jack

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7000354

The recently inaugurated Rodrigo Paz has wasted no time in embarking on his project to neoliberalize the Andean country. According to the president, Paz proposes cutting public spending by almost 30% in 2026, equivalent to 4 points of GDP.

In addition, he has proposed eliminating a series of taxes, especially for the wealthiest. One of these is a special tax on large fortunes, which Paz has promised to eliminate. The special tax is levied on those with fortunes of more than USD 4 million (less than 1% of the population) in a country where the basic salary is less than USD 400.

hate hate hate hate hate hate

Paz has announced the creation of at least ten “Truth Commissions”, which, he says, will be responsible for uncovering acts of corruption in public institutions during previous administrations.

Few public companies have been left out of this sort of “new neoliberal inquisition.” State-owned oil, road, telecommunications, lithium, and other companies will be investigated for alleged irregularities. Even before the investigations begin, Paz has already claimed that the alleged damage to the state amounts to nearly USD 15 billion.

They're going to try to open up all these SOEs for US looting.

However, Paz will have to face an opposition that, despite losing the presidency, has not lost its significant capacity for mobilization and historical resistance to neoliberal measures. Furthermore, within his government, Paz has already experienced a recent rift with his vice president, Edman Lara, who called the president a “liar” and claimed that he is poorly advised in creating the “Truth Commissions”.

This, though, is a nice piece of info. VP and President at each other's throat before taking office while the movement behind MAS remains active reinforces my take I've been saying all year: Bolivia's right wing turn is not going to last even a single term.

The recently inaugurated Rodrigo Paz has wasted no time in embarking on his project to neoliberalize the Andean country. According to the president, Paz proposes cutting public spending by almost 30% in 2026, equivalent to 4 points of GDP.

In addition, he has proposed eliminating a series of taxes, especially for the wealthiest. One of these is a special tax on large fortunes, which Paz has promised to eliminate. The special tax is levied on those with fortunes of more than USD 4 million (less than 1% of the population) in a country where the basic salary is less than USD 400.

hate hate hate hate hate hate

Paz has announced the creation of at least ten “Truth Commissions”, which, he says, will be responsible for uncovering acts of corruption in public institutions during previous administrations.

Few public companies have been left out of this sort of “new neoliberal inquisition.” State-owned oil, road, telecommunications, lithium, and other companies will be investigated for alleged irregularities. Even before the investigations begin, Paz has already claimed that the alleged damage to the state amounts to nearly USD 15 billion.

They're going to try to open up all these SOEs for US looting.

However, Paz will have to face an opposition that, despite losing the presidency, has not lost its significant capacity for mobilization and historical resistance to neoliberal measures. Furthermore, within his government, Paz has already experienced a recent rift with his vice president, Edman Lara, who called the president a “liar” and claimed that he is poorly advised in creating the “Truth Commissions”.

This, though, is a nice piece of info. VP and President at each other's throat before taking office while the movement behind MAS remains active reinforces my take I've been saying all year: Bolivia's right wing turn is not going to last even a single term.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6791195

Commune or Nothing! Venezuela's Communal Movement and its Socialist Project

As the US shifts the focus of its gargantuan death machine towards Venezuela and the Caribbean, the socialist project there has been getting a lot of attention on the left. Discussions about grassroots mass democracy, economic recovery, and especially communes have begun to build a stronger appreciation for the progress of the Bolivarian Revolution. Chris Gilbert and his intellectual comrade Cira Pascual Marquina have been doing the podcast and Youtube rounds to share the lessons they've learned from the courageous Venezuelan people. That circuit got me connected to this book, which I grabbed last week to read on a couple of long Amtrak rides.

I finished the book up last night - it's a pretty brisk read - and I am absolutely compelled by the ghosts of Marx and Chavez to share what I've learned with the comrades here at Hexbear.

First and foremost is an overwhelming sense of excitement and inspiration. What the Venezuelan communards are achieving right now is, in my opinion, the cutting edge of socialist construction. The Venezuelan people are taking the revolution into their own hands, a historical necessity, and creating true communes across the country to meet their material needs and build socialist democracy. Here's the big takeaway: these communes are genuinely in the early stages of abolishing the value form.

Without liberal or anarchist demonization, Gilbert plainly and directly criticizes the ultimate failure of ML states in the 20th century to transition to the next stage of socialism. He doesn't condemn them as wicked statists, he just recognizes that they never figured out how to progress beyond state-owned enterprises to the worker-self managed systems. He does so by following in the footsteps of the Bolivarian communards, who are, by-and-large, extremely politically literate Marxist-Leninists who have, though practice, innovated the answer to the question of why prior ML states stalled out or fell apart in their progress.

What is that answer?

Only grassroots democratic processes can build socialism, but these are impossible under a capitalist state. A popular socialist state, however, can use its resources to facilitate the socialist accumulation necessary to create high-productivity communes at sufficient scale to unlock network effects of democratic planning and production for use rather than commodity production. Though the Venezuelan state faces issues of corruption, backsliding, and a devastating economic war, it is far more an ally of the commune building process than an opponent. The law on communes passed under Chavez enshrines the right of workers to occupy and seize unutilized productive property (land, buildings, and equipment) for the process of establishing a commune. The state does not always deliver on this right, and sometimes sides with capitalists, but the friction produced in this process is more productive than destructive. And in many, many cases, the sympathetic socialist state finances and protects the communes, aids in their development with technical expertise, and ensures certain legal rights and protections.

These are not hippie communes. Though incredibly restrained by Venezuela's forced impoverishment, they are filled with serious, disciplined Marxist revolutionaries dedicated to using communes to create a society-wide socialism with internationalism built in. They are constantly seeking to elevate their productive capacity and innovating new means of building communal economies locally and nationally. They are industrial, agricultural, and urban. They are dedicated to the defense of the Bolivarian state as a sometimes-reluctant, sometimes-enthusiastic partner in the project. And they are deeply historically rooted in both the international Marxist tradition and Venezuelan indigenous, Afro-Caribbean, and anti-colonial resistance movements, including the pre-colonial and pre-capitalist communal systems that existed in some native nations in the Amazon, Andes, and Caribbean,

Folks, this shit is legit. Defending Venezuela from imperialist aggression needs to far beyond bog-standard anti-imperialism. Venezuela is not just a country that could be destroyed by the US - it is potentially the heart of the world's most-effective-yet effort at building socialism in all senses: a society prepared to leave behind the value form, wage labor, and the state. If the Venezuelan project is destroyed, it will not just be a tragedy for the people of that country but for all socialists across the planet.

Instead, we need to learn how to communicate a vociferous defense of the Bolivarian Revolution that goes beyond counter-atrocity propaganda and supporting Maduro and demonstrates the practical construction of actually existing socialsim in the most dire of circumstances. We must learn from their revolutionary praxis just as we do from the Soviet Union, Cuba, and China.

There may be no greater hope for humanity right now than the success of the Bolivarian Revolution and the triumph of the Venezuelan people in their pursuit of socialism.

Commune or Nothing! Venezuela's Communal Movement and its Socialist Project

As the US shifts the focus of its gargantuan death machine towards Venezuela and the Caribbean, the socialist project there has been getting a lot of attention on the left. Discussions about grassroots mass democracy, economic recovery, and especially communes have begun to build a stronger appreciation for the progress of the Bolivarian Revolution. Chris Gilbert and his intellectual comrade Cira Pascual Marquina have been doing the podcast and Youtube rounds to share the lessons they've learned from the courageous Venezuelan people. That circuit got me connected to this book, which I grabbed last week to read on a couple of long Amtrak rides.

I finished the book up last night - it's a pretty brisk read - and I am absolutely compelled by the ghosts of Marx and Chavez to share what I've learned with the comrades here at Hexbear.

First and foremost is an overwhelming sense of excitement and inspiration. What the Venezuelan communards are achieving right now is, in my opinion, the cutting edge of socialist construction. The Venezuelan people are taking the revolution into their own hands, a historical necessity, and creating true communes across the country to meet their material needs and build socialist democracy. Here's the big takeaway: these communes are genuinely in the early stages of abolishing the value form.

Without liberal or anarchist demonization, Gilbert plainly and directly criticizes the ultimate failure of ML states in the 20th century to transition to the next stage of socialism. He doesn't condemn them as wicked statists, he just recognizes that they never figured out how to progress beyond state-owned enterprises to the worker-self managed systems. He does so by following in the footsteps of the Bolivarian communards, who are, by-and-large, extremely politically literate Marxist-Leninists who have, though practice, innovated the answer to the question of why prior ML states stalled out or fell apart in their progress.

What is that answer?

Only grassroots democratic processes can build socialism, but these are impossible under a capitalist state. A popular socialist state, however, can use its resources to facilitate the socialist accumulation necessary to create high-productivity communes at sufficient scale to unlock network effects of democratic planning and production for use rather than commodity production. Though the Venezuelan state faces issues of corruption, backsliding, and a devastating economic war, it is far more an ally of the commune building process than an opponent. The law on communes passed under Chavez enshrines the right of workers to occupy and seize unutilized productive property (land, buildings, and equipment) for the process of establishing a commune. The state does not always deliver on this right, and sometimes sides with capitalists, but the friction produced in this process is more productive than destructive. And in many, many cases, the sympathetic socialist state finances and protects the communes, aids in their development with technical expertise, and ensures certain legal rights and protections.

These are not hippie communes. Though incredibly restrained by Venezuela's forced impoverishment, they are filled with serious, disciplined Marxist revolutionaries dedicated to using communes to create a society-wide socialism with internationalism built in. They are constantly seeking to elevate their productive capacity and innovating new means of building communal economies locally and nationally. They are industrial, agricultural, and urban. They are dedicated to the defense of the Bolivarian state as a sometimes-reluctant, sometimes-enthusiastic partner in the project. And they are deeply historically rooted in both the international Marxist tradition and Venezuelan indigenous, Afro-Caribbean, and anti-colonial resistance movements, including the pre-colonial and pre-capitalist communal systems that existed in some native nations in the Amazon, Andes, and Caribbean,

Folks, this shit is legit. Defending Venezuela from imperialist aggression needs to far beyond bog-standard anti-imperialism. Venezuela is not just a country that could be destroyed by the US - it is potentially the heart of the world's most-effective-yet effort at building socialism in all senses: a society prepared to leave behind the value form, wage labor, and the state. If the Venezuelan project is destroyed, it will not just be a tragedy for the people of that country but for all socialists across the planet.

Instead, we need to learn how to communicate a vociferous defense of the Bolivarian Revolution that goes beyond counter-atrocity propaganda and supporting Maduro and demonstrates the practical construction of actually existing socialsim in the most dire of circumstances. We must learn from their revolutionary praxis just as we do from the Soviet Union, Cuba, and China.

There may be no greater hope for humanity right now than the success of the Bolivarian Revolution and the triumph of the Venezuelan people in their pursuit of socialism.

tags: claudia, mexico, presidente, feminism

I'm expecting Noboa to falsify results however much he needs to, just like he did earlier this year to get reelected.

I'm only quoting a few small snippets with numbers below. There's much, much more in the article worth reading.

Currently, about 80% of the population of the Sahelian nation is involved in agricultural activity, which accounts for a third of the GDP. Even so, the country still imports more than 200,000 tons of rice per year.

In response to this challenge, President Ibrahim Traoré’s government launched the so-called Agricultural Offensive in 2023, which has been revolutionizing the rural environment and serving as a model for the continent. The central objective is to end dependence on imports of widely consumed food products.

The current government’s offensive has been marked by strong direct support for rural producers and unprecedented investments in mechanization. The strategy focuses on substantially increasing production in eight priority areas: rice, corn, potatoes, wheat, fish, livestock, poultry, and mangoes.

Financing for the purchase of machinery in the country, much of it from China, relies on two main sources: the nationalization of gold and the creation of a patriotic fund financed by the population itself.

According to the government’s announcement, the differentiated mechanization includes draft animals for small producers, and, on the other hand, tillers and tractors for large enterprises. Initially, more than 400 tractors were distributed, in addition to subsidized fertilizers. For the 2025-2026 campaign, the package should include the delivery of 608 tractors and 1,102 tillers.

The country’s first tomato processing plant, inaugurated in 2024 in Bobo Dioulasso, has 20% state participation and 80% community capital, organized by APEC, the Agency for the Promotion of Community Entrepreneurship. The organization, founded in 2022, is primarily supported by the small and medium-sized national bourgeoisie.

Also the role of the small national bourgeoisie in decolonial economic development is perfectly exemplified in BF's ongoing revolution. If you're looking to understand the way the national bourgeoisie can be a progressive and revolutionary force, BF is the best place to look. At extremely low levels of economic development, the entrepreneurial small capitalists (many of whom are returning diaspora bringing some modest western monetary capital) are key partners in building up industry beyond what a small, underdeveloped state can achieve. This always poses a long term threat to a socialist project (which I think BF aims to build), but still, national bourgeoisie are a key ally against comprador bourgeoisie.

Brian is one of the founders of

I'm just gonna go ahead and post the whole thing here:

Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral election represents a major political breakthrough. His campaign, which took on the character of a mass movement, energized millions across the city and the country, defied the odds and has sent large sections of the ruling elite into a panic.

Mamdani’s victory reflects the defiant mood of millions of people in New York City and across the country, who want a more combative stance against Trump, a more affordable life for the working class, and are sick and tired of the Democratic Party’s status quo. They want a government that meets the needs and aspirations of the working class, politicians who are ready to fight for the people, and a city where all workers can live with dignity. This is how a 34-year-old democratic socialist hardly known by the public less than a year ago defeated Andrew Cuomo, one of the most recognizable names in New York politics. That this breakthrough has happened in the center of global finance — in the city that has become synonymous with capitalism — is seen as a hopeful and positive development by workers all over the world, who see a long-awaited wind of change from inside the U.S. Empire.

This week, a panicked editorial in the Washington Post called Mamdani’s success “a warning to business friendly Democrats” and admitted that “supporters of free markets” have failed to make a strong case for capitalism. They understand correctly the real significance of Mamdani’s success: it is not principally about him as an individual. Rather, his campaign reflects rising class consciousness, and the fact that the capitalists have lost their political and ideological stranglehold over a whole generation, despite billionaires pouring millions into Cuomo’s campaign.

For decades, the Democrats have been defined by billionaire donors and professional consultants, who have imposed the neoliberal consensus election cycle after cycle. By contrast, Mamdani’s invoked the New Deal liberal policies that defined the Democrats from the 1930s to the 1960s. That affordable rent and food, free buses and child care are considered “radical” is just proof of how far right the ruling class, Democrats and Republicans alike, have moved. For the ruling class, even the minimal economic reforms that Mamdani has proposed have to be crushed; otherwise workers might start demanding more.

Mamdani’s victory now sets the stage for a major showdown between the city and Washington. President Trump endorsed Cuomo and has threatened to withhold federal funds to the city, not to mention the deployment of federal troops and an invasion of ICE agents.

Indeed, the Mamdani administration will face obstacles, threats, and instruments of coercion not just from the right, but from inside the institutions he now leads. Mamdani gave a speech two years ago that correctly expressed the pressures he’s now facing: “As an individual [elected socialist], you simply cannot withstand the coercion, control and consequences” that come from the capitalist political institutions, he explained, unless you have an outside movement and other structures to hold you accountable.

A socialist atop a capitalist municipal government can’t change the capitalist character of the state — especially the racist, abusive NYPD — nor can it resolve the fundamental contradictions of the capitalist system. The city bureaucracy, legislature and Democratic Party machinery will in fact be an obstruction to Mamdani’s progressive reforms. This means they can’t be achieved by pursuing the usual legislative strategy. To win these, it will take a mass movement — the mass participation of the people, organized at every level, to unleash the power of the workers who make New York City run. That’s what will change the relationship of forces and put the real estate developers and corporate elites on their back foot. A people’s movement is needed outside of City Hall for anything positive to come from inside. Simply put, there is no way to fix the many complex issues facing New Yorkers without a mass movement that will directly confront the rule of capital.

The mainstream media has already created a narrative that it will be unrealistic for Mamdani to follow through on his platform. A section of pro-capitalist Democrats and technocrats want to have Mamdani become a “managed failure,” so as to show democratic socialism can’t work.

Mamdani starts at an extreme disadvantage by trying to carry out his program without a mass independent socialist party to rely on. He instead has been orienting towards showing himself to be a team player inside the corporate-dominated Democratic Party, and open to compromise with a large section of corporate elites. Against the threats of capital flight, he has attempted to morally persuade the millionaires and billionaires to stay for the good of the city. He has even offered to keep billionaire heiress Jessica Tisch as the commissioner of the New York Police Department.

Mamdani today released a video saying that he hopes his volunteer base doesn’t stop organizing, and instead makes a “lifelong commitment to the struggle.” We couldn’t agree more. The energy of all the people supporting Mamdani’s win must be channeled into a permanently mobilized mass movement, building independent, working class parties and organizations that will fight against the powers that be, to ensure these reforms become a reality, and to fight for even more.

In the weeks to come, the country’s political scene will become even more dynamic and complex. Much more analysis will be needed about the class character of the Democratic Party, the history of municipal socialism in the United States, the positive and negative lessons of socialists holding office over a capitalist state, and what sort of strategies and alliances can beat back the far-right.

In the face of Trump’s all-out assault on workers, millions of people have already mobilized for some of the largest days of protest in U.S. history and there is a growing popular sentiment calling for a general strike to fight back against these attacks. Mamdani’s victory is another indicator that people want to fight. They are hungry for change and socialism can no longer be cast aside as a fringe current. Rather, socialism is a growing and legitimate force in popular opinion, one that resonates deeply with working-class people searching for real solutions and a new way forward. Now is our time to build a socialist movement.