Building a New Socialism
This is a reply for the Nation Symposium on Reimagining Socialism by Carol Delgado, a long-time Venezuelan activist and currently the Consul General of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in New York.
To re-imagine and reinvent Socialism has been the Bolivarian Agenda and it is refreshing that progressives in the U.S. are daring to re-conceive this debate. In Venezuela,
when we speak of 21st century socialism, we mean empowering people by
retaining the grassroots aspirations of anti-capitalist movements but
rejecting the institutions that have failed to meet peoples' needs.
As the authors point out, solidarity is extremely relevant. It can be a
practice that allows new ways to think about ourselves as individuals,
about society, as well as about North-South relations. This is why the
Venezuelan government practices a number of non-market policies that
are expressions social solidarity, such as the discounted heating oil
program for poor communities in the U.S.,
the solidarity-based trade initiative known as ALBA, and the
Petrocaribe agreement, which provides low interest financing for oil.
Although there is still much to be done and done better, in Venezuela
we foster equity of distribution and give people control over their own
lives and economic circumstances. Communal councils and communal banks
are key institutions for creating Socialism of the 21st century in this
context. Communal councils consist of communities organized to
deliberate their most pressing problems and work with local government
and national officials to turn community ideas into feasible projects.
Through the communal banks, which are funded by the central government,
thousands of local projects that emphasize collective property and
participatory economics (Socialist Enterprises, cooperatives, etc) have
been financed. This model is still developing but generally gets rid of
bureaucracy and corruption, eliminates top down command, improves
efficiency, and gives a sense of empowerment to the whole community. By
reimagining socialism we are creating a more equitable, empathetic, and
human society.
We believe we must go beyond hierarchies that divide and exploit. In
our still new socialist enterprises we are discovering the need for a
new definition of work and tasks, new procedures for decision-making,
and new norms for income distribution. We aim to move towards an
economic model that replaces the market, top-down planning, corporate
decision-making, and alienating divisions of labor, in favor of
participatory planning and substantive equality.
In our polity we need grassroots popular power, local assemblies, and
informed active citizens, which is why we have created 27,000 communal
councils, on the road to 50,000 to be the infrastructure of a new type
of government.
I was pleased to see Barbara Ehrenreich and Bill Fletcher Jr. mention
participatory budgets as something to learn from. Also, I was happy and
hopeful to see the call to examine participatory economics, or Parecon,
which to me addresses precisely the issues and offers highly relevant
possibilities for truly 21st century economic production and
allocation. Particularly interesting for us are the ideas of
remuneration according to effort and sacrifice (instead of according to
market criteria) and participatory planning (which provides a new
popular power approach to allocation as a successful alternative to
markets).
There are many "socialisms" and the U.S.
has the people and the thinkers needed to facilitate the drafting of a
great vision right here, right now. An anti-imperialist agenda is key
to start the debate on the global financial crisis and the new America. Hopefully the discussion of a better economy and society undertaken in the U.S. will be informed by and perhaps even contribute to our efforts to build a better economy and society in Venezuela. Lets work together to make that happen.