Capital-Socialism

There is an on-going debate about Venezuela being a socialist country ever since Hugo Chavez made the oil companies state owned and operated. Granted, Chavez has said publicly that Venezuela is a socialist state, however he uses the term 21st Century Socialism. First of all, we should define socialism and capitalism. Capitalism according to Marx is, "The directing motive, the end and aim of capitalist production is to extract the greatest possible amount of surplus value, and consequently to exploit labor power to the greatest possible extent." Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, ch. 12.

          “Lenin's simple definition of socialism is set out in his The Impending Catastrophe and How to Combat It (September 1917): ‘Socialism is merely state-capitalist monopoly which is made to serve the whole people.’ Lenin knew that he was introducing a new definition of socialism here which was not to be found in Marx but claimed that there were two stages after capitalism: socialism (his new definition) and communism (what Marxists had always understood by socialism: a stateless, classless, moneyless, wageless society).” http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2001/no-1169-december-2001/marx-and-lenins-views-contrasted

Is it possible to have a country that is both?

If we look at Venezuela and the United States, we can clearly see both exist in some form. Capitalists want a free market, but if we did have a truly free market then the U.S. government wouldn’t have given the banks and car manufacturers government bail outs. They would have let the market play out the situation, let Smith’s free hand work out the bugs. Right? Well, believe it or not there are corporations in Venezuela. The most expensive McDonalds I have ever been to, is located in Altamira, Caracas. Here it is a popular hangout for rich folks since a meal costs 80 Bolivars or roughly $20 USD. There is also one or two state owned Banks to the many foreign owned private banks towering over the barrios in Caracas.

 http://abcblogs.abc.es/archivodeindias/2008/10/10/ronald-mcdonald-es-bolivariano/

http://flickrhivemind.net/User/Tortxu1976/Interesting

Why does everything have to be black or white? Right or left? Is it possible for people to see the grey shades of life and embrace them as if it were okay to have more than one ‘right’ answer to life’s tough questions? Or are we too narrow minded to see beyond what the philosophers of the 1800s were theorizing when it came to government regulation? Can we as an evolving human race re-think these theories and apply

them to our time the way we have evolved with technology?

Political Graffiti

“A trench of ideas is bigger than a trench of stones.” Jose Marti (Cuban Revolutionary Hero)

This was quoted by a Venezuelan community radio station coordinator in the beautiful countryside of Sanare. Here we see images of Simon Bolivar, Che Guevara, and Hugo Chavez. These are painted murals throughout the country of national hero’s and icons for the unification of the Latin American countries in Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution. 

                                                                          Sanare

Some of these murals are painted by independent artists, but majority are painted by Chavistas and government sponsored “mural committees” that paint the country red. 

While Venezuela is no exception to the use of graffiti, other countries like Mexico, Columbia, and Argentina have a history of this sort of artistic expression. It is no doubt part of a greater scheme; while some part of it is owned by the grassroots and marginalized population and used as an outlet of opinion. There is this other wave of political graffiti used to help create the idea of a nation-state. These images seen across Venezuela are examples of the symbolism used to put a face on democracy. As they say a picture is worth a thousand words; what are these images saying to the people? Are they really by the people for the people? Has the government tapped into the underground culture and created an artistic political expression?

                                                                      Sanare

There is a difference of course between the image of Che, Bolivar, and Chavez; yet how often do we hear Chavez quoting these iconic heroes? "The most perfect system of government is the one which produces the greatest possible happiness...” -Simon Bolivar. I heard this quote many times over from different people while interviewing radio stations, religious organizations, government workers...the heroes are engrained in Venezuelan history and without them there could not have been a revolution...right?

                                                                    Barquisimeto

                                                       Caracas- In favor of Opposition