{"id":956,"date":"2019-03-10T15:07:07","date_gmt":"2019-03-10T15:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?page_id=956"},"modified":"2019-10-21T00:44:32","modified_gmt":"2019-10-20T23:44:32","slug":"venezuela-capitalism-staggers-on","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/venezuela-capitalism-staggers-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Venezuela: Capitalism Staggers On"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This article has been reproduced from the Socialist Standard<\/em> \n(September 2000),\nthe monthly journal of The Socialist Party of Great pitain <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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On Sunday, 30 July 2000, Hugo Chavez, former army colonel, leader of a\n failed coup in 1992, and President of Venezuela since\nFebruary 1999, was re-elected in what Richard Gott described in a letter\n to the The Guardian, London (02\/08\/2000) as “a stunning victory that \nsurprised the pollsters”. Actually, the opinion polls the previous week \ngave him a lead of 20 percent over his main challenger, Francisco Arias.\n More than 80 percent of those who voted for Chavez were said to be \nliving below the official poverty line. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIn 1996, unemployment in Venezuela stood at 17 percent, inflation rose \nduring the year by approximately 100 percent, and per capita oil income,\n on which the country relied, and still relies, for more than 80 percent\n of its foreign exchange, declined by three-quarters between 1980 and \n1995. Nevertheless, Venezuela was, and is, the world’s third largest \noil-producing country, and has the largest oil reserves in the Western \nHemisphere. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIn July last year, Chavez’s “leftist” coalition won an overwhelming \nmajority of seats in the 131-seat assembly, despite a sharp economic \ndownturn and the loss of at least 600, 000 jobs since Chavez took office\n in\nFebruary. He blamed the corruption and poverty of the workers on \nprevious administrations, and promised to create a “true democracy”, \nfree of corruption and poverty for the masses, despite appointing many \nof his former fellow army plotters to top posts in the state. Such was \nChavez’s “Peaceful Revolution”! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThen, in December, after torrential rain for more than a week, Venezuela\n suffered devastating floods which caused landslides, inundated the \ncapital, Caracas, swept away roads and shanty towns, and cascaded down \nthe steep valleys to the Caribbean coast, and into the sea. Large tracts\n of Vargas state, the worst affected, were flooded. In the words of a \nheadline in The Guardian, London (24\/12\/1999), “Venezuela pays the price\n for ecological carelessness”, caused we should add by the quest for \nprofit at all costs by the Venezuelan, and multi-national capitalist \nclass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nIn January this year, in the wake of the floods and the destruction of \nthousands of homes, it has been reported by the newspaper, El Nacional \nand a number of human rights groups, that at least 60 people (the \ngovernment’s figure) had been killed by the military between 17 and 30 \nDecember, allegedly to stop looting. Chavez insisted that “nothing can \nbe considered proof” of the military’s involvement in the murders; but \nEl Nacional said that President Chavez had “expelled three soldiers from\n the National Guard on charges that they had participated, not in the \nexecutions, but in looting”. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nMeanwhile, since January 1999, the Venezuelan economy has declined by \nseven percent, foreign investors have withdrawn more than\n\u00a35 billion, and unemployment is still more than 600,000 more than it was\n when Hugo Chavez became President in\nFebruary. The “acute economy slump” continues; and the voters, over 80 \npercent of whom are employed or unemployed workers, have given Chavez \nanother six years of power. And capitalism in Venezuela, as elsewhere, \nstaggers on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAuthor: P. Newell \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back to the Politics Index<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back to the World Socialist Movement home page<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article has been reproduced from the Socialist Standard (September 2000), the monthly journal of The Socialist Party of Great pitain On Sunday, 30 July 2000, Hugo Chavez, former army colonel, leader of a failed coup in 1992, and President of Venezuela since February 1999, was re-elected in what Richard Gott described in a letter…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-956","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2611,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/956\/revisions\/2611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}