The old saying that there's "lies, damn lies, and statistics" is particularly true in Latin America, where the powers-that-be see statistics as more of a game than something to find accurate measurements with.
Economy of Venezuela - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Apart from your curious exclusion of
"[t]he World Bank calculated a 10% drop in poverty," have you read the source that was referenced in your excerpt of the Wikipedia article? It begins with a quotation of Elijuri claiming
"hay que ser bien ciego para decir que la pobreza ha incrementado en los ultimos anos en el pais," which means
"one needs to be quite blind to say that poverty has increased in recent years in the country." Not very promising for your sentiments...apart from that, your skewed focus ignored several other important factors. The first is economic growth. As noted in
The Chávez Administration at 10 Years: The Economy and Social Indicators:
The current economic expansion began when the government got control over the national oil company in the first quarter of 2003. Since then, real (inflation-adjusted) GDP has nearly doubled, growing by 94.7 percent in 5.25 years, or 13.5 percent annually.
Moreover, as the socialist economist Robin Hahnel claims in
Venezuela: Not What You Think (in a quite contrary perspective), this economic growth has also had the effect of combating unemployment.
Like most Latin American economies, the Venezuelan economy deteriorated during the 1980s and most of the 1990s. From 1998 to 2003 real per capita GDP continued to stagnate while the Chavez government survived two general strikes by the largest Venezuelan business association, a military coup, and finally a devastating two month strike by the state owned oil company. However, after Chavez survived the opposition sponsored recall election, annual economic growth was 18.3% in 2004, 10.3% in 2005, and 10.3% in 2006, and the unemployment rate fell from 18.4 % in June 2003 to 8.3% in June 2007. Moreover, most of the growth was in the non-oil sectors of the economy, as the oil sector barely grew during 2005 and 2006. While this impressive growth would not have been possible without the rise in international oil prices, it also would not have been possible had the Chavez government not ignored the warnings of neoliberal critics and pursued aggressive expansionary fiscal and monetary policies.
Even if you claim that there exist analytical deficiencies in measurement of unemployment and poverty, it seems quite sharply distinct to claim that there has been no substantial decrease, or more absurdly, an increase.
As it happens, Chavez is a perfect example of proof that not everyone who considers themselves socialist subscribes to your definition of socialism. Chavez seeks socialism in his country, and yet what he seeks is what someone like you would describe as "state-capitalism".
Actually, my belief is that Venezuela has enjoyed recent prosperity because they have not sought to utilize the centralized state capitalist model of the Soviet Union (inaccurately depicted as "socialist" by so many), and have instead promoted decentralized collectivization. Indeed, it is not possible to overemphasize the critical importance of participatory governance and the role of labor cooperatives in the economic reforms of the Bolivarian Revolution. As noted by Hahnel:
New worker-owned cooperatives not only provided much needed jobs producing much needed basic goods and services, they also featured what was soon to become a hallmark of Bolivarian socialism -- popular participation at the grassroots level. When Chavez was first elected President in 1998, there were fewer than 800 legally registered cooperatives in Venezuela with roughly 20,000 members. In mid-2006 the National Superintendence of Cooperatives (SUNACOOP) reported that it had registered over 100,000 co-ops with over 1.5 million members.3 Generous amounts of oil revenues continue to provide start-up loans for thousands of new cooperatives every month, and the Ministry for the Communal Economy continues to spearhead a massive educational program for new cooperative members. However, the ministry provides more than technical assistance regarding technology, accounting, finance, business management, and marketing. It also teaches participants about cooperative principles, economic justice, and social responsibility.
Hence, I would find that to be in ideological tandem with libertarian principles of decentralized social and economic structures governed through democratic frameworks, though as I've noted, I still maintain that Chavez is excessively autocratic and there are legitimate and principled libertarian objections to some of his favored policies and actions. The label "state capitalist" is inaccurate, however.
Nevertheless, he's become something of a Marxist hero (just look at Joe Castro down there, who thinks that anyone who opposes the guy is "imperialist").
Marxist hero? He's a hero to many socialists and progressives in general because of his leftist economic policies, but I don't draw an association between Marxism and state capitalism as many anarchists and other libertarians are irresponsibly prone to do. Moreover, Chavez
is an anti-imperialist; he has been the most vociferous current opponent of many decades of anti-democratic interference in Latin America by hegemonic U.S. political regimes, which is a welcome sign of resistance.
