Home from the Dark Side of Utopia

by Clifton Ross

  23 MercoPress, “Venezuela joins the hyperinflation club: 54.3% in last twelve months and climbing,” http://en.mercopress.com/2013/11/08/venezuela-joins-the-hyperinflation-club-54.3-in-last-twelve-months-and-climbing. This policy has only worsened as the government increased money supply.

  24 Kejal Vyas, “Inflation-Racked Venezuela Orders Bank Notes by the Planeload,” http://www.wsj.com/articles/inflation-wrought-

  venezuela-orders-bank-notes-by-the-planeload-1454538101.

  25 Xabier Coscojuela, “Elías Matta: ‘Aquí había un relajo con el tema de la corrupción,’” http://www.talcualdigital.com/Nota/122995/elias-matta-aqui-habia-un-relajo-con-el-tema-de-la-corrupcion

  26 See, for instance, http://caracaschronicles.com/2013/03/19/sicad-birth-of-a-red-tape-behemoth/.

  27 Carlos and Marcos Tarre, Estado Delincuente, 130.

  28 Juan Cristobal Nagel, “Crazy Cadivi subsidizes Colombian smugglers,” http://caracaschronicles.com/2013/10/23/crazy-cadivi-subsidizes-colombian-smugglers/.

  29 The price of the Bolívar can be tracked in real time at https://dolartoday.com/.

  30 El Universal, “Transcript of Mario Silva’s recording,” http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/130524/transcript-of-mario-silvas-recording.

  31 Jackson Diehl, “A drug cartel’s power in Venezuela,” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-drug-cartels-power-in-venezuela/2015/05/24/9bc0ff14-ffd6-11e4-8b6c-0dcce21e223d_story.html.

  32 Reuters, “Venezuelan president’s relatives indicted in US for cocaine smuggling,” http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/nov/12/venezuela-president-relatives-indicted-drugs.

  33 Caribbean 360, “Venezuela military pilots flew drugs to Haiti for trafficking into US, reports say,” http://www.caribbean360.com/news/venezuela-military-pilots-flew-drugs-to-haiti-for-

  trafficking-into-us.

  34 Andrew F. Puglie “Maria Gabriela Chávez Net Worth: Hugo Chávez’s Daughter Richest Woman in Venezuela, Worth $4.2 Billion,” http://www.latinpost.com/articles/71424/20150812/maria-gabriela-ch%C3%A1vez-net-worth-hugo-ch%C3%A1vezs-daughter-richest-woman-in-venezuela-worth-4-2-billion.htm.

  35 Daniel Lansberg-Rodriguez, “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria Gabriela?,” http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/08/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-maria-gabriela-venezuela/379167/.

  36 Jolguer Rodríguez Costa, “Nicmer Evans: ‘El madurismo es un error histórico,’” http://www.el-nacional.com/siete_dias/Nicmer-Evans-madurismo-error-historico_0_554344571.html.

  37 Eyanir Chinea and Corina Pons, “Venezuela ex-ministers seek probe into $300 billion in lost oil revenue,” http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-idUSKCN0VB26F.

  38 Francisco Toro, “PDVSA and the Abyss,” http://caracaschronicles.com/2016/02/15/pdvsa/.

  39 Pietro Pitts, “Venezuela’s PDVSA Says Debt Fell by $2 Billion Last Year,” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-22/venezuela-s-pdvsa-says-debt-fell-by-2-billion-last-year.

  40 Sabrina Martín, “As Socialist Economy Implodes, Venezuela Creates Army-Run Oil Firm,” https://panampost.com/sabrina

  -martin/2016/02/16/as-socialist-economy-implodes-venezuela

  -creates-army-run-oil-firm/#at_pco=smlwn-1.0&at_si=56c5f

  f4e0a768106&at_ab=per-13&at_pos=0&at_tot=1.

  41 Ibid.

  42 Alexandra Ulmer, “Venezuela’s PDVSA still mulls debt refinance proposal,” http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-pdvsa-idUSKCN0UQ2C720160112.

  43 Kenneth Rapoza, “Venezuela Default Imminent, Chavez Legacy Rests In Pieces,” http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza

  /2016/01/20/venezuela-default-imminent-chavez-legacy

  -rests-in-pieces/#47173d96208f.

  44 Dolar Today, “PANORAMA ‘SOMBRÍO’: Luis Vicente León ‘el país está rodando por el barranco,’” https://dolartoday.com/panorama-sombrio-luis-vicente-leon-el-pais-esta-

  rodando-por-el-barranco/.

  45 Ricardo Hausmann and Miguel Angel Santos, “Should Venezuela Default?” https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ricardo-hausmann-and-miguel-angel-santos-pillory-the-maduro

  -government-for-defaulting-on-30-million-citizens--but-not-on-wall-street?barrier=true. Hausmann has since been joined by other economists expressing shock that a “socialist” government would prefer to pay Wall Street rather than use its foreign exchange to provide necessities for its people. See http://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2016/02/22/venezuelas-collapse-one-year-on/#6b106fa0516e.

  46 Jose Orozco and Sebastian Boyd, “Venezuela Threatens Harvard Professor for Default Comment,” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-09-12/venezuela-threatens-harvard-professor-for-default-comment.

  47 Zayda Pereira, “Se anuncian cierres definitivos de comercios en varias regiones,” http://www.elmundo.com.ve/noticias/economia

  /gremios/riera--hay-regiones-que-anuncian-cierres-definitiv.aspx#ixzz40WhVLU7f.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  1 See Javier Corrales and Michael Penfold, Dragon in the Tropics, 202.

  2 Jorge Giordani, quoted in Corrales and Penfold, Dragon in the Tropics, 191.

  3 Corrales and Penfold, Dragon in the Tropics, 190–203.

  4 P.G., “A Country Divided,” http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2013/12/venezuelas-local-elections.

  5 Clifton Ross, “Elections in Venezuela: Did anyone notice?” http://www.pmpress.org/content/article.php/20131213143334233.

  6 Nicolle Yapur, “A dos años del ‘Dakazo’ la escasez de electrodomésticos es de 95%,” http://elestimulo.com/elinteres/sector-de-electrodomesticos-aun-siente-los-efectos-del-primer-

  dakazo/.

  7 Elyssa Pachico, “Chavez’s Legacy: An Explosion of Violence and Drug Trafficking,” http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/chavezs-legacy-an-explosion-of-violence-and-drug-trafficking.

  8 Jim Wyss, “Dueling data blur Venezuelan murder rate,” http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/

  venezuela/article59098558.html.

  9 Jan Sonnenschein, “Latin America Scores Lowest on Security,” http://www.gallup.com/poll/175082/latin-america-scores-

  lowest-security.aspx.

  10 Over two years later, only one person has been held responsible in the three murders which were immediately covered up by the Bolivarian government: http://www.el-nacional.com/politica/cabos-sueltos-impunidad_0_793120743.html.

  11 Andrew Cawthorne and Daniel Wallis, “Venezuela seeks protest leader’s arrest after unrest kills three,” http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-protests-idUSBREA1B1K220140214.

  12 Patricia Laya, Sarah Frier and Anatoly Kurmanaev, “Venezuelans Blocked on Twitter as Opposition Protests Mount,” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-14/twitter-says-venezuela-blocks-its-images-amid-protest-crackdown.

  13 Christopher Deloire, “Right to information more endangered than ever in national crisis,” http://en.rsf.org/venezuela-right-to-

  information-more-26-02-2014,45933.html.

  14 According to the Freedom House website, “The 2004 Law on Social Responsibility in Radio, Television, and Electronic Media (Resorte Law), amended in 2010, contains vaguely worded restrictions that can be used to severely limit freedom of expression. For example, the law bans content that could “incite or promote hatred,” “foment citizens’ anxiety or alter public order,” “disrespect authorities,” “encourage assassination,” or “constitute war propaganda.” It also restricts content that the government deems to be of an adult nature—including news stories that cover sexual or violent topics, in a country with one of the world’s highest homicide rates—to the hours between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. Consequently, many broadcasters are forced to present a watered-down version of national and international news during the hours when most viewers tune in. In addition, the law requires all broadcasters to air live government broadcasts (known as cadenas), which can come at random and supersede regular programming. The law empowers the Venezuelan National Telecommunications Commission (CONATEL
) to oversee enforcement and permits it to impose heavy fines or disrupt service at its discretion. In 2011, CONATEL levied a $2.16 million fine against Globovisión, Venezuela’s last remaining opposition television network, over what CONATEL deemed to be “excessive” coverage of a prison riot “that promoted hatred and intolerance for political reasons.” The fine, which was ratified by the Supreme Court in June 2012, represented 7.5 percent of the company’s gross 2010 income. Globovisión paid the fine after the Supreme Court ordered the company’s assets seized. Separately, in March, after Chávez accused the press of “media terrorism” in reporting on possible water contamination in the center of the country, courts barred the media from covering the story unless they could base it on a “truthful technical report backed by a competent institution.” Archived at https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2013/venezuela#.U1Z_RdJDvl4.

  15 “Venezuela 2014: Protesta j Derechos Humanos,” http://www.derechos.org.ve/pw/wp-content/uploads/Informe-final-protestas2.pdf.

  16 See https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/americas/venezuela/report-venezuela/. Links to other reports at this website fill out the picture of repression.

  17 La Patilla, “En 2014 se registraron 9.286 protestas, cifra inédita en Venezuela,” http://www.lapatilla.com/site/2015/01/19/en-2014-se-registraron-9-286-protestas-cifra-inedita-en-venezuela/.

  18 From a private email sent to me.

  19 Víctor Salmerón, “La pobreza medidas por ingresos se disparó hasta 76% en Venezuela, según Encovi (UCV-USB-UCAB),” http://prodavinci.com/blogs/la-pobreza-se-disparo-hasta-76-en-venezuela-segun-encovi-ucv-usb-ucab-por-victor-salmeron/.

  20 The entire process under Chávez and then Maduro has been consistent with Dornbusch and Edwards’s four phases of populist economics. See Rudiger Dornbusch and Sebastian Edwards, The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 10–11. The current state of Venezuela (early 2016) coincides with their description of the final stage of populist cycles when “the collapse of the economy makes workers worse off than they were at the beginning of the populist period,” 50.

  21 The Editorial Board, “Free Venezuela’s Leopoldo López,” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/14/opinion/free-venezuelas-leopoldo

  -lopez.html?_r=0.

  22 Amnesty International, “Venezuela: Sentence against opposition leader shows utter lack of judicial independence,” https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/09/venezuela-sentence-against-

  opposition-leader-shows-utter-lack-of-judicial-independence/.

  23 Pedro García Otero, “Leopoldo López’s Sentence Is Everything Wrong with Venezuela,” https://panampost.com/pedro-garcia/2015/09/17/leopoldo-

  lopezs-sentence-is-everything-thats-wrong-with-venezuela/.

  24 Ezequiel Montero, “Soy Chavista y no voté,” http://www.aporrea.org/ideologia/a219092.html.

  25 See the very inspiring article by Francisco Toro, “How a Grassroots Movement Defeated Chavista Dirty Tricks” at http://caracaschronicles.com/2015/12/11/49649/.

  26 See Dornbusch and Edwards, The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America.

  27 The best source for information on the history of corporatism in Latin American politics is Howard J. Wiarda, Corporatism and National Development in Latin America (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, Inc. 1981). See also my book, The Map or the Territory, 90–91; 125–127.

  28 Hal Draper, Socialism from Below (Alameda, CA: Center for Socialist History, 2001), 41.

  29 Military caudillos have been president for 140 of the 186 years of Venezuelan history. http://www.el-nacional.com/politica/militares-ocupado-cargos-gobierno_0_325167554.html. See also this piece in English: http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/142133/peter-wilson/a-revolution-in-green, and also my article on the military, paramilitary and gang rule in Bolivarian Venezuela at http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/03/news-from-bolivarian-gangland-2/.

  30 Álex Vásquez S., “112 diputados de la MUD darán prioridad a la agenda de reivindicación social,” http://www.el-nacional.com/politica/diputados-MUD-­prioridad-agenda-reivindicacion_0_754724706.html.

  31 Diego Ore, “Venezuela’s outgoing Congress names 13 Supreme Court justices,” http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-idUSKBN0U626820151223.

  32 Mery Mogollon and Chris Kraul, “In power struggle, Venezuela’s high court declares parliament in contempt,” http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-­venezuela-parliament-court-20160111-story.html.

  33 Ayatola Núñez, “El TSJ ha dado siete golpes constitucionales a la AN,” http://www.el-nacional.com/politica/TSJ-dado-golpes-constitucionales-AN_0_813518956.html.

  34 Alfredo Meza, “El chavismo nunca pierde en el Supremo venezolano,” http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2014/12/12/actualidad/1418373177_159073.html.

  35 Javier Mayorca, “Lo que hay detrás de los ejercicios militares Independencia 2016,” http://runrun.es/nacional/venezuela

  -2/262787/lo-que-hay-detras-de-los-ejercicios-militares-

  independencia-2016.html.

  36 Víctor Amaya, “‘Yo a Maduro no le doy más de cinco meses,’” http://www.talcualdigital.com/Nota/123222/yo-a-maduro-no-le-doy-mas-de-cinco-meses.

  37 Alejandro Palma, “Precio de la Canasta Alimentaria Venezuela Mayo 2016,” http://www.notilogia.com/2016/05/precio-de-la-canasta-­alimentaria-venezuela-marzo-2016.html.

  38 Clifton Ross, “When will the Lights go out in Venezuela?,” http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/04/when-will-the-lights-go-out-in-venezuela/.

  39 The plans for the Nicaraguan canal have been “temporarily” put on hold: http://www.npr.org/2015/12/18/460312284/nicaragua-­canal-project-put-on-hold-as-chinese-investor-suffers-financially.

  40 See Kevin P. Gallagher and Roberto Porzecanski, The Dragon in the Room: China and the Future of Latin American Industrialization (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010).

  41 Rory Carroll, Comandante: Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela, 99–100.

  42 Rick Kearns, “Indigenous Rama Among 15,000 Protesting Nicaragua Canal,” http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/09/03/­indigenous-rama-among-15000-protesting-nicaragua-canal-161622.

  43 https://www.chevron.com/worldwide/venezuela.

  44 I’m referring, of course, to the 2015 election in Argentina that removed Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner from power, the February 2016 referendum in Bolivia that Evo Morales lost, Rafael Correa’s slipping control of Ecuador after the 2014 Mayoral elections and the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff in Brazil. While much of this is due to the increased social pain resulting from the commodities bust (after the decade-long boom) and other implications of destructive “developmentalist” policies, there is also widespread concern over the growing authoritarianism, corruption, and nepotism of the progressive governments. See Jorge Castañeda’s March 22, 2016 New York Times article at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/23/opinion/the-death-of-the-latin-american-left.html?_r=0.

  45 Translation mine, from an interview in Spanish posted at http://www.perfil.com/internacional/Noam-Chomsky-La-corrupcion-fue-tan-grande-en-Sudamerica-que-se-desacreditaron-a-si-mismos-y-desperdiciaron-grandes-oportunidades-20151025-0008.html.

  Epilogue

  1 Nicolas Berdyaev, The Destiny of Man (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), 211.

  2 Karl Popper, “Utopia and Violence,” in Conjectures and Refutations (New York: Routledge Classics, 2002).

  3 Revelation 3:15-16.

  4 There was, for example, the Nandaime incident of July 1988, witnessed and experienced by Steven Kinzer when the Sandinista turbas (mobs) and Sandinista police were set loose to brutally beat people attending an opposition demonstration. See his book, The Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua (NY: Anchor Books, 1992), 381–384. And in early 2014 the Bolivarian government demonstrated it was willing to resort to fairly severe repression against the student demonstrations.

  5 Joan Weibel-Orlando, “Indians, Ethnicity and Alcohol,” in The American Experience with Alcohol: Contrasting Cultural Persp
ectives, eds. G.M. Ames and L.A. Bennett (NY: Springer Science+Business Media, 1985), 233.

  6 http://aimovement.org/ggc/index.html.

  7 A Basic Call to Consciousness: The Hau de no sau nee Address to the Western World (Geneva, Switzerland: Akwesasne Notes 1977).

  8 Ibid., v.

  9 From the extraordinary interview with Wade Davis archived at http://www.ttbook.org/listen/89416.

  10 Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines (New York: Penguin Books, 1987), 123–124.

  11 Nicolas Berdyaev, The End of Our Time (San Rafael, CA: Semantron Press, 2009), 182–187.

  12 Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism, vol. 2, The Golden Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 383–384. This was clearly the line Stalin followed, but also Trotsky: See vol. 3, The Breakdown, of the same work, especially pgs. 193–200.

  13 Leszek Kolakowski, Main Currents of Marxism, vol. 3, The Breakdown, 195–196.

  14 Ibid., 196–197.

  15 See my article, “The Two Lefts and Venezuela,” ref. Chapter Nineteen, note 5.

  16 This is Kurt Weyland’s argument. He writes that “Democracy inherently hinders change by dispersing power and protecting dissent and opposition.” Nevertheless, because it also “embodies a healthy dos of skepticism, monitors ongoing reform efforts, and prompts the design of better alternatives… democracy arguably has normative priority over substantive efforts at change.” Kurt Weyland, “The Performance of Leftist Governments in Latin America,” Leftist Governments in Latin America: Successes and Shortcomings, Eds. Kurt Weyland, Raúl L. Madrid and Wendy Hunter (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 16.

  17 Ibid., 204.

  18 Berdyaev, The End of Our Time, 187.

  19 Javier Corrales and Michael Penfold, Dragon in the Tropics, 1.

  20 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index.

  21 David C. Unger, The Emergency State: America’s Pursuit of Absolute Security at All Costs (New York: The Penguin Press, 2012).

  22 With the implementation of the new “anti-crime” program, “Operation of the Liberation of the People” extra-judicial killings by police have increased 109% from 2014 numbers, from 220 to 460 (see http://www.larazon.net/2016/05/30/las-­violaciones-de-derechos-humanos-detras-de-las-olp/). Particularly hard hit have been low-income and immigrant communities in the country (see https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/04/04/unchecked-power/police-and-military-raids-low-income-and-­immigrant-communities).