I believe the Italian constitution includes a right to work, for what such things are worth. There may not have been an "institutional guarantee" of a job for life in most developed countries during the era of the long post-WW2 boom and Keynesianism, but (with the probable exception of the USA) there was certainly, by the 1970s, a widespread expectation that that was the case. Besides which, an institutional guarantee is only as good as the faith of the public in the regime's ability to deliver. Chavez may have the support of most Venezuelans now, but that does not mean they are prepared to believe in institutional guarantees, or will support them politically in the long run.
But I said that the right to work in a capitalist country, including Chavez's Venezuela or Peron's Argentina, is not the same thing as job entitlements in Cuba or the USSR, for that matter. This is a fundamental distinction. It is what Brus characterized as the Achilles heel of the Soviet model. Unless you have the lash of unemployment, there will be "inefficiencies".
I think the emphasis on praxis has been both a strength and weakness of many latter day Marxist groups. It has an innate appeal, when compared to the scholastic lines of academic Marxism. However, I think the compulsion to "act" at all times also leads many activists into quixotic and even counterproductive activity.
Well, I wasn't referring to academic Marxism. I was referring to autonomist trends with their tendency to focus exclusively on the need for communism, without any interest in how to get there. They are the people who are giving communism a bad name.
I get the point(s), but Venezuela does have the advantage of significant state-owned oil industries. And if it were about to go down the Jamaican road, it would take a lot more than "protectionism" to prevent that.
Yes, they would need to radicalize the Bolivarian revolution even further.
In other words, just as Marx predicted, laissez faire/export-oriented development plans are rapidly exposing more and more people, in more and more countries to pauperisation and increasing class conflict. State-directed development, whether it is capitalist or socialist, smooths out and suppresses these things but does not abolish them, especially if capital still exists as a social relation.
I guess you won't be satisfied with anything less than world communism. What ideas do you have about getting there? I won't even ask you if you have ever been an activist. That wouldn't be fair.
Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
