The
complexities of the new political relations in Latin America require that we
breakdown what previously was the unified components of anti-imperialist
politics.
For
example in the past, anti-imperialist regimes pursued policies which opposed US
military aggression and intervention in Latin America and throughout the third
world; opposed foreign investment especially in extractive sectors; and, not
infrequently, expropriated or nationalized strategic sectors; opposed joint
military exercises and training missions; supported nationalist liberation
movements and extended political – material support; diversified trade and
investment to other economic regions and countries; developed regional
political organizations which opposed imperialism and formed regional economic
organizations which excluded the US.
Today,
few if any of the anti-imperialist countries fit these criteria. Moreover, some
of the countries ‘favored’ by Washington fit all the criteria of an imperial
collaborator.
For
example, among the most prominent ‘anti-imperialist regimes’ in Latin America
today, Bolivia and Ecuador are big promoters and supporters of a development model
that relies on foreign multi-national corporations exploiting mining and energy
sectors. Moreover both regimes, in pursuit of extractive capital
accumulation have dispossessed local Indian and peasant communities (the
so-called Tipnis reserve in Bolivia).
In
line with the ‘double discourse’ of these contemporary ‘anti-imperialists’, the
Bolivian Vice President chaired a meeting in Cochabamba by a prominent
anti-imperialist academic critic, David Harvey, to expound on the issue of
‘capital accumulation by dispossession’. Needless to say Professor Harvey
ignored, or chose to overlook, the pervasive extractive practices of his
generous hosts.
On
the other side of the ledger, several Latin American regimes which are in favor
with Washington and have embraced the Trans-Pacific Alliance namely Peru and
Chile, have diversified their trade away from the US and have turned to China,
Washington’s leading global competitor.
The
lines separating the critics and backers of Washington, the nationalists from
the neo-liberals are not as clear as in the past. There is a great deal of
overlap, especially with regard to the extractive model of capitalist
development, the presence and dependence on foreign multi-national capital and
the pursuit of orthodox fiscal policies.
The
sharpest distinction between the anti-imperialist and neo-liberal regimes
revolves around foreign policy, but even here, there is some overlap. Bolivia,
Ecuador, Venezuela, Cuba and to a lesser degree Brazil and Argentina condemn
the so-called ‘US war on terror’, its pretext for launching wars and military
intervention in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. Washington’s favored
regimes, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay and its Central American clients,
support US global militarism. Colombia offers troops or maintains a discreet
silence. Yet in Latin America, even Washington’s favored regimes support
exclusive Latin American organizations, Mercosur, Alba, CELAC; opposed
(temporarily) the US backed coup in Honduras; reject the US blockade of Cuba
and interference in Venezuelan politics. Even Colombia which has allowed seven US military bases, has signed off
on several military understandings and economic agreements with Venezuela –
even as the US heightens its hostility to the Maduro government in Caracas.
The
theoretical point is that in the present conjuncture we need to work with a
revised conception of what constitutes a pro and anti-imperialist political
framework. We will be looking at
the specific economic relations and linkages, the divergences between specific
public pronouncements on foreign policy issues and the long term, large scale
economic strategies. At the ‘extremes’, for example Mexico and Venezuela, the
differences are significant.
Mexico
is the most favored imperial client in both foreign and economic policy. It supports NAFTA (integration with
the US); its security forces are subject to US oversight; it has the lowest
minimum wage in Latin America (even below Honduras); it is privatizing the
strategic petrol sector firm PEMEX; it is a major ‘labor reserve’ for cheap
manufacturing workers (especially in the auto industry); it has the lowest
effective tax rate; it has joined the US war on drugs and war on terror by
militarizing its domestic society. Few countries in Latin America can match
Mexico’s submission to Washington and few regimes would want to!
In
contrast, Venezuela is the US bête noir: Washington has been engaged in
permanent war with the democratic governments of Chavez and Maduro because they
oppose the US wars in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. They nationalized
select enterprises; financed large scale long-term social welfare programs that
reduced unemployment, poverty and inequality. They imposed controls on
financial transactions (rather weak and ineffective). They offer generous aid
programs to Caribbean and Central American countries, enticing them out of the
US orbit. Caracas has ended US
military training and indoctrination programs and encouraged the growth of
nationalist consciousness among officers. Venezuela has increased economic ties
with US adversaries (Iran and Russia) and competitors (China).
The
rest of Latin America falls somewhat in between these two polar opposites,
overlapping with each or developing their own combinations of pro and
anti-imperialist policies. This makes it difficult to generalize and create
‘typologies’, as many of the contrasts and similarities overlap.
However,
there are two good reasons to make the effort. First of all with all the
complexities, specific politico-economic configurations are evolving which are
determining the correlation of forces in the Hemisphere and over time will
decide whether the region will take an independent role or fall back under US
hegemony.
Secondly,
and equally important, the ‘external relations’ or international relations of
the regimes are playing out in the context of a new set of class relations and
social conflicts, which do not necessarily correlate with the degree of pro or
anti-imperialism of the regimes. For example both the Bolivian and Ecuadorean
regime, which are considered leading anti-imperialists have repressed, co-opted
or denied legitimacy to class organizations.
For
both these reasons we will now turn to classifying the pro-imperial and
anti-imperial regimes, in order to then proceed to analyze how these regimes
face up to the emerging class and social conflicts.
Classifying pro-Imperialist and
anti-Imperialist Regimes
The
key to the classification of Latin American countries is the scope and depth of
land grants which regimes have made to large foreign and domestic
multi-national corporations. Over the past two decades Latin America has
experienced re-colonization by invitation: government grants of millions of
acres of territory under the quasi-exclusive jurisdiction of giant mining and
plantation consortiums. These land grants are accompanied by mineral
exploitation and water rights, license to contaminate and the free use of the
state to evict local inhabitants, to repress rebellious communities and to
construct transport grids centered in the colonial land grant. The phrase
‘capital accumulation via dispossession’ is too narrow and vague. The concept ‘recolonization’ captures
more accurately the large scale long term transfer of sovereign wealth, natural
resources and special ‘colonial’ laws and regulations, that exempt this huge
holdings from what previously passed for ‘national sovereignty’.
In
other words when we speak of imperialist and anti-imperialist regimes, we are
really writing about the scope and depth of re-colonization (populist rhetoric
not withstanding).
What
we have in contemporary Latin America is a new combination of seemingly
contradictory features: greater diversification of international markets, the
emergence of an affluent ‘national bourgeoisie’ and the granting and
recolonization of vast sectors of territory and resources by imperial capital.
This
is cleanly the case with a cluster of states that have forsaken regulatory
controls, denationalized key mining sectors and adopted a “Big Push” strategy
directed to the ‘extractive sector’. This is clearly reflected in the
accentuated colonial character of their trade relations: large scale long-term
exports of raw materials and imports of finished goods, (machinery, intermediary
and consumer goods.
The Colonial Extractive Regimes
The
leading colonial-extractive regimes are found in Mexico, Colombia, Peru,
Paraguay and Central America. This cluster conforms to the all-around criteria
for a pro-imperial regime: closely integrated to the US centered geo-political
order, as well as containing vast colonial agro-mineral enclaves.
Mexico
under President Enrique Péna Nieto, Colombia under Presidents Uribe and Santos
and Peru under President Ollanta Humala have granted millions of acres to giant
mining corporations and savagely repressed and dispossessed communities,
farmers and local enterprises to “make room” for the colonial mining
operations.
These
regimes compete to lower labor costs – with Mexico heading the list with the
lowest minimum wage, the most repressive anti-trade union practices and the
weakest regulations of environmental contamination.
Peru
under Humala, like Nieto and Santos, has worked closely with US
“anti-terrorist”, “anti-narcotics” military forces to savage any popular
insurgency, any economic activity which conflicts with the “Gran Mineria”.
The
troika has moved decisively to privatize major resource industries and in
general, lowered taxes below even “First World”, levels. The ‘Colonial
Clusters’ are solid supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and have
bilateral free trade agreements with the US and in practical terms, have
downgraded “Latin American” integration.
The
class struggle in ‘the pro-imperialist cluster’ is evidenced at the sectorial
and regional levels, varying in intensity and consistency over time and place. In
both Peru and Colombia, intense struggles have involved displaced peasants and
to a lesser degree miners and the adjoining labor force. In Colombia large
scale marches by the rural poor have crisscrossed the country, demanding the
return of their land, a greater allocation of state aid (a reallocation from
agro-mining). Under Santos selective assassinations have replaced the massacres
of the previous Uribe regime. In
Peru, large scale community rebellions have confronted the Humala regime, which
has done a complete about face, from social-reformer to free market advocate. Civic
strikes, community and region-wide protests have confronted military
occupations directed at facilitating massive foreign mining colonization and
enrichment. These pro-imperial regimes, especially Peru under Humala, faced
with massive opposition, have embraced a policy of ‘inclusion’, combining the
extractive colonial regime to “trickle down economics” – allocating a fraction
of the mining tax toward social welfare.
The Eclectic Cluster: Colonial
Economies and Anti-Imperialist Foreign Policy
There
is no sharp break between the extractive colonial economies of the pro-imperial
cluster and the moderate ‘anti-imperialist’ grouping. In fact, in some cases
the distinction hardly can be made. The moderate anti-imperialists include
Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile.
Chile
and Uruguay have embraced free trade models, depend heavily on mining and
agro-exports and have pursued free trade agreements, Chile more than Uruguay. Yet
there are some key differences with the imperial cluster. Neither Chile,
Uruguay, nor Brazil or Argentina support and collaborate with US military and
counter-insurgency forces in policing their country as is the case with
Colombia (seven US bases), Peru and Mexico. Nor have they actively contributed
to overseas occupations, with the notorious exception of Haiti.
What
is pre-eminently clear however is that the ‘moderate countries’ have not
prioritized their relation with Washington over their regional associations
(with the exception of Chile).
They have diversified their trade and investment partners and in some key
instances have taken positions strongly opposed to Washington. In particular
the countries have multiple relations with Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and other US
adversaries. Their ties to China are expanding at the expense of Washington. Their
policies oppose ‘US centered’ integration schemes. All the countries have
opposed the US judicial process favoring the New York speculative hedge fund
and support Argentina’s offer to settle on the terms of the original
bondholders.
However
the ‘moderate grouping’ at no point has ever considered a ‘rupture’ with
imperialism – a sharp break in relations, an adversarial political alliance. Its
brand of anti-imperialism is more a gradual, an incremental shift of economic
ties, a firm opposition to US interventions and military coups. They favor a
growing regional identity and a weakening of engagement with highly militarized
programs such as the ‘antiterrorist’, “antidrug’ crusades which place their
security services and military under US tutelage. The highly militarized global
direction of US imperial policy has contributed to the weakening of ties with
the moderate grouping, whose prime concern is driven by an economic
developmentalist agenda – namely greater trade, increased investments and wider
markets.
The
‘moderate group’ has adapted to the rise of large scale national and foreign
private agro-mineral elites to power. They have played a major role, with
greater or lesser success, in coordinating their accommodations with the entry
of large scale foreign multi-nationals.
Their
‘nationalism’ or ‘anti-imperialism’ is mostly directed at managing these mix of
enterprises, regulating the operations of both and securing taxes to subsidize
moderate welfare programs, under the rubric of ‘inclusive development’.
The
key issues for Washington is the lack of automatic submission on foreign
policy, the presence of a national option with regard to access to resources
and the lack of support for US centered hemispheric integration.
It
appears that Washington’s frame of reference in dealing with the moderate group
is still embedded in the 1980’s and 90’s when debt leverage secured compliance
with the Washington Consensus; when neo-liberal regimes engaged in wholesale
privatization and denationalization of entire economic sectors; when the Latin
American regimes were embedded in the imperial state structure.
The
moderate countries have moved to a new type of relation with the US in which,
relationships and agreements are negotiated, taking into account national
capitalist interests, diverse extractive export markets regional economic ties
and residual, but occasionally important, nationalist and democratic pressures
from leaders with a radical past.
Most
of the moderate anti-imperialist leaders in an earlier period were active in
revolutionary or radical social and national liberation movements. Brazilian
President Dilma Rousseff, President Bachelet in Chile, President Mujica in
Uruguay, President Ceren in El Salvador, all were engaged in revolutionary
anti-capitalist struggles. They have broken decisively with their revolutionary
past and embraced electoral politics but still retain the legacy of popular
commitments, of being ‘on the Left’. This allows them to secure the backing of
plebian electoral sectors. While their past has not in any way influenced their
pursuit of foreign capital and their promotion of agro-mineral extractive
economic growth, still their past experience reminds them that they need a
“social dimension” and anti-imperial symbolic action to retain strategic mass
support.
Anti-Imperial Quartet: Venezuela,
Cuba, Bolivia and Ecuador
The
centerpiece of US imperial hostility focuses on four countries, which have
consistently opposed US efforts to re-assert dominance in the region. While, in
themselves, the four are not major powers, they exert a direct and especially
indirect impact on the rest of the continent especially among the ‘moderate
group’. Moreover, even in this
anti-imperial grouping, there are important departures and inconsistencies
especially in the realm of policy to foreign direct investment agreements.
The
four countries that form the quartet are in different degrees in opposition to
imperialism. They also share a common platform of support for a greater degree
of regional integration, opposition to US military interventions and economic
sanctions, and an ideology which proclaims some variants of ‘socialism’ –
whether ‘21st century socialism’ (Ecuador), Bolivarian Socialism (Venezuela),
Martian Socialism (Cuba), or “communitarian” or “Andean Socialism” (Bolivia).
All
four countries have faced and defeated recent US sponsored subversion and coups
in recent years: Cuba uncovered a US Aid financed plot to recruit agents
(2009-11). Venezuela defeated a coup (2002), a lockout (2003), a violent destabilization
campaign (2014). Ecuador defeated an abortive police uprising (2009). Ecuador’s
President Correa partially defaulted on dubiously incurred foreign debt. Chavez
‘renationalized’ the oil and other industries, transferring oil revenues from
overseas operations to domestic welfare programs. Bolivia claimed to have
‘nationalized’ its oil and gas industry, when in fact it raised royalty
payments and state ownership shares. Cuba has operated a planned collectivist
economy up to now.
If
we go beyond the common political and ideological anti-imperialist practices of
the quartet, to examine the dynamics of economic policy and the structure of
ownership of strategic economic sectors, the notion of anti-imperialism becomes
very fuzzy and elusive.
Bolivia
is a case in point. Evo Morales’ ardent political attacks on imperial wars,
needs to be balanced by his welcoming embrace of foreign multi-national
corporations in every sector of the strategic mining sector: iron, gold,
petrol, zinc, lithium, etc.
Similarly
Ecuador, while condemning US imperialism, terminating the US military base
agreement in Manta and denouncing Texaco’s pollution of its oil site, has
signed off in multiple oil agreements with Chinese and other foreign
multi-nationals. It has signed off on an IMF loan and retains the dollarization
of the economy.
Venezuela,
which has consistently challenged US dominance in the Caribbean, Central
America and elsewhere with aid programs, still depends on the US oil market for
most of its exports and US food imports for most of its foodstuffs. In addition,
the great bulk of its non-petrol economy is directly controlled by domestic and
foreign capitalists.
Cuba’s
relationship to imperialism is a more complex and changing phenomenon. For nearly a half-century Cuba was in
the forefront of global anti-imperialist struggles in Latin America, Africa and
Asia backing their ideology with revolutionary volunteers, material and more
support.
In
recent decades, however, Cuba has shifted toward its domestic priorities, while
retaining international solidarity in the areas of health and education. In
line with its attempt to overcome bureaucratic bottlenecks and economic
stagnation, the Cuban government has adopted a new economic strategy based on
attracting foreign investment and gradually liberalizing the economy.
The
problems facing the collectivist economy are real; the needs for investments,
markets and technology are great. But so are the political consequences
resulting from adapting to the needs of foreign capital as far as the idea of
sustaining an international anti-imperialist policy. The accommodation with
foreign multi-national capital in Cuba means that criticism, let alone
opposition elsewhere will be diluted.
Anti-Imperialism, Yesterday and
Today
The
notion of anti-imperialism that emerged in the early 20th century and reached
its peak in the late-middle of the 20th century, combining political
(anti-colonialism) and economic (anti-foreign capital control) policies, has
been ‘redefined’ in the 21st century.
Today
the practice of the ‘anti-imperialist quartet’ combines powerful opposition to
military and political imperial expansion and collaborative association with
the major foreign agro-mining multi-nationals. While denouncing the most
extreme forms of US centered integration proposals and favoring regional
integration and diversified trade agreements, the quartet has pursued a
colonial style development strategy, emphasizing the export of primary
commodities and the import of finished goods. “Anti-neo-liberalism” the battle-flag
of the quartet, revolves around a more equitable distribution of the revenues
from . . . free trade!
Thus
the differences between the ‘radical’ and ‘moderate’ anti-imperialist regimes
are greatly diluted when we consider the realm of international economic
relations and policies. And the differences between the moderate nucleus and
the pro-imperialists in the realm of political alignments become blurred.
The
blurring lines and overlap have two effects. One involves weakening the
alignment of the pro-imperialists regimes with Washington especially on
economic issues. The second involves weakening the anti-imperialists,
especially, but not exclusively, the ‘moderates’ support for anti-imperialist
struggles. There is a tendency to converge and redefine ‘anti-imperialism’ in
political terms and to line-up with the pro-imperialists with the economic
demands for greater trade, investment and growth. This is the framework in
which we now turn to examine how the contemporary ‘anti-imperialism’ relates to
the class struggle.
Class Struggle and
Anti-Imperialism of the 21st Century
The
nature and scope of the class struggle has changed dramatically over the course
of the 21st century. The revolutionary struggles characterized by large scale
worker occupation of factories as part of a political offensive have virtually
disappeared. The general strike
as a weapon to block anti-labor legislation, austerity programs, welfare cuts
and the onset of authoritarian regimes has become a rarity.
The
decline of traditional industrial workers centered mass direct action is not
wholly the result of diminished militancy. Part of the reason is that ‘times
have changed’ with the onset of center-left regimes. In the aftermath of
earlier popular upheavals during the previous decade, industrial workers have
secured, incremental steady and persistent wage increases and access to
tri-partite negotiations.
Secondly,
with the shift to primarization of the economy, the manufacturing sector has
ceased to be the dynamic center of development. It has partially given way to
the agro-mineral export sector. Hence it no longer is numerically or
qualitatively in a position to leverage power.
Thirdly,
the center-left regimes in particular, have fostered mass consumer borrowing
via easy credit terms, turning workers toward individual consumption over
collective struggles for social consumption.
However,
the diminution of the role of the industrial working class does not mean class
struggle has been eliminated. Moreover, new class forces, ‘working peoples’
movements have burst upon the scene, engaging in new forms of class, national
and ethnic struggles against the new model of extractive capital and its
backers, including in many cases the ‘anti-imperialist’ regimes.
This
new ‘class struggle’ or more accurately popular social struggles, more
frequently than not, revolves around economic relations; more specifically, the
dispossession of land, the uprooting of communities, the colonization of land
and resources by large-scale multi-national corporations and the destruction
and contamination of water, air, crops and fish.
Major
conflicts involve direct confrontations with the state – and pit the popular
classes, including peasants, workers, local artisans, small businesspeople
against the local and national repressive apparatus.
Unlike
early ‘economistic’ struggles between workers and capital, the struggles today
are directly political; popular demands are directed against state policies,
development agencies and economic strategies.
The
shift of the epicenter of class struggle has evolved over time, but has come to
the fore over the past decade. The historical change is necessary to understand
the current configuration of class forces.
In
contemporary Latin America, we can identify (three) types of class- social
struggles: the moderate, the militant and the radical.
Moderate Class Struggle
Moderate
class-social struggle largely involves little mass involvement and direct
action. It is largely a process of elite negotiations between labor (union)
officials, employers and the Labor Ministry. It operates largely within the
wage and salary framework (guidelines) established by the Finance Ministry.
This
type of institutionalized class struggle paradoxically is a result of earlier
militant class struggles in which regime change (the rise of the center-left)
resulted in a ‘historical’ compromise in which labor was recognized as a
‘legitimate’ interlocutor, and wage and salary raises were granted in exchange
for renouncing anti-capitalist struggles and challenges for state power. The
regime’s subsequent shift to extractive capital and neo-colonial land grants
has not evoked any sustained struggle from the organized urban working class,
encased in the tri-partite framework.
Militant Class Struggle
The
struggles within and over extractive capital involves new classes and social
movements.
This
second type of social struggle involves militant mass direct action by classes
and communities and takes place in and around the centers of extractive
capital. The large scale
colonization by invitation of land and minerals by multi-national corporations,
aided and abetted by military and paramilitary forces, has provoked major
confrontations throughout Latin America.
The
protagonists of this militant form of class struggle involve provincial,
semi-rural and rural community based organizations with ethnic, class and ecological
driven agendas.
Radical Urban Class Struggle
The
third type of social struggle revolves around mass urban based movements,
demanding a massive reallocation of economic resources from corporate subsidies
and tax exonerations to social spending on education, health, public transport
and housing, increases in public social service employee salaries and the
minimum wage.
Armed Struggle and Direct Action
The
fourth type of social struggle includes armed rural struggle as in the case of
the Colombian guerrillas, land occupations as in the case of the Rural Landless
Workers movement in Brazil (MST) and the selective occupation of factories in
Venezuela. This form of class conflict is on the decline. The Colombian
guerrillas are negotiating a peace accord. The MST land occupations have
diminished .The Venezuelan labor movement is too fragmented and economistic to
move toward a general offensive featuring factory occupations.
Types of Class Struggle: According
to Country
Latin
America exhibits all four types of class- social struggle, but in varying
degrees of prominence. No single form of class conflict exists independently of
other types. However, we can identify the most prominent and dynamic forms
which are most closely linked to the possibility of structural changes and
which are linked to the dynamic extractive imperial sectors. We will identify
countries where one or another type of struggle predominates and then proceeds
to analyze the relationship between ‘anti-imperialist countries’ and types of
class struggle in the context of the growth of the extractive capital model.
Institutional Class Struggle: Brazil,
Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile, Venezuela and Mexico
The
major urban trade unions, in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile,
Venezuela and Mexico are by and large engaged in collective bargaining mediated
by the state, over wages, salaries, pensions, etc. The behavior of the trade
unions is dictated by an ideological affinity with the regimes in power
(Center-Left) in the case of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Venezuela and Bolivia.
In other countries, repressive action by the state (Mexico, Paraguay) enforces
conformity. Struggles are limited in scope, duration and frequency. More often
than not the trade unions’ do not question, let alone challenge, the extractive
imperial economic model. In most cases the trade unions are not engaged with
other popular movements involved in more consequential forms of class action in
the agro-mineral sector or even in urban mass actions demanding changes in
state budgets.
Mass Direct Action against
Extractive Capital
Mass
direct action against extractive capital is most intense and widespread in regions
and sectors associated with the dynamic expansion of agro-mineral extraction. With
few exceptions, the greater the scope and expansion of extractive capitalist
exploitation, the more likely there will occur large scale clashes, not only
between capital and the popular classes, but with the state.
Peru,
Ecuador, Colombia, Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil have all
been sites of conflicts between expanding extractive capital and the local
communities, farmers, peasants, popular and civic organizations. Provincial-wide
strikes, road and transport blockages, occupations of work sites have led to the
state intervening and military repression: the killing, wounding and arrest of
numerous protestors.
The
radicalism and militancy of the popular movements is a direct result of the
material stakes that are involved. In the first instance, local producers,
whether farmers or artisan miners and households, are dispossessed, uprooted
and abandoned. Theirs is a struggle for the survival of a “way of life”. Unlike
other forms of struggle, urban or trade union, theirs is not over an
incremental gain or loss in salary or wages. Secondly, the struggle is over the
basic necessities of everyday life: clean
air, unpolluted water, uncontaminated food, health and mortality. Mining and
agro-chemical export economic activity, absorbs irrigation water, pollutes
drinking water, fills the air with deadly fumes. Toxic chemicals, pesticides
and herbicides are sprayed constantly, undermining the local economy and making
the region unlivable. Thirdly,
local cultural and community customs and practices are eroded as large scale
mining organizations draw the riff-raff of the world-prostitutes, drug dealers,
smugglers. In addition corporate-centered diversions erode class-community
solidarity.
The
extreme and pervasive erosion of social and personal relations, the radical
uprooting and deterioration of everyday life provokes wide-spread and sustained
militant social action which is directed at the state which promotes extractive
capital as well as the foreign and national owners. These struggles are
political as well as economic and social, unlike the trade union ‘peso and
centavos’ centered demands.
Mass Urban Struggles over Social
Expenditures
During
the World Cup extravaganza in Brazil, multi-million person mass demonstrations
occurred demanding a massive shift in state priorities toward education, health
and public transport. In Chile for the better part of 2011-14, hundreds of
thousands of students demanded free, public, quality higher education with the
backing of community groups and teachers’ unions.
In
Venezuela mass urban protests organized by rightwing parties and violent social
movements, backed by Washington, attacked the national populist government,
exploiting popular grievance against shortages of consumer goods, induced by
corporate hoarding and contraband gangs.
Leftist
trade unions engaged in counter-protests, as well as strikes over wages and in
a few cases for a greater role in managing public enterprises. More
significantly hundreds of elected community councils have emerged and have
formed parallel administrations, challenging local municipal governments on the
left and right. The demands for
“popular power” include greater security and control of the distribution of
consumer goods and prices.
In
Argentina the mass urban struggles of the unemployed which led to successive
regime changes in 2001-02 have practically disappeared, as has the factory
occupation movement. Dynamic growth led to a sharp reduction of unemployment
and pension and wage increases. As a result the axis of social struggle has
turned to the growth of movements protesting the depredations of extractive
capital – in particular agro-toxic exploitation led by Monsanto. This
‘struggle’, however, has little resonance in the large urban centers and among
the trade unions,
Armed Struggle, Land Occupations
and Revolutionary Transformation
The
only regime changes through extra parliamentary means have been engineered or
attempted by US backed military-oligarchical elites. In Honduras a US backed
junta overthrew the elected Center-Left Zelaya government; in Paraguay an
oligarchical palace coup ousted the elected President Fernando Lugo. Unsuccessful
and aborted US backed coups took place in Venezuela 2002, 2003 and 2014;
Bolivia in 2009; and Ecuador 2010.
In
contrast social movement backed leftist parties pursued and secured power via
the electoral process throughout the continent. In the course of which they
played down class struggle and harnessed the movements, trade unions and
political activists to their electoral machinery. As a result the advent of the
Center-Left to power was accompanied by the decline of class struggle. The
opening of the electoral route eliminated the revolutionary road to class power.
The armed struggle movements in Latin America declined or demobilized. Revolutionary
mass uprisings have led to changes and popular demobilizations.
The
remaining center of armed popular action is Colombia, where the guerrilla
movements (FARC, ELN) are currently in negotiations with the Santos regime over
the socio-political and economic reforms that should accompany their
incorporation to electoral and mass politics.
Nevertheless,
land occupation movements in Honduras, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Colombia,
persist even as their scope and intensity varies between countries and time
frames. Today ‘land occupations’ are tactic to block the expansion of
extractive, agro-toxic – export corporations and a vehicle to pressure for land
reform, repossession of land and a key element in a strategy for ‘food
security’ based on non-GM crops.
With
the exception of the ‘institutionalized class struggle’, the other three types
of class struggle clash with the dominant extractive imperialist development
model pursued by both pro-imperial and anti-imperial regimes.
Continuing Class Struggle: In the
Name of Anti-Imperialism and Imperial Centered Free Trade
The
key to the growth of extractive imperialism has been the abilities of the regimes
to contain, fragment, co-opt and/or repress the class struggle. The reason is
because extractive capital concentrates wealth, enriches the multi-national
corporations, pillages wealth, reproduces a ‘colonial style’ trade relation and
pollutes the environment.
Paradoxically
the most successful extractive regimes, in terms of growth, stability and in
containing the class struggle and attracting and retaining extractive capital,
are the Center-Left regimes. ‘Anti-imperialism’ has been a useful ideological
weapon in securing legitimacy even as the regimes hand over vast territories
for foreign capitalist exploitation.
Secondly,
the incorporation of social movement and trade union leaders and former
guerrilla militants to the center-left regimes creates a political cushion, a
layer of savvy, well connected quasi-functionaries who set the boundaries for
class struggle and adjudication of grievances. Moreover, the center-left, use
their “anti-imperialist” posture to disqualify class struggle activists as
‘agents of foreign powers”. The center-left regimes then feel justified in
repressing or jailing class struggle practitioners as part of their mission of
defending the “Nation”, “Change” or the “Revolution”.
Pro-imperialist
regimes, like Peru, Mexico and Colombia rely to a greater extent on physical
repression, less on co-optation or more likely a combination of both. Large scale grants of land, are
accompanied by regional or national militarization. For the pro-imperialist right,
anti-drug and anti-terrorist campaigns serve to justify their defense of the
extractive capitalist model.
The
anti-imperialist regimes speak of extractive capital with ‘social inclusion’ –
the transfer of a fraction of extractive revenues to poverty-reduction – not to
well paying jobs in industry or to reducing pollution or increasing spending on
health, education and welfare. And certainly not to financing any consequential
land reform or increase in workers management of natural resource exploitation.
In
sharp contrast to the past, contemporary anti-imperialism is also profoundly
hostile to the politics of class struggle. The key to the success of their
extractive model is class collaboration: between the center-left regime, the
multi-national corporations and the leaders of the co-opted class
organizations.
Conclusion: Wither the Class
Struggle?
Building
from the core struggles today, organized against the dynamics of extractive
imperialism, there are clear signs that the regional struggles can expand
beyond the agro-mineral sectors.
For
one, the urban popular struggles over state expenditures, though anchored in a
different set of priorities, pursues the same enemy: a state which allocates
most resources to infrastructure designed to facilitate extractive revenues
over and above the deteriorating socio-economic conditions of the urban middle
and working class. Secondly, the
struggles against the extractive sector have secured important victories against
Monsanto in Argentina and the mining and oil companies in Peru, Ecuador and
Mexico. These are partial and limited gains, but demonstrate that the
‘extractive model’ is vulnerable and susceptible to challenge by unified mass
based community movements.
Moreover,
the entire structure of the extractive imperial model is based on vulnerable
foundations. The rapid growth and rise in revenues is based in large part on
world demand and high commodity prices.
China’s
growth is slowing. The European Union is in recession .The US has not
demonstrated any capacity to return as the ‘locomotor’ of the world economy. If
and when the commodity mega boom collapses, the capacity of the regimes to
contain the class struggle by co-opting the urban trade unions and social
movement leaders will wither. The current alliance between “anti-imperialists”
and global extractive capital will splinter.
If
and when that occurs, the real anti-imperialist struggle combating the imperial
firms as well as the state will once again converge with the class struggle. In
the meantime, the epicenter of class struggle will be found in mass movements,
not in guerrilla detachments; in the agro-mineral regions and not in the urban
factories; in the struggles over allocations of state budgets and the quality
of life and not merely in wages and salaries.
The
specific extractive character of imperialism suggests that the previous
undifferentiated view of ‘imperialism’ and “anti-imperialism” is no longer
relevant: the distinctions between progressive and reactionary regimes need to
be re-conceptualized.
© Copyright 2014 by AxisofLogic.com
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