What Chávez is offering

/ September 4, 2012

I put a bow on it and everything!

Yesterday there was a little brouhaha regarding some documents that people within the MUD may or may not have authored. It prompted Chávez to go out and say Capriles would be the second coming of CAP or something. It was all kind of silly and irrelevant, in my opinion, as the documents themselves don’t really say much that could be controversial to the 50%+ of the population that is, you know, sane.

But if chavismo wants to discuss proposals, let’s!

Let’s start by discussing Hugo Chávez’s proposal for 2013-2019. Chile’s La Segunda looked at the document and spoke with Amherst professor Javier Corrales and MUD social policy chief Marino González – who has also analyzed it.

According to these sources, Chávez would

  • do away with state and local governments, and replace them with thousands of communal councils;
  • increase the power of the Presidency;
  • increase the presence of the military so that they are in “all” of the State’s instances;
  • create 3,000 Communal Banks;
  • take over the savings of all workers and incorporate them into a Workers’ Savings Fund managed by the State;
  • dramatically increase State-owned arepa restaurants, drug stores, bakeries, butcher shops, and tourism outlets;
  • increase cooperation with China, Vietnam, Syria, and Iran.

It’s chavismo on steroids. Some might say it’s a blueprint for a Communist takeover.

So yes, let’s debate proposals, shall we?

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25 thoughts on “What Chávez is offering”

  2. Two quick things about Chavez’s program:

    1. I thought putting bows on books was something bourgeois. Just sayin’.
    2. There’s not a single reference to the problem of delinquency in the document. Absolutely nothing. NADA. Basically for Chavez insecurity is only a sensation he doesn’t feel, ergo, everything in Venezuela is fine and all those deaths are a matter of tough luck.

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      • I tried my best, but I looked through the whole thing for at least a mention on the crime thing, which is still the #1 issue for Venezuelans, including myself. I read fast.

        The way this was written is so awful, looks like it was done on purpose. Chavez says “Read the program”. I doubt even Ameliach read it.

        BTW, the basic MUD program was online shortly after all primary candidates signed it in January. For D’Lima (the useful idiot of this farce) saying now, “It was hidden all the time” is just massive BS.

        Here it is for those interested, also in english and french:

        http://www.unidadvenezuela.org/lineamientos-programaticos-para-el-gobierno-de-unidad-nacional/

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    • “Basically for Chavez insecurity is only a sensation he doesn’t feel, ergo, everything in Venezuela is fine”

      Er, not quite. The thing is that the portion of the population who makes a living thanks to criminal activities is exactly the same portion of the population who thinks Chavez should stay as “president” forever and ever no matter what anyone else thinks about it. (You might argue that not all chavistas are criminals, but it is pretty much unarguable that all criminals in Venezuela are chavistas.)

      So Chavez won’t attack crime and insecurity for the same reasons Republicans in the US won’t attack religious nutcases trying to force creationism into science classes.

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      • The “sensation” Chavez feels is sick and tired. He appears to be doing his best to make sure all Venezuelans feel as miserable as he does.

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  3. Both programs are boring to read, beacuse both were written more for academics than for average citizens. HCR’s specific proposals are better to read. They doesn’t drag so much and are easier to undersatnd. For example, his infrastructure plan released yesterday.

    http://hayuncamino.com/construyendo/

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  5. A few of things –

    1. The document David de Lima leaked looks real to me. I’ve seen chavistas try to fake the oppositions technocratic register and they’re TERRIBLE at it. Se le ven las costuras de lejos. This, on the other hand, does not read like a forgery.
    2. It looks to me like it’s a FRAGMENT of an internal working document. Who drafted it? Who approved it? Is it policy or proposal? I have no way to know…
    3. Most of the document reads like a standard description of the Capriles plan we’ve heard lots of times before.
    4.There’s one thing in the proposal that’s clearly newsworthy: It discusses “Economic Decentralization” (i.e., handing over responsibility over running all kinds of government programs) explicitly in the context of deficit reduction. The plan seems to be something like Cut-and-Block – if you’re spending 100 on CDIs, transfer management to the states, funded by block-grants worth 90.
    5-In this sense, it DOES support Chávez’s contention that Capriles has a secret plan to cut social spending.
    6-In Canada, block-granting of health-care expenses has proven to be a highly effective way to control costs while sustaining quality access – http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-19/what-paul-ryan-and-his-critics-can-learn-from-canada.html – so cut-and-block is not necessarily bad policy.

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    • I read the document. But first seems to be just a fragment, and as you say it seems like a working document.

      I see nothing wrong on what’s written there. I just wish it was discussed and explained thoroughly.

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  7. What is this of “Nuestroamericano”? Would they be worried Panamerican, Latinamerican or any other actual adjective might include unwanted elements? Reminds me to Orwell: Everyone is equal, but some people are just more equal than others…

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  9. That MUD document is so obviously false it is pathetic. Did anyone actually read it? It is patchwork of fragments, phrases (“cerco al sector privado”, descentralización, etc), and vague ideas taken from who knows how many different places and bunched together with no real logic or structure.

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