Sweetening the political story maintained for almost two decades, the government today shows surprising economic measures, which give the impression that the country is recovering and coming out of the long crisis, that sort of “black hole” in which it has been since long time.
What would Chavez say?
Certainly, some changes have been generated as a result of the relaxation of the controls applied to private activity, the opening of customs for the importation of finished goods, the creation of special economic zones and the conversion in practice of the dollar in national currency, incompatible, it seems to one, with the fight against imperialism. These and a few other official decisions, such as the unusual concession of a few hectares to Iran for the testing of some crops, point to the strengthening of trade and service activities aimed at final consumption. The feeling of prosperity extends to certain sectors of our society and even reaches beyond our borders. As analysts say, the rebound effects that occur look gigantic, compared to the crisis that he had been suffering.
What is written in the above paragraph occurs within the framework of what President Nicolás Maduro describes as “our own model of socialism”, as if the previous one were not so much ours and while reality allows us to see the emergence of a capitalism of bodegones, as it is usually described, designed in bubbles that raise structural barriers and prevent access to a very high percentage of Venezuelans, as explained by several studies, whose figures reflect a great precariousness in nutrition, health, education and many other aspects, without the proposed transformations revealing, for now, signs that anticipate a significant decrease in poverty and inequality indicators. The conclusion seems to be, therefore, that there is an open door, which for the majority of the population seems only a small crack through which the benefits slip in in drops.
Impossible not to walk through what Chávez would think of this new model, built invoking his name and his legacy and, on the other hand, without falling into the temptation of imagining that he would probably have done the same.
artistic still life
In the midst of this context, and under the banner that “Venezuela got it right,” Maduro has given himself the task of promoting some artistic performances with the purpose of recovering “the joy of the liberating and wonderful people who have faced difficulties imposed since the foreigner, always with heroic resistance and love for the country. They fired all the missiles at us and they couldn’t with us.”
Thus, on the occasion of the celebration of the International Day of Salsa, from the Miraflores Palace itself, an act was conceived at the Poliedro de Caracas, held recently, and recently it was reported that in October there would be a second edition in the same place. . For their part, various businessmen have carried out or are planning numerous shows on various stages in Caracas and to a lesser degree in the interior, hiring among other artists Ricardo Arjona, Nathalia Jiménez, Emmanuel, Olga Tañón, Chayanne, Sin Bandera and Camila , Puma José Luis Rodríguez, Oscar D’León and Fito Páez, the latter to hear what “Love 30 years after love” is like. A producer of musical events declared in an interview that an “interesting shore” was in sight in Venezuela, thanks to the dollarization of its economy.
As might be suspected, these events seek to make up the government, despite the fact that they also occur in the form of bubbles and that the ticket prices make them unaffordable for most of the population, since their income revolves around the basket basic.
Slowly
Step by step, as the famous song, the work of two Puerto Rican composers, repeatedly says, authoritarian capitalism arises among us, according to a formula that has been used in other places on the planet and that, as is known, combines operation with severe restrictions policies.
In the Venezuelan case, a varied menu of patronage measures is clearly seen, mixed with a sophisticated surveillance that increases with the continuous advance of new technologies. We have come across, therefore, the biopolitics of this time, a concept that refers to the mechanisms that originate from power with the aim of governing individual life, making freedom a mirage and projecting a scenario that reduces the space to politics, confining it to small gestures that try to keep up appearances and feed the belief that the knot lies, let me explain it in an obviously simple way, in GDP growth.
Therefore, even if the model adopted makes it possible to improve the country’s social situation, it is impossible to avoid the fact that they undervalue and put aside human, civil and political rights. As the philosopher Miguel de Unamuno wrote, whom I have quoted in some of my articles, what defines a nation is a suggestive project of life in common; national groups, he adds, “do not coexist to be together, but to do something together.”
The submission and lack of consensus that guide authoritarian capitalism do not rhyme with this conception.
