{"product_id":"communes-and-workers-control-in-venezuela-building-21st-century-socialism-from-below-9789004300118","title":"Communes and Workers' Control in Venezuela: Building 21st Century Socialism from Below","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Communes and Workers' Control in Venezuela: Building 21st Century Socialism from Below, Dario Azzellini offers an account of the Bolivarian Revolution from below. While authors on Venezuela commonly concentrate on former president Hugo Chávez and government politics, this book shows how workers, peasants and the poor in urban communities engage in building 21st century socialism through popular movements, communal councils, communes and fighting for workers' control. In a relationship of cooperation and conflict with the state, social transformation is approached on 'two tracks', from below and from above. Azzellini’s fascinating account stands out because of the extensive empirical examples and original voices from movements, communal councils, communes and workers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This monograph presents the most detailed account available in English of communal councils and workers' control initiatives in Venezuela that have evolved since the beginning of the Bolivarian Revolution in 1999. [...] ... a sympathetic and yet unapologetic study of the developments of socialism within the Bolivarian Revolution, such as presented in this book, is indispensable to any serious engagement with the project of socialism for the twenty-first century.\" - Babak Amini, London School of Economics, in: Socialism and Democracy 32\/2 (2018)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgements 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","brand":"Brill","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53210673971543,"sku":"9789004300118","price":126.4,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/communes-and-workers-control-in-venezuela-building-21st-century-socialism-from-below-9789004300118","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}