<http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/696/36142>http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/696/36142
Pioneering the new socialism of the 21st century
Federico Fuentes
25 January 2007
On January 8, Venezuela's socialist President
Hugo Chavez swore in his new cabinet, including
five new members, calling upon them to take an
oath that they would "never rest arm or soul in
the construction of the Venezuelan path towards
socialism". One the ministers sworn in was Hector
Navarro, previously higher education minister and
now Venezuela's minister of science and technology.
Visiting Australia towards the end of last year
as part of a presidential delegation, Navarro
spoke with Green Left Weekly about his ideas on
the new socialism of the 21st century. The first
part of the interview was published in GLW #684.
According to Navarro, this "new socialism" is
posing a real alternative to "what some authors
have called 'hegemonic global imperialism'".
The early imperialist system, as analysed by
Lenin during World War I, had several rival
developed capitalist powers. "But now, there
exists one sole empire which is both global and
hegemonic", Navarro argued, adding: "It does not
recognise the UN, instead it does what it wants."
This US-centred empire is in its "terminal
phase". Pointing to the chronic and permanent
trade deficits of the US as one example of this,
he noted that in essence what is occurring today
"is not just a crisis of capitalism, but of its
very essence, which is capital".
"Capitalism has a logic, which is the logic of
capital. It is the logic of the pursuit of
maximum profit, which automatically means that
there is no respect for the environment, because,
if you want to maximise profit, the environment
is not important for you. If you are going to
maximise profit, human beings don't matter to
you. What is important is maximising profits, and
under the logic of capital, the market is what regulates everything."
Drawing out the irony of all the talk about the
virtues of the "free market" under corporate
capitalism, Navarro said that what really exists
is a "market that is manipulated by the mass
media, which induces people towards consumerism,
towards buying new things. The result is that
there is no such thing as a free market, there only exists manipulation."
Navarro argued that in the end all this does is
"draw us into a vicious cycle where we are simply
destroying the environment. This is a limiting
factor which impedes capitalism from being able
to continue existing after this final phase.
"After global hegemonic capitalism there is no
other phase of capitalism. There is the death of
humanity, the disappearance of the human species
and the disappearance of life on this planet or
the alternative, which is to replace the logic of
capital with the logic of labour, a totally
different logic, because now it is not
maximisation of individual profit, but rather, it
is based on benefiting the collective."
Navarro said that this is the type of society
that the Bolivarian revolution is trying to build
today, based on the "logic of labour" rather than
capital. For Navarro, this "logic of labour" is
the basis of "a new socialist project that
rescues the real origins of socialism, of that
socialism with is filled with humanism".
Navarro said this was a break with the "old
socialism" exemplified by the Soviet Union. "I
take Cuba out of that because the Cuban socialist
project is different to other socialist projects", he added.
This "new socialism" is based on "a new type of
democracy where the workers have to take up a
protagonistic role. Everyone has to take up the
work of the state so they need time to not just
carry out their functions, they need creative time."
Recalling some of the experiences and discussion
he had in his visit to the Soviet Union in 1982,
Navarro stated: "The USSR failed among other
things because it did not understand that
humanity evolves and that human beings need other
spaces. Humans do not live by just satisfying
their material necessities, such as housing, clothing, etc.
"As well as material needs which are important,
indispensable there are other elements, which
have to do with the mind, with the spirit, that
have to do with the nature of humans as opposed
to animals. Animals can live by just satisfying
their material needs. Humans cannot. Humans needs
a space to project themselves, and that space to
project themselves, socially and politically, is
contained with the Bolivarian constitution."
Perhaps one of the clearest examples of this is
Article 62, which states, "All citizens have the
right to participate freely in public affairs,
either directly or through their elected
representatives. The participation of the people
in forming, carrying out and controlling the
management of public affairs is the necessary way
of achieving the involvement to ensure their
complete development, both individual and
collective. It is the obligation of the State and
the duty of society to facilitate the generation
of optimum conditions for putting this into practice."
Navarro commented that "the Soviets though they
were the end of history you can see here a
coinciding of idea put forward by the Soviet
leaders and by the neoliberals the end of
history, the end of ideologies. The Soviets also
came to believe that they were the end of history
and that there was nothing beyond the way things were in the Soviet Union.
"But things are not like that because humans are
permanently evolving. They began to maximise
benefits, but it was the state that appropriates
it, not society not a state where everyone is a
part of the state, rather a state formed by a few elites."
He noted that the Venezuelan constitution
"guarantees that petroleum revenue is used for
the benefit of all Venezuelans", unlike how it
was used by previous neoliberal governments to
enrich the wealthy elite. "Moreover, it indicates
in what things revenues from petroleum can be
invested education, health, etc.
"This marks a clear difference with any
capitalist vision because it is saying that what
is socially produced is socially used and that is
a socialist concept. What is socially produced,
what is the product of our collective labour,
cannot be taken advantage of by the owners of
capital, but instead it should be for the use of the collective.
"So petroleum is a collective good, everything
that is underground is a common good that belongs
to society as a whole. The term collective means
not only for Venezuelans, because at the moment
Venezuela's foreign policy is focusing on an
important part of petroleum resources to be used
to help other peoples in obtaining education, health etc.
"This is something the Cubans also did and
continue to do. They continue to do it with us,
for example, through the Cuban doctors and the
literacy campaign" in Venezuela.
Navarro said that "we cannot commit the same
error those who led the Soviet Union did. We
cannot think that within 151 years, three months,
two days and three hours, we will have
constructed socialism and that once we get there,
that's it and we are all happy.
"Socialism is constructed each day permanently,
just like happiness is constructed permanently.
Happiness does not exist in isolation. What
exists is being on the path towards obtaining
happiness, constructing it. You feel happy when
you know that you are on the path to obtaining
happiness. But absolute happiness cannot exist.
Socialism cannot exist as a static phenomenon,
because it is like a grand goal that is over
there, but what has to happen is that we as
humans have to be travelling towards that goal
each day, constructing socialism. That is the real socialism."
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Currently based in Venezuela.
NOTE NEW PHONE NUMBERS
Can be reached at
Residencias Anauco Suites
Departamento 601
Parque Central, Zona Postal 1010, Oficina 1
Caracas, Venezuela
(58-212) 573-6333, 571-1520, 571-3820 (or hotel cell: 0412-200-7540)
fax: (58-212) 573-7724
