Month: February 2020 (Page 1 of 2)

The political left doesn’t know what to make of Venezuela, just as it doesn’t know what to make of a lot of foreign policy issues. Ken Livingstone asserted Hugo Chávez should’ve killed the oligarchs. That’s one view. George Ciccariello-Maher, a more careful analyst, also lapses into overheated rhetoric. But if there’s anything like a left consensus, it looks like this: vague critique of the current administration standing next to critique of any US-backed war. As Michael Walzer would surely say, it’s the vague consensus at work.

I’d like to get less vague. I’ll give an overview of the situation in Venezuela, and I’ll honor a bit of the spirit of Livingstone’s flippant remark without reproducing its content. What’s the insight here? It’s this: the Bolivarian Revolution, ’21st Century Socialism’ in name, recreated many of the problems of 20th century socialism in practice. And I’m talking here about the social democratic varieties, not the Leninist or Stalinist ones.

But all things in good time. First there’s our point of departure. Everyone agrees things are fucked up in Venezuela, but they don’t agree how or why. What’s fucked up? Why did it happen? Will Venezuela fix it?

I’ll tackle some of these questions on the way to our destination.

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