In his talk, which was well received by activists around the world, Chávez never mentioned the new project of building socialism with the commune as “its basic cell” that he had kickstarted that summer, but the fact is that the project of communal socialism that was emerging in Venezuela at that time is precisely the kind of system change that could save the climate and the Earth System more generally.
Yes, yes, Chris Gilbert is.
The “basic cell” of society used to be the family. Governments have been quite successful in destroying it in the last forty years. Replacing it with the “commune” has been less successful.
Well, the impoverishment of Venezuela under Chavez did lead to a halving of Venezuela’s CO2 emissions from energy use between 2011 and 2020 and he reduced Venezuela’s oil production by more than three-quarters in the same period {I don’t have data for older baselines, which would be even more dramatic, to hand). So if Chris Gilbert thinks the solution is to impoverish us so awfully that a few billion die of starvation, then Chavez is indeed the way forward.
I don’t have the numbers for how many fled Chavez’s Venezuela into Colombia’s civil war – wiki says 2.5 million
I notice that no-where in that article does the author mention anything about the communes providing enough food for people to live on – or indeed anything at all.
There was a lot about people deciding what they wanted to produce, and consumers finding ways of telling people what they wanted to consume, but I found absolutely nothing about *quantity* as opposed to *quality*.
The closest I saw was the odd reference to shifting peoples’ patterns of consumption to match what would be produced, which is a little too close to Procrustes’ attitude to tall people for me to be entirely comfortable.
You must have doubled the readership for this Monthly Review rag Tim. The tankies probably think the extra clicks mean support for the revolution is on the rise.
Still, it is useful to be reminded that these loony throwbacks still exist.
“consumers finding ways of telling people what they wanted to consume”
Hey, here’s a mad idea, how about the consumers offer to exchange resourses with the producers to indicate to them what the consumers wish to consume. We could even use little record-keeping receipts as proxies for those resources instead of having to drag the resources themselves around.
the project of communal socialism that was emerging in Venezuela at that time is precisely the kind of system change that could save …
I, for one, have no wish to be saved from toilet paper or having food to eat.
What is a “cosmovision” apparently held by Infigenous people?
Nothing in the article about having to eat your pets and having no toilet paper/medicines/electricity etc. Pity Chavismo didn’t die with him.
That explains the 1.5 million Venezuelans who have migrated, legally but mostly illegally, into the USA.
Pity Chavismo didn’t die with him.
It should have, but el presidenté Nicolás Maduro has proven to be quite the difficult little cockroach to get rid of. It does however seem to show that the CIA has gotten bored with South American regime change that the horrid little shit remains in power.
I, for one, have no wish to be saved from toilet paper or having food to eat.
Under socialism, Arthur, you *are* what people have to eat.
Slovenia has pulled level with the UK for income/head according to a recent article by Hannan and will likely go past us soon. The first former communist territory to do so.
Which goes to show the benefits of avoiding communism.
I don’t have the numbers for how many fled Chavez’s Venezuela into Colombia:
2.5 million to Colombia
1.5 million to Perú
Plus half a million each to USA, Ecuador, Chile, Spain and Brazil
See https://es.statista.com/estadisticas/1261404/paises-con-mayor-numero-de-migrantes-venezolanos-en-el-mundo/
‘Which goes to show the benefits of avoiding communism.’
Thank you Bongo!!
If you’re ever looking for unbalanced stuff upon which to base a blog post there’s a whole huge website here absolutely chockers with it: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/
The last thing on their minds being, naturally, democracy. Who cares what the proles want, the party bosses have spoken:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/ulez-uxbridge-keir-starmer-constituency-labour-party-harwich-westminster/
Just read some of that Opendemocracy site.
At least the Tankies believe in stuff, even if it is bonkers.
@ bloke in Callao
Thanks.
That’s over 20%
Yet historically ‘intentional communities’ hardly ever last beyond a generation. The only exceptions that come to mind are religious intentional communities that last longer, or socialist communes that fly apart sooner.