New kind of democracy in Venezuela: Michael Albert

POSTED BY: Howard
UPDATED: Tuesday, December 30, 2025 16:22
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HOWARD

Monday, November 7, 2005 2:45 AM

Venezuela's Path
by Michael Albert
November 06, 2005

Going to Venezuela? There are beautiful waterfalls and mountains. There is rich surf, sand, and sun. But nowadays the biggest attraction is revolution.

This October I spent a week in Caracas. That's not much information to work with but for what it's worth, here's what I found and felt.

Toward a New Political System

My first and arguably most personally surprising encounter with the Bolivarian Revolution was at the Ministry for Popular Participation, which was created in accord, I was told, with Chavez's desire "that the people should take power."

I asked the officials we interviewed, "What does that mean, that the people should take power?" After noting thousands of years of "empires obstructing people from participating in politics," all culminating in "the North American empire," the official said the "U.S. has had 200 years of representative government, but in your system people turn over control to others." Instead, in Venezuela, "we humbly are proposing a system where people hold power in a participatory and protagonist democracy. We want a new kind of democracy to attain a new kind of society."

On the wall was a diagram of their aims. It had lots of little circles, then other larger ones in another layer, and so on. The idea, they said, "was to establish numerous local grassroots assemblies or councils of citizens where people could directly express themselves." These local councils would be the foundational components of "a new system of participatory democracy."

The bottom layer of the vision focuses on communities with "common habits and customs," the officials said. "We define them as comprising 200 to 400 families, or 1000 to 2000 people each." One could of course imagine sub units within each local unit, as well, but that wasn't immediately on their agenda, nor was it in their diagram. The local units would in turn send "elected spokespersons" to units another layer up. Units in this second layer would "encompass a broader geographic region," and then from there, "spokespeople would be elected to another layer, and so on," creating a network covering "parishes, municipalities, states, and the whole society."

The participation officials, explaining their diagram and their goal, said the smallest units were meant to become "the decision-making core of the new Venezuelan polity." Chavez and this ministry hoped to have, they said, "3,000 local assemblies in place by the new year." Their goal was to have "enough in place, throughout the country, in 4 or 5 years, to account for 26 million Venezuelans."

They didn't want "a dictatorship of the proletariat or of any other kind," they said. Strikingly, they also said they didn't want "what Che died for, though they wanted to learn from that." They wanted to build something new, from the bottom.

I asked, "What happens if the local assemblies want some new policy, and the ministers, legislature, or Chavez don't want it?" "No matter," they said, "the assemblies, once they are in place and operating, rule."

But, I said, "you don't want an assembly of 100 families making a decision for the whole country, surely." "Correct," came the answer, "the local assemblies can only make final decisions bearing just on their own area."

"Suppose one assembly decides it wants some change bearing on crime that has to do with federal courts or police or whatever, extending beyond that community?" I asked. "What happens? When does the law or policy change?"

"On every level there should be a response" came the reply. "On the lowest level assemblies would do whatever they can within their community. But crime goes beyond a community, and requires going to the next higher levels where the issues would have to be confronted, too. On the municipal level they might change ordinances, etc., to also respond. And it could go higher, then."

Okay, I asked, "Suppose one local assembly wants a younger voting age. They bring it to the next higher level and members there are excited about it too. Doe

LOGGERHEAD

Monday, November 7, 2005 2:50 PM

It's often fun to see old hippies pushing a system that has been an abysmal failure in every instance it has been tried. Very Quixote-esque.

Not so much much fun when it's your own country, though. A quick review of the author's body of work is quite revealing.

DREAMTROVE

Monday, November 7, 2005 3:37 PM

Loggerhead,

I really agree. The word you're looking for is quixotic.

HERO

Monday, November 7, 2005 4:25 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by loggerhead:
It's often fun to see old hippies pushing a system that has been an abysmal failure in every instance it has been tried. Very Quixote-esque.

Not so much much fun when it's your own country, though. A quick review of the author's body of work is quite revealing.

Seemed very socialist to me. I wonder if the Chinease are their advisors.

I'll be interested to see if it works the way they plan or if its just another way for Chavez to set himself up as the "Great Leader" ala Kim Jung Il, Mao, or Castro. The proof that govts like this are a fraud on both democracy and socialism is when 15 years from now they still have the same ruler.

H

DREAMTROVE

Monday, November 7, 2005 6:58 PM

Hero,

Yes, it would be intersting, but there are some other concerns.

1. Chavez has already become convinced, as socialists often are, that it will work even though it has not yet been tried, rather than wait and see what happens in practice.
2. So he has decided to spread it around the region, supporting the idea of socialist revolution around the region which is likely to create some real disasters.

It's an interesting thought though, do you think the chinese are behind Chavez? They have been looking for an oil-rich socialist state, and had designs on Iraq at the same time as we did. They were planning to support Iran into a dominant military position in an effort to control mid-east oil. That's not a conspiracy threory, BTW, I read it in the people's daily, it was an official chineses govt. position back in 2000 or so. Interceding events have undoubtedly upset that plan, and they have undoubtedly cut a deal with us for uninterrupted oil flow as part of Bush's China-appeasement policy. I imagine this would probably end up being some oil-for-debt program (to offset the tremendous amount of cash we owe China now due to the overspending by this govt.), should we ever happen to secure Iraq.

But it's possible that they would hatch a Venezuela plan for that reason, to be sure to secure an oil source.

CITIZEN

Monday, November 7, 2005 7:00 PM

Hero, I feel compelled to agree.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!

CITIZEN

Monday, November 7, 2005 7:06 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Dreamtrove:
1. Chavez has already become convinced, as socialists often are, that it will work even though it has not yet been tried, rather than wait and see what happens in practice.

I agree, probably more than you realise. I've never seen a time when pure socialism has actually been put into practice, and I know that it wouldn't work if it did.

I agree with what your saying of China as well, America has done similar things through the years, and America is a freedom loving and 'enlightened' society. China isn't, not really (though they are improving, only time will tell on that).

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!

DREAMTROVE

Monday, November 7, 2005 9:44 PM

Sorry about losing it earlier. I was very tense as you get when everyone is arguing against you at once, it wasn't your fault, and it wasn't really your post I was angry at, I just got into a very bad mood.

That said, moving on. Yeah, America does the same thing, no doubt about it. It's important to remember, that whether a society is freedom loving or oppressively totalitarian is really just a representation of its domestic policy. Foreign policy is almost always self serving, from the point of view of a nation. Everyone pretty much is going to say "oh we're freeing these people" but really their not. For Chavez this is "socialist revolutions across latin america" is his way of establishing a network of trading partners, because he knows he's going to end up with an embargo otherwise. For us in Iraq "making the world safe for democracy" is really about making sure America has a steady stream of oil, just as venezuela may be for china. My object to our own current foreign policy is not that it's self serving, it's that it's short sighted and destructive. A truly visionary US would realize that it has the technology right now to become energy independent, and that in 5-10 years it could make a total transition. The amount of oil we would have to buy in that time would not be more costly in a war in Iraq, to say nothing of the long term impact costs of our own self-image destruction.

"Pure" anything is probably impossible because all ideas are enacted by imperfect humans. The larger any implementation becomes, the more imperfect it will become because it will involve a larger number of imperfect humans, and therefore, even if they are selectively chosen, they will increase the average imperfection and multiply it.

China long term can probably not sustain its one party rule. When it crumbles I expect it to fragment like the Soviet Union. But it might not be for many years to come. Two things that I see lead directly to the collapse of the USSR:

1. The cost of maintaining it was an increasing strain on the overall economy compared the benefit of doing so.
2. There was a lack of will at the top to perpetuate it in the face of this cost.

Since this could take decades to come to pass in China, it's possible that we may be facing another cold war.

On the bright side, the cold war wasn't really all that bad.

CITIZEN

Monday, November 7, 2005 10:19 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Dreamtrove:
Sorry about losing it earlier. I was very tense as you get when everyone is arguing against you at once, it wasn't your fault, and it wasn't really your post I was angry at, I just got into a very bad mood.

Yes, these issues can get that way at times. For my part in that little 'exchange' I apologise, as with all things it was half a dozen of one, 6 of the other.
I never meant to insult or attack you or anyone personally, points or their arguments yes, but not them, it's a distinction I try to keep to fairly rigidly because of the natural adversarial nature of these boards. If I came across otherwise I apologise.
Anyway.
Yeah, foreign policy of any nation is pretty self serving, the major differences between America and China is probably Chinese isolationism, imho, and it should be noted that the US has done 'good' in the world, where as China, hasn't, not really on a recent timeline at least.
I agree largely on the issue of Iraqi oil, that is largely why the first Gulf War was fought, I think. In other words protecting the oil reserves of Kuwait, although it should be noted that the first and second Gulf wars are entirely different situations for various reasons.
I don't think the USSR could ever have sustained an Arms race with America, America was always more affluent, for various reasons, including the communist in Russia element.
Personally I think China may be a harder situation to judge, since they are beginning to move toward a more capitalist stance, their economy is blooming, and they simply have more man power and resources than the Soviets, it's possible rather than collapsing like the USSR they'll 'transform' into something else. But on that point only time will tell.

As for the cold war, it was a mixed thing, the world was more 'stable' if you catch my meaning, but there was the possibility of mutually assured destruction, and it's scary how close we all came at times...

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you Beeeer Milkshakes!

DREAMTROVE

Monday, November 7, 2005 11:29 PM

Quote:
Chinese isolationism, imho, and it should be noted that the US has done 'good' in the world, where as China, hasn't, not really on a recent timeline at least.

I know a lot of Chinese and am related to a fair number, so I spend a lot of time focussing on China.

I don't think China is isolationist at all. I think they like to make it look that way, but I think of it as slow-motion imperialism. Recently they have annexed Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macao. They would never do what we just did and blatantly invade a country on another side of the world. The gradually annex things, building their claim over decades, setting up puppet govts so friendly that they claim to be part of China, and then 'transferring' troops to defend this 'chinese province.' And so Tibet, QiangXang (sp?) even manchuria should probably be considered a separate country. But they slowly incorporate and then homogenize territories to destroy the local national identity.

In addition though, they do run support programs to other countries who they see as allies, just not as often as we do. A google of "chavez china" produced so many pages proposing the same idea, that he is their new oil kitten, that I think it's definitely worth looking into as a possibility.

Re: The first gulf war

WHAT? You don't think we were just being great defenders of democracy?

Just kidding. What democracy, right?

But seriously, I do think that it's rare to have a blatant situation in which one country openly invades another with the intent to occupy it and add the territory and wealth to its own.

I support our decision to defend Kuwait, and I would like to think that we would do such a thing even if there wasn't oil there, but I am also realistic. But it's not that Kuwait got treatment that it didn't deserve because it had oil. It received the treatment that all sovereign nations deserve and they should get it even if they don't have oil.

Strangely, and I'm not sure why this is, but Darfur which is only really a territory of the Sudan as a result of colonialism, and used to be an independent country, and has virtually nothing in common with its Sudanese occupying force, is getting no help from us, in spite of the fact that it actually does have oil.

Is it possible that the "Bush doesn't care about black people" factor outweighs the "Bush only cares about oil" factor?

It is of course widely know that Clinton doesn't care about black people, as witness his total failure to defend the people of Rwanda, but intervened in Europe.

FLETCH2

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 1:15 AM

The really interesting thing will be if China doesnt break apart. There is nothing inherent in Capitalism that says that it HAS to be partnered with a democratic political system. The message we chose to take from the fall of the Soviet Union was that the people wanted freedom -- I'm not sure that's true I think they wanted blue jeans and consumer goods.

In the Delaration of Independence it says this.

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."

So there is a possibility that the Chinese system may reform into something quite different from a Western style representative democracy.

As for Chavez --- he's full of himself, I can't see any chance of this thing working even in the short term.

HOWARD

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 1:36 AM

Name three countries where this has been
tried?

I am curious to see your interpretation
of this.

I am curious to see how laughable your
examples are and how you misassociate
conflicting examples.

I also find it interesting how the mere
suggestion of real democracy offends you.

SEVENPERCENT

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 1:56 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Howard:
I am curious to see how laughable your
examples are and how you misassociate
conflicting examples.

Howard, have you ever managed to participate in any debate where you weren't blatantly rude, insensitive, or didn't use an ad hominem attack?

It's no wonder you have the time to find all these articles and facts; if you talk to people in the non-cyber world like you do on this board, you probably spend a lot of time at home in the basement with no friends and no dates.

Holy crap, dude, try and be civil for like, one thread. Try "I disagree" or "the facts don't match that assertion" instead of "you're too ignorant to know so I'll tell you." It's not that hard.

------------------------------------------
He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 3:06 AM

Fletch,

An interesting point.

I, as I said, know quite a few Chinese, maybe other people here do as well. What I find is their tolerance for the foibles of the Chinese communist govt. is very limited, and as affluence grows, that tolerance may be pressured to break, and the communist may fall, but you are absoultely right that there is no reason that the next reform or revolution will lead to a western style democracy. It's probably a cultural bias that makes us think our system is more or even most ultimately equitable, or that equality is in some way desireable. But an entirely new system may sping forth, or the old system may come back.

I was reading somewhere about Japan and the troubles of it's prime minister and the long term depression, and it made the interesting observation as a side note that Hirohito, as emporer, had reign over almost the entirety of Japan's economic growth, from an isolated and not particularly worldly or technological island republic into the most sophisticates and the most per capita wealthy nation on earth. Curiously his death in 1989 heralded the start of a great depression which is still going on.

I tend to think that Democracy is in a way the greates manipulative govt. in that in a system like ours it is possible to create the illusion of choice and the illusion of self rule without actually offering either.

It's also possible that the advent of technology will make entirely new govtl. forms possible. Consider the concept of direct democracy instead of representational democracy. In theory, on the internet, barring all sercurity problems, that the people could simply go online and vote on every issue. A referendum, or to quote Mao, a revolution every day.

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 3:13 AM

Howard is intentionally trollish I suspect. I don't know him from adam, but I tend to ignore it. I have examined the possibility that Howard actually lives in an institution, so I have to endeavor not to be too rude to him, because, quite frankly, you never know what someone's problems are. To Howard I say this:

Howard,

How to win friends and influence people, by Dale Carnegie.

Great book, look into it. Get back to me. After you've read it.

I'm serious about this. I also just recommend it generally. I find when I'm losing a lot of agruments like I have lately, it's time to go and return, reread it again.

That and my other master.

The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tse.

This pretty much covers my inspirations, unless you want to check our Carl Jung or Nietzsche.

Actually maybe I'll start a new thread on this topic.

FLETCH2

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 3:47 AM

There are definately cultural biases in our ways of working. We did some cultural studies classes at work a few years ago. The crux of it is that commercial relationships in Northern European cultures are determined entirely by contract while those in southern europe and the mid east are governed more by personal relationships. If you read things like the US constitution, Magna Carta etc the thing they have in common is that they are worded in contractual terms, in Europe we talk of the social contract --- an agreement between government and governed. All of it is effectively contracts.

If you look at government systems in the Mid East they are all done through personal contacts and favours. Now it could be that this system works better than we chose to accept or it could be a disaster. The point is that the government interaction with the governed in any society is a business relationship following the standard form used for any business relationship.

My understanding of native Chinese business systems is that status of the two parties involved in a deal greatly effects the expectations on both sides, Question is how this would refelect "scaled up" to a bigger level? I have heard others say that communism never really effected rural China and that in effect the top levels of the old feudal hierachy were just sliced off and replaced by the party with the peasants doing the same as they had for generations. Maybe the system in China will go that way, kind of a class system with multiple levels reporting up and orders coming down....

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 4:16 AM

The ruling relationship in China historically has been the Guanji. (gwaan zhee) It's similar but not identical to the original relationship os feudalism in Europe (I got into a big argument when I posted this before, because people mistook it for late feudal europe, which was more like indentured servitude, but I got my degree in ancient europe, I do know (at least a little) what I'm talking about) but to clear things up to be very sure:

The original feudal relationship in Europe was a contractual one, more or less, and was there when the romans first came. The owner of a piece of property, be it land or something else, would loan out it's use for a percentage of the take. In times before the application of money, this was typically in yield. A vassal was simply the person who was using, say, a piece of land, and whatever he did with that piece of land, he would give, typically about 15% to the lord of that land, ie its owner. So if he grew potatoes on that land, he would give three in twenty potatoes to the lord. In time it became a system where a whole village would rest on a piece of land, and the lord of the village would be both lord in that he lent land to the villains to harvest, and that he had borrowed the land upon which the village stood from another lord, say a count or a duke. As time progressed and this system was overrun by the more monetary labor system of the Romans, the incorporation of the two led to some rather unfortunate developments, whereby the nonyeilding peasant, rather than being expelled, could fall into a debt of service, and over time long term financial contractual relationships and feudalism became almost synonymous with de facto slavery.

In the Guanji, the relatioship is built on a complex system of favors. If you wish to advance you would ask a favor from a person in the guanji, usually to get yourself some training, an apprenticeship, some sort of education or employment. It would be easy to advance in your profession this way, but as you do so, for every favor you request, you own one in return. This meant that people in a position to provide these services became very powerful, because they could call in favors from a wide variety of people. If you remember the recent collapse of Suharto in Indonesia, one of the major reasons this caused such a quake was that he was the head of the global Guanji. Because of his nature of calling in favors in a way which trumped the extant or what we would consider in the west the legitimate social orders, capitalist and government, Suharto was considered to be incredibly corrupt.

I guess what these both show is that old systems and new ones don't really mix without bad consequences, but it's always possibly that people will find news ways into intertwine them.

re: communism in western provinces, I hear that too, particularly the benefits, what little there are, have failed to reach, the pain in the ass factor is pretty widespread.

FLETCH2

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 8:19 AM

That explains the "status" thing I heard. Does this imply that Chinese deals tends to be inherently Asymetric? Doesn't this mean that in effect you promise to pay back the "favour" done for you at some future time without really knowing what you may be asked or the scale of it? Wonder how that would reflect as a government?

The deal with S European/Mid East "personal" business relationships is that you create commercial "friendships" and then execute commercial "favours" which are equivalent to N European contractual obligations but perhaps not as clearly defined. I don't think you end up owing favours in that situation though obviously the closer you build the relationship by doing extra "favours" the greater customer loyalty you get.

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 2:10 PM

I'm not an expert on china, but as I said, I know some people who are, not just chinese but two americans who've studied it extensively. That's really just a vague disclaimer that all of this is "near as I understand it."

1. Yes, deals tend to be assymetric in that manner. There is often a favor aspect to a deal. This doesn't mean that the guanji plays in to every deal that's made in China, but it is a factor.

2. Yes. This is a big disaster re: the hidden favor. The guanji is so culturally ingrained that if a Chinese firm make a deal with you they may expect that favor later. There have been a few notable cases where when that favor has been called in, and the American company has not complies, because by our code, if I contract with you to supply me with trucks, that does not obligate me to use your friend's company for fuel, etc. And so the Chinese may react in a seemingly random or what we would perceive as corrupt way by cancelling the first deal for trucks because we didn't buy fuel from the friend's fuel company. Some real examples are actually much worse. I assume the scale of the favor is probably in line with the initial favor, or such a system wouldn't work. It can't be I lent you my pencil so now you will lend me your wife.

3. From what I understand, it has profound influences on ascension through the party hierarchy. It doesn't really mean that a two party system presents a problem though. I don't know what howard dean did to get dem. party chair, or what kerry did for the nomination, but I don't think these were really free and fair elections without meddling. Dean sharp shift away from his former more anti-war views shows that he may have cut a deal. Generally I think democratic party deals involve bets with gold fiddles, but alas, I'm beginning to expect that GOP deals may also these days. But I think this is still a long way from saying that the Guanji IS the govt. If that were so, Suwarto would rule everything. I think it's more like the mob. Which reminds me. I had to go and look it up when the left started calling Alito "Scalito" but it's not so. Alito is just a regular italian name. For those who like this kind of conspiracy theory, Scalia is Sicilian

HOWARD

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 5:48 PM

Why do you people not know how to
read discourse?

Why do you people always get personal?

Why do you presume that the method or
tone of my response to you has any bearing
on how I communicate in conversation or in
writing with other people?

In fact I have had some perfectly nice
exchanges even on this site.

Give me shit and I'll give you that tone
back. Give me an intelligent response that
is something other than snide ridicule of
other peoples work and I will give you a
pleasant time.

Why have you lot entered into a discussion
about CHINA? What has China got to do with
the article I posted?

You are such a bloody waste of time the bloody
lot of you.

Its been not nice knowing you.

I am out of here!!

Contrary to you lot I DO have a life!

DREAMTROVE

Tuesday, November 8, 2005 7:47 PM

Gee

Howard is an ass. I was just trying to be understanding. I was quite litteral about where I thought he might be coming from. Little things like that he didn't understand the concept of wrap-around text and felt it necessary to his the return key ever eight words made me think he might not be all there. I guess we failed to worship Chavez enough for him. I think the rest of that doesn't actually merit a response. I'm done actually trying to talk to him, it wasn't worth the effort.

Let's get back to China,

I did some googling on China Chavez, which turns up a lot as I said, and here's what I found:

Chavez threatens to share US military tech with China if US doesn't continue to supply him with arms. This seems to me to be an unreasonable request. There was also some talk about Chinese weapons in venezuela. Shades of Cuban missle crisis. This one is a little scary.

Next. Chavez has given free oil rights to China. WTF?

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/12-30-04.asp

The US had to invade Iraq to get oil rights. China gets them for free? We're playing the wrong game. Clearly we should have been monkeying in Venezuelan politics. This stikes me as one of the most corrupt deals in world history, and I know that says a lot. It's similar but more blatant to what goes on in Russia. I hope everyone remembers Yukos and Lukoil and Russneft.

Well so far we have the possibility of chinese weapons in Venezuela, Venezuela giving its oil to China for free.

Curiously, this is covered more solidly in the international press because of the other things it uncovers, so here's more or less a summary of what I gleamed, and if you want to refs, it's all in the top dozen or so google matches for "chavez china"

1. Chevron had a sweetheart deal before Chavez for $3/barrell. Condi was a Chevron exec. Condi pressed for Chavez' removal.
2. Citigroup (read Saudigroup) has been pressing for control of these assets. If we believe Michael Moore, which I do some of the time, Saudigroup is basically responsible for W. Bush being the GOP's presidential candidate. Ironic given what happened in september of 2001, but not by itself a conspiracy.
3. China has gotten free access to Venezuelan oil, a reserve which experts predict once fully explored will become the world's largest oil reserve, displacing Saudi Arabia and moving Iraq into third place.
4. Cuba also has free access to that oil.
5. It looks quite possible that we may see a build up of chinese firepower, but not manpower, swelling up uncomfortably closer to our borders to secure this oil.
6. Venezuela elections seem to be completely flawed.

So the best solution I can think of is to start participating in Venezeulan elections. Why? When these are basically rigged? Because doing so will force international attention on their legitamacy. In fact, it might not be a bad idea to underhandedly support an opposition stooge candidate, and push him to cheat. Never allow a connection to be drawn back to us, but a total fraud opposition candidate would cause international observers to go in. They would be defending Chavez, but their presence would make it harder for Chavez to cheat, and then in the subsequent election it might be possible to defeat him. If we fail to become thus engaged, Chavez will take his successful election cheating and use it as a stepping stone towards a flatout dictatorship in which the election is really just a formality, but the winner is always decided before the ballots are cast.

JAYNEZTOWN

Tuesday, December 30, 2025 4:22 PM

Trump says US hit 'big facility' linked to alleged Venezuelan drug boats
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8484p7ggmo