A new development model : is it possible ?
The path to a new design / development paradigm has already started with the introduction (at the normative level and in speeches) of the natural element (Pachamama, Madre Tierra in Spanish) as a leading character in development strategies. This is a revolution not to be underestimated. Despite what Marx wrote about the relationship between capitalism and destruction of nature, past socialist experiments have not emphasized, for clear historical and strategic reasons, the need to put nature at the center of policy development. That is to say the dominant design remained fundamentally anthropocentric instead of biocentric. The most significant advances in this direction can be observed in Ecuador and Bolivia, where the introduction of nature's rights in the constitution is a pioneering new. However, because of the dependence of the extractive economy, these advances and the speeches remain on the drawing board. But at least they are being considered. Words and laws will have to be translated into tangible and effective policies if the change process is to achieved, including the emancipation from the capitalist system, economic integration within the Latin American Progressive Bloc, creating Latin American supranational institutions in key sectors of the economy and the implementation of a national economic strategy based on economic diversification.
But all that glitters is not gold. Hierarchies and power structures inherited from previous periods (colonial and neo-colonial one) are still in place. In the opinion of Francois Houtart, Belgian sociologist, the Latin American process is now a post-neoliberal processes but not yet post-capitalist. For him, the post-neoliberal character is achieved with the reconstruction of the State, recovery of its roles broken free from the hegemonic interference watchdogs of international finance capital : the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. However, at present, we can not speak of it as a post-capitalist transformation. Latin countries (except Cuba) retain economies with capitalist exploitation of the labor force although, unlike in the neo-liberal countries, redistributive policies have improved the workers' living conditions. In Venezuela the transition has gone further, deepening the Bolivarian revolution has helped to create new forms of organization within companies and self-governing socialist communes.
In addition, in all these countries (except Cuba and Venezuela to a lesser extent) multinationals continue to dictate the law to concerning the extraction of natural resources, oil and mining products. In Ecuador, Chevron is still very influential in the mining policies of the Amazonian oil. In Bolivia, despite major nationalization wave in mining and hydrocarbons, initiated by the Morales government in 2006, multinationals are still there, powerful, aggressive, as usual, trying to pollute ecosystems and enslave local populations. To the east of the country, still under the control of the white oligarchy of the country, Monsanto dictates the law in the vast soy plantations. It is needless to discuss the cases of Brazil and Argentina, as they are further back in the process of structural change.
It is often asked, why, despite the discourse of political actors in these countries, does the process fail to take off ? We believe that this question is poorly worded. The process is not failing to take off. The process is, by its very nature, something that advance in stages. This leads to inevitable contradictions, "a creative tension within the revolution" , as it is called by the Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera. There are inevitable tensions that "on one side, threaten the continuation (of the revolution) ; on the other, allow to imagine how to move to the next stage". As we wrote in an previous article of Investig'Action, "to overcome this contradiction, the first step will be democratization and then the appropriation by the society through legal arbitration. You have to push a vanguard guarantor of the common interest. Initially, the object should be to reduce inequalities through redistribution of wealth. The second stage would be the gradual transformation of the people into a collective entity".
These contradictions will be more marked in the case of countries such as those in Latin America entering the 21st century with characteristics to consider. Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela, for example, were probably the countries most devastated by the neoliberal policies of Western colonialism, the World Bank and the IMF, in agreement with the Western powers. Any remaining fabric of industry was annihilated, indigenous peoples were deprived of their rights, poverty was at catastrophic levels (in 2005 Bolivia was, after Haiti, the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere) " One of the most painful legacies of the neoliberal period, which we do not often mention, is undoubtedly the total dependence of the economies of these countries on exports of non-finished products (including crude oil, mining, gas and other hydrocarbons). We must also consider the fact that this dependence is also evident from the side of the technological and administrative knowledge. This fact implies that when they entered the game, the Latin American progressive presidents have found themselves in a state of (total) dependency on international markets and the "game" of international trade in raw materials. To quit this game from one day to another would have meant the inability of these countries to finance their social policies and to support their spending in general. Consequently, in the short-term, maintaining links of progressive countries with international capitalist system is a necessary condition for survival.
The Latin American integration process and the road to socialism of the 21st century are part a long, complex process, tempered with barriers and inevitably contradictory. It is precisely because of these difficulties, which in addition are accompanied by an intensification of imperialist machine on a global scale, that we have the responsibility to monitor and support the movement for emancipation from the old system. It concerns the future of all of us, of all people who struggle for peace, freedom and social justice.
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