Venezuela's Communes: Not as Radical as You Might Think

[Judi Lynn]

Venezuela's Communes: Not as Radical as You Might Think
Geoff LeGrand
September 23, 2010

Under President Hugo Chávez, Venezuela has been no stranger to controversy. However, one of Chávez's proposals has evoked particularly strong emotions—the establishment of socialist communes (comunas socialistas) throughout the country. The proposed commune law (ley orgánica de las comunas) would further expand and institutionalize Venezuela's system of communal councils—local municipal governing bodies that are ruled by neighborhood leaders using state funds to finance social projects in their communities. The new law would merge the smaller bodies into larger councils called communes that would exercise jurisdiction throughout the area formerly covered by the councils. (Somewhat confusingly, both these councils and the areas over which they wield jurisdiction are referred to as communes). These new bodies would be given limited autonomy to establish new rules for their respective areas of authority. The law would also establish a series of municipal institutions, such as a communal parliament and a communal bank, which would pertain only to the communes and enhance public participation in the decision-making process.

This proposal has been widely criticized by the Venezuelan opposition as a bid by Chávez to circumvent Venezuela's existing democratic institutions and transform Venezuela into a de facto communist state. This fear has arisen because "according to the legislation, councils should now promote new forms of 'social property, based on the potentialities of their community,' through a tax-exempt 'social, popular, and alternative economy,'" which the opposition has chosen to interpret as a call for the establishment of de facto communism within the communes.

~snip~
Porto Alegre, Brazil: participatory budgeting

The participatory institutions used in the large southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre are one of the central models for Venezuela's commune project. Established in 1989 with the election of the Worker's Party (PT), over 3 million Brazilians live within the area affected by the orçamento participativo (participatory budget) program. Much of the population is involved in the process, and the program remains very popular in Porto Alegre, allowing the PT to enjoy uninterrupted municipal rule.

~snip~
Communes in Latin America: more common than you might think

For those who might not be convinced by the Porto Alegre example alone, it should be noted that, while it is the most prominent case, it is by no means the sole example of communal governance in Latin America. As of 2000, there were 140 cities in Brazil alone experimenting with participatory budgets. As previously noted, there are 11 countries in Latin America that have experimented with some form of participatory budgeting. In fact, it has become so popular throughout Latin America (and the developing world in general) that an enormous body of literature now exists on the subject.

~snip~
Ultimately, the debate over Venezuela's communes demonstrates perfectly the opposition's central flaw. They are not debating the issues relevant to the life of ordinary Venezuelans, or analyzing the merits of Chávez's proposal. Instead, they paint all his proposals and ideas as a plot to turn Venezuela into the next Cuba. Regardless of how one feels about Chávez, this is a regrettable practice that undermines Venezuelan democratic institutions and deprives the Venezuelan people of a meaningful debate about the issues facing them today.


This article was originally published by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs: www.coha.org/. Geoff LeGrand is a COHA research associate.

http://www.worldpress.org/Americas/3626.cfm

[Peace Patriot]

1. The opposition's central flaw--they don't debate, they just name-call. So true.

"Ultimately, the debate over Venezuela's communes demonstrates perfectly the opposition's central flaw. They are not debating the issues relevant to the life of ordinary Venezuelans, or analyzing the merits of Chávez's proposal. Instead, they paint all his proposals and ideas as a plot to turn Venezuela into the next Cuba. Regardless of how one feels about Chávez, this is a regrettable practice that undermines Venezuelan democratic institutions and deprives the Venezuelan people of a meaningful debate about the issues facing them today." --from the OP

---

Like the dumb-dumbs here, they know that, if their limited set of "talking points" serves the rich and the corporate, it will get trumpeted by the corpo-fascist media way out of proportion to their numbers and way beyond the merit of their ideas. And the more limited and stupid the "talking points," the better for drowning out real issues and real debate.

Communal councils or any form of people power--for instance, public libraries, public parks, public schools--share up small bits of the power and riches of a society among the poor, so that the decencies of life can be experienced by all. Contributing to the well-being of your community--for instance, by participating in the decisions and activities of a community council--is one of the decencies of life. It is also essential to democracy and it knits a country together. One of the disasters of modern life in the USA is the deliberate corporate destruction of town halls, town squares, and local community control, turning the country into one great big shopping mall where people are no longer citizens--they are "consumers."

You can see why the idea of civic virtue exercised by the poor majority is treated as such a threat by the rightwing in Venezuela, that all they can do is call it "communism." Not only does this exemplify their paucity of ideas, and their complete lack of understanding of democracy, but it serves those who fund them--big business, the rich and the USAID.

I'm reminded of the Honduran coup general who said that the purpose of their coup was "to prevent communism from Venezuela reaching the United States" (--quoted in a report on the coup by the Zelaya government-in-exile). One wonders not only about the hubris of such a statement--that little Honduras is going to save Big Brother from those monstrous Chavistas--but also who this SOB was talking to in Washington. Venezuelans FREELY elect a government that institutes BADLY NEEDED reforms, and the U.S. starts the "Cold War" all over again.

"Communism from Venezuela" = people having a say in their government; cutting poverty in half, cutting extreme poverty by more than 70%; the oil benefitting the poor with education and health care; the government punching Exxon Mobil in the nose, on behalf of the people. This is not "communism." For one thing, capitalism and private business are a huge sector of the Venezuelan economy. (The big economic growth of the 2003 to 2008 period was mostly in the private sector.) It is democracy. It is what we had here with the "New Deal." It is the people having a say, and the government acting in the interests of the majority. It is decent wages, decent labor laws, Social Security, free education for all through university (which we once had here, and have no more--but which Venezuelans now have); it is public action and the public spirit.

This is the threat--not communism. Democracy.

[GeoffLeGrand]

2. Democracy

People in the West, and especially in the US, forget that the definition of democracy is not the set of institutions that happen to exist in the US, namely elections in which power is supposed to turn over on a regular basis and in which the winners are very limited in the extent to which they can change the status quo. Generally speaking, this is what most Americans want because they are happy with the status quo they've built. Lamentably, however, are happiness rests on the unhappiness of many people including the majority of Latin Americans. For them, the goal is not slow down the pace at which the status quo changes, its to speed it up. Unfortunately, fast-paced change challenges democracy far more than slow-paced change, which is why it is so easy (and disingenuous)to accuse revolutionary leaders of turning their backs on democracy. There is no doubt in my mind that Chávez is committed to democratic socialism, which is to say (as with many revolutionaries before him) he does not think that true democracy and socialism are mutually incompatible.

Is Venezuela perfectly democratic today? Certainly, there are flaws in the regime but, with that said, they are far fewer than he normally criticized for (for example, complaints against him for media censorship are absurd. Remember that in many Latin American states the right has complete dominance over the media, since the rich leans right, and the rich own media outlets) AND democracy is a process. You are never perfectly democratic, you are always trying to work out bugs in the system, (after all, it was not until relatively recently that women and minorities were given the right to vote here in the U.S.) and there is no doubt that under Chávez, Venezuela is becoming more democratic. These communes are massive steps in that process. As I noted in the article, this is a devolution of power to the people - these communes would be overwhelmingly counter-productive were Chávez's goal to consolidate power.

The irony of it all is, the more that the opposition accuses Chávez of being undemocratic, for example through opposition to the communes, the more they make it difficult for him to further institutionalize democracy. Just as Cuba's turn to authoritarianism was, in many ways, a response to US opposition, and just as the Nicaraguan democracy was absolutely murdered the Contra War (and, of course, US democratic norms have been violated in response to most of the major conflicts we've had over time, including throughout the entire Cold War) staunch opposition to Chávez from the US and the institutions it dominates will only make it more likely that Venezuela fails to become a democracy.

Were the US to take a cooperative and conciliatory approach with Venezuela, understanding the flaws in its democracy and to offer constructive aid in improving the regime, both Venezuela and the US could benefit from a mutually supportive relationship. Unfortunately, however, the fact of life when it comes to politics in the US, both because of our institutions and our national character, is that vested interests trump morality. And in my opinion the worst tragedy of American politics is that we've grown cynical. That vested interests always win doesn't depress me so much as knowing that the majority on the left in the US have given up almost all their hope of it being any other way. Which, to bring things full circle, is why even the left feels the need to condemn Chávez. They've grown up with such a cynical attitude toward politics that it is impossible for them to imagine a leader that is more interested in ideology than vested interests. Hopefully, Chávez's revolution will awaken a spirit of idealism in the US as well. We could sure use it.