Description
Book SynopsisToo often the story of Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution is told with an excessive focus on former president Hugo Chavez. In this history from below, Dario Azellini turns our attention toward the ways workers, peasants, and the poor in urban communities have led the struggle for 21st century socialism. This fascinating account draws on extensive empirical studies and participant interviews.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Abbreviations 1. Introduction 1.1 Venezuela’s specific path 1.2 The dilemma of the state 1.3 Two-track construction 1.4 Local self-government, communal councils (CCs), and communes 1.5 Cooperatives, co-management, self-management, and workers’ control 1.6 The revolution without Chávez 2. Class, Constituent Power, and Popular Power 2.1 Updating the concept of class Theoretical notes on class and multitude Class composition and breadth in Venezuela 2.2 Socio-territorial segregation and class formation 2.3 From taking power to process: Constituent power and popular power Crisis as a motor of history: Constituent power vs. constituted power The popular constituent process The simultaneity of foci: Resistance, insurrection and constituent power Popular power: The knowledge of resistance 3. Movements and Alternative Construction in Venezuela 3.1 Social movements or popular movements? 3.2 The historical current for change and the ruptures of the continuum 3.3 The new framework of action 3.4 Popular actors and autonomous construction The Bolívar and Zamora Revolutionary Current The Settlers’ Movement National Network of Communards 4. The Communal Councils: Local Self-Administration and Social Transformation 4.1 Participatory budgeting The failed CLPP initiative Metropolitan Council for Planning Public Policies (CMPPP) The Municipal Constituent The Local Work Cabinets in Caracas 4.2 The communal councils The genesis of the CCs Makeup and structure Rigid law and flexible praxis Financing and financial administration Projects Decentralisation or centralisation Development, situation, and contradictions Relationship between CCs and institutions CCs and popular movements Relations between CCs and communities The appropriation of CCs by communities and the question of the state 4.3 The CCs as a means of participation in the barrios of Caracas The ‘Emiliano Hernández’ Communal Council, Magallanes de Catia, Caracas The CC as a body of self-administration Participation as a process of development and of social recognition Participation as a process of democratisation and of building collectivity The CC ‘Unidos por el Chapulún’, Parroquia Nuestra Sra. del Rosario, Baruta CCs in Caracas: Conclusions Participation Relationship between communities and institutions 5. New Collective Business Paradigms 5.1 Cooperatives Roots of cooperativism in Venezuela Governmental policies of support for cooperatives Limitations of state support for cooperatives Internal organisation of cooperatives The problematisation of cooperativism 5.2 New entrepreneurial models Private enterprise and co-management Co-management in state businesses Social Production Companies 6. Workers’ Control, Workers’ Councils, and Class Struggle 6.1 Recuperated companies and nationalisation 6.2 Workers’ control and workers’ councils The movement for workers’ control The Socialist Workers’ Councils The CVG and the 2009–19 Socialist Guayana Plan 6.3 Workers’ control: The example of Inveval From the struggle for pay to the struggle for the factory The workers abandon the cooperative and form a council 6.4 Alcasa: Class struggle for productive transformation against bureaucracy and corruption Revolutionary co-management The victory of bureaucracy and corruption Workers’ control returns The organisational structure of the new Alcasa Worker inventiveness workshops The Alcasa initiatives and the institutional embargo The attack on workers’ control and the negation of the Socialist Guayana Plan 6.5 New struggles for workers’ control 6.6 Approaching the issue of new worker subjectivities in the context of participation and class struggle Horizontality in the factory and change throughout society The new collective self 7. Communes, Production, and the Communal State 7.1. Communes Origin and form Communes and constituted power 7.2 Companies of Communal Social Property and the construction of a communal economy 7.3 Communal state: State or non-state? 8 Local and Worker Co-Management, Two-Track Construction, and Class Struggle: A Preliminary Assessment 8.1 The Bolivarian process and class struggle 8.2 Communal councils, communes, and communal state 8.3 Property models, the administration of the means of production, and class struggle 8.4 Nationalisation, workers’ control, and the Socialist Workers’ Councils 8.5 The relation of constituent and constituted power to class struggle Interviews References Index
