[lbo-talk] On Venezuela's Cooperative "Revolution"

[Bhaskar Sunkara]

And that "what we have in Venezuela and *some other nations* is a form of
dual power" should be taken as fact without any investigation?  From the
"outside" people have seen and written quite a lot about Venezuela, which
has basically become a political Rorschach test at this point.  To some, the
country is the scene of a retread of 20th century Perónism; demagogic and
full of populist bluster, but doomed to fail economically and polarize and
destabilize politically. To others, this is the early stage of a profound
social transformation, one that will bring to fruition Chávez’s “socialism
of the 21st century.”  If reality doesn't fit neatly into either camp it's
worth at least some attempt to figure out what we're looking at, right?

On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 3:43 PM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:


> What we have in Venezuela and some other nations is a form of dual power.
> Criticism from outside of this kind of situation is simply meaningless.
> Criticism of anything -- a poem, a piece of fruit, a hat-- requires that
> one
> understand its genus, or else you will find yourself in the position of
> someone  complaining that a hat doesn't taste good. In these states we have
> a process underway -- that's all that can be intelligently said of it from
> 'outside.' There are no relevant criteria by which to judge such a process.
> I stopped reading Marxmail posts on Venezuela, Bolivia, etc  several years
> ago for this reason. No matter what their content, they were a priori
> sillthis reason. No matter what their content, they were a priori sill
>
> Carrol
>
>
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