Charlie says: "Maduro's new economic model includes, as noted by the Communist Party of Venezuela: - Privatization of important sectors of strategic industries, including oil, mines, gas and core industries. - Granting of extraction licenses to multinational companies such as Chevron (USA), Repsol (Spain), ENI (Italy) and Maurel & Prom (France), under conditions disadvantageous to national sovereignty. - Liberalization and dollarization of prices of all goods, excluding workers’ wages. - Dollarization of economic activity. - Creation of Special Economic Zones - where labour, environmental and tax laws do not apply - to attract the investment of large transnational capital."
*** This must be put in the context of the US economic war against Venezuela. The US has imposed sanctions that attempt to prevent governments and companies around the world from having any dealings with Venezuelan government bodies, such as the state-owned oil company PDVSA (unless granted an exemption, which is only given under conditions that are very unfavourable to Venezuela). Non-US companies can be targeted with secondary sanctions if they defy US orders. Thus the sanctions amount to an economic blockade. They aim to prevent Venezuela's government from participating in trade with the outside world. The goal is to cause an economic crisis leading to the overthrow of the government. The blockade has severely damaged the Venezuelan economy. For example, the oil industry is unable to get spare parts for machinery made in the US or its allies. This has reduced Venezuela's oil production and revenue. Similarly, electricity and water supply have been affected by sanctions. The blockade has caused severe hardship to the people. There are shortages of medicines, vaccines and medical equipment. The sanctions have caused an increase in the death rate. Jeffrey Sachs and Mark Weisbrot estimated that there were more than 40,000 excess deaths during the years 2017 and 2018. The US hopes that by creating hardship, the blockade will lead to growing discontent which will undermine support for the government. Some people may blame the government for the country's problems. Others may come to believe that the US is too powerful to be successfully defied. The Venezuelan government tries to circumvent the sanctions against state-owned enterprises by using private companies as intermediaries. Of course, the intermediaries expect to make a profit on such deals. Thus the sanctions enrich a section of the capitalist class. Some government functions have been effectively privatised. In addition, the secrecy surrounding the government's attempts to circumvent the blockade creates increased opportunities for corruption. Thus the blockade is largely responsible for the rise of corruption. The government argues that the blockade forces it to make concessions to capitalism, but that it remains committed to socialism, citing its encouragement of the creation of communes. Many socialists in Venezuela, while recognising that the blockade creates difficulties for the government, think its concessions go too far. Activists in Venezuela have every right to criticise government policy. But for socialists in the imperialist countries, our priorities should be different. We should put the main blame for Venezuela's problems on US imperialism, and campaign to end the blockade. Chris Slee -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#33071): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/33071 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/109123065/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
