of the working classes as long as he could hand out gifts but he was no socialist. Increasingly, he used the state to oppress those who supported him and, after economic collapse (the key in Latin American political economy), he lost power.

Can the same be said of Chávez? I'd say almost certainly populism is a big part of it; remember: Venezuela is one of the most unequal countries in the world. The difference with Chávez is he is a 'black' and a former military officer who attempted a coup to oust. So class is playing a major part in the analysis and the popular movement. On any justice grounds, using the state to structurally change a country in a way that makes it more equal should be lauded. It's quite an achievement, but when he does go (and I hope it's through the democratic process), it'll be another power struggle between the rich and the poor, and the USA who defends the elite's interests.