Talk about Venezuela these days and people assume the argument splits neatly between two camps: nutty Pat Robertson-style Chavez-hating right-wingers who couldn't care less about the poor at home, let alone in South America; and sane, progressive folks with the sense to balance off concerns about Hugo Chavez's autocratic streak with admiration for his government's remarkable achievements in improving the lives of poor Venezuelans.
Personally, I'm in neither camp: I'm a radical anti-Chavez progressive. (We do exist, dammit, we do!!) Fighting poverty sustainably is right at the top of my agenda. In fact, it's one of the biggest reasons I oppose the guy.
"But what sense does that even make?" my friends back in the US will say, " Chavez has cut the poverty rate in half since 2003...what kind of progressive is radically against that?"
"A progressive," I'm tempted to answer, "who's concerned with the sustainability of poverty reduction." Because in Venezuela, we have a long, sad history of big advances in the fight against poverty that turn out to have been mirages when the economy tanks.
Chavez's claims to have halved the poverty rate aren't wrong, but they're incredibly misleading. If you'll allow a little parable, Chavez right now is like a mayor who, ten months into his term of office, calls a press conference to say:
"My fellow citizens, today we come together to celebrate our victory over the leaves. Think back on what this city was like back before my administration was elected last October. Our neighborhoods were blighted with dead leaves. They were everywhere: clogging up our gutters, making our streets and sidewalks dangerously slippery, sapping the life from our community. That was the city we inherited.It can surprise no one that poverty in Venezuela is lower now than it was five years ago, for the same reason that it can surprise no one that there are fewer dead leaves on the ground in August than in October. The reason is that Venezuela is a petrostate: 93% of what we sell to the world is oil, the government owns the only oil company, and oil prices rose every single year from the turn of the century through last year. Chavez has spent his decade in office swimming in cash!
"But this is a people's revolutionary government! We promised that we would get rid of the leaves...and we have. From the moment we took office, we never let up in our fight against the leaves. And the results are all around you. As we stand here in this brilliant August evening, our government has reduced the leaves-on-the-ground rate by more than 99%! The only way they're coming back is if the evil old regime ever manages to get their hands on power again somehow! No volveran!"
Infant Mortality is usually used as the gold standard for improvements in public health in third world countries. How did Venezuela under Chavez compare with the rest of Latin America in reducing Infant Mortality?
From 2000 to 2006, Infant Mortality in Latin America and the Caribbean went from 29 to 22/1000 births, a reduction of 24%. For the same time period, Venezuela reduced its Infant Mortality 14%, from 21 to 18 per 1000 births. That does not show any great achievements in health care under Chavez.
The argument might be made that because Venezuela’s Infant Mortality was better than the rest of Latin America, it should be compared with comparable countries with lower Infant Mortality. That is a fair argument, but being made, it destroys the Chavista myth that all things were horrible before Chavez took power.
From 2000 to 2006, Colombia reduced Infant Mortality 15%, from 20 to 17, which is very similar to Venezuela both in terms of starting point and percentage of reduction.
By whatever measure you use, Venezuela’s improvement in Infant Mortality under Chavez was no better than the rest of Latin America, or below average. Chavez's purported great advances in public health measured by the gold standard of Infant Mortality: all smoke and no fire. (World Bank Development Indicators online)
The author also fails to mention is that Chavez has done many things to raise state revenues. Chavez has worked to unite OPEC in order to protect the price of oil, and not allow it to fall too low. If it weren't for recent OPEC production cuts, the price of oil would certainly be half of what it is right now. So this gives the government some assurance that the coming "fall" won't be as bad as it could be. Also, Chavez has significantly increased tax collection inside Venezuela, giving the state more revenue, and somewhat decreasing dependence on oil revenues.
As for Fondo Miranda, I consider it more an urban legend than a fund: if such a thing actually exists, it has never published its financials at all.
And what about the other funds? You doubt the existance of Fondo Miranda, but you alone. Even the most anti-Chavez opposition media in Venezuela don't doubt the existance of this fund.
And what about the other funds? The bilateral development funds the government has? What about the $30 billion that the government has in international reserves? Do none of these things matter to you? Or is it that you prefer to ignore them because they don't really jive with your argument?
Oil companies can still turn a profit when oil is at $25/bbl. While Hugo will have to cut back while oil is in the $35 - $45/bbl range, I don't think it's as dire as his detractors contend.
What are your TRUE motivations for this piece? Do you simply object to how Chavez is using these funds, or are grasping at any negative thing you can find to discredit Chavez as much as possible?
It is clear to me that most of his detractors do the latter, and I don't see anything in your article that propose any solutions.
My bottom line for Venezeula [and every other progressive SA nation] is that they will remain progressive and not fall into the World Bank/IMF Free Market fundie trap; if Hugo eventually accomplishes that through the politcal will of the Venezeulan people, then so be it--if not, then I hope another strong progressive leader will step forward.
So, Francisco Toro, can you give us a little something to back up that "progressive" moniker you lay claim to, or are you just another dime-a-dozen Chavez critic?
I've written pretty extensively about this issues on my blog, and I'd point you to this entry in particular:
http://caracaschronicles.blogspot.com/2009/01/fiem-fatale.html
Like any commodity mono-exporter, Venezuela is dangerously exposed to external shocks. Managing the cycle, for us, means grasping that the country needs a mechanism to smooth spending over the life of the oil cycle. This is not really controversial among economists, which is why most oil exporters accumulated hefty sums in their Sovereign Wealth Funds during the thick of the just-ended oil boom.
That might sound way too wonk-ish to qualify as "progressive", but the reality is that poor Venezuelans have suffered way too much in the past from oil cycle mismanagement. Typically governments have overspent during booms, taking on debt even as oil revenues exploded, just to be left totally exposed and without access to credit when the downturn came. The resulting wild swings from boom-to-bust have usually left people considerably poorer at the end of the cycle than they were at the beginning - with brief interludes of good times in the form of petrodollar funded consumption booms.
The thing to grasp is that the only thing that's different, this time around, is the rhetoric. The actual fiscal management is a re-run of the 1970s. And if you do the same things, you get the same results.
Francisco is simply grasping at any negative thing he can find to discredit Chavez, exactly as you say. He's been doing it for years over at his blog Caracas Chronicles, where he accuses Chavez of all kinds of outlandish things, including electoral fraud, stealing public funds, supporting terrorists, attacking journalists etc. etc. He claims to be "progressive" but his views are right in line with Washington's and the corporate media. In fact, he apparently doesn't have any problem with corporate domination of the airwaves, and has protested all moves by Chavez toward a more plural media landscape. He also apparently has no problem with the neoliberal policies that his Washington-backed political oppostion advocates. So when he says he genuinely cares about the poor, I don't doubt he's being honest. But support for neoliberal policies, and corporate domination aren't very good ways to help the poor.
I dislike such channels as Globovisión and the like and yet now there is no domination of the airwaves by the corporate, unless you mean "corporate Chavismo".
If you care to come over to Venezuela, please, check this out:
over 70% of the population has NO cable and NO satellite TV.
Now: Globovision is the only critical TV channel right now (not Venevision anymore, not since 2002 and not others). Globovisión can only be seen on open airwaves in some parts of Caracas and very few parts of Valencia. You get out of there and you get 100% Venezolana de Televisión. In Venezolana de Televisión they have Chavez propaganda all the time and unlike (very bad, indeed) Globovision, they don't even allow critical views be debated.
If you go to many public hospitals or many other public institutions in Venezuela you will see they placed TV sets set all the time to Venezolana de Television.
The opposition (and the opposition is very varied, it goes from very right to very left) has no chance to put any message there.
If you go to Guanare, Barinas, Mérida, El Tigre, just slums around Caracas, the slums in Southern Valencia and you place a TV set there (no cable, no satellite dish) you won't be able to catch anything critical of Chavez.
I doubt he will last the year....
Michale.....
Michale.....