-COHA Staff
February 10, 2009
Dear COHA,
I rely on COHA for incisive analysis on Latin America. I might disagree with a nuance here, have a quibble there, but on the whole, the reports are reliably right. So COHA’s recent research report on the referendum over indefinite re-elections in Venezuela was a surprise—and not a good one.
Let me start off by saying what I’m not saying, because these letters are often taken the wrong way. One can ask legitimate questions about indefinite re-election’s place in a constitutional democracy. One can wonder if there are sectors of Venezuelan society that resemble a Chávez personality cult. People concerned about Venezuelan society may legitimately criticize aspects of it. But get your facts right, first!
It might seem school-teacherly to find fault in form. But in this case sloppy writing is a symptom of shoddy thinking. From the introduction, and setting the analytical register within which the piece proceeds, we hear of Chávez’s “sneering style of communication,” and his “bizarre references targeting various political foes.” We lack for examples, so I’m forced to guess. But it behooves a non-Venezuelan audience to know that Chávez has faced an opposition that has called for his assassination, and nearly murdered him in a 2002 military coup. It’s quite dandy to call for Habermasian rhetorical norms from Washington, DC; rather less so in a country in which large sectors of the population believe they are fighting a class war.
Moving on, the analysts note that a victory for the referendum followed by a victory in 2013 would result in a “twenty year monopoly of power;” I do not know what that means, since surely the opposition could win a majority of seats in the legislative branch and blockade Chávez’s agenda. Moreover, Chávez, win or lose, will contend with powerful economic sectors of Venezuelan society that despise him. Perchance, they shall have “power” too in that “twenty year” interval, seriously eroding his “monopoly.”
In turn, the authors assert that “Many Venezuelan academics would argue that the Chávez’s Revolution [sic] is in constant change, with no specific route to guide it, other than the pursuit of power and the implementation of a socialist state and, theoretically, a high degree of participatory politics.” This is non-sense. Much to my dismay, Chávez has moved slowly to nationalize the Venezuelan economy (perhaps nationalization is what the authors mean by a “socialist state?”), and agrarian reform has been seriously stymied.
Venezuelan academics are a heterogeneous lot. Some oppose the process. Some support it. Some criticize it. Some don’t. It’s impossible to fence the argument that “many…argue” something, since one hardly knows who the opponent one is dueling with is. (The authors show their hand early, asserting that it is “Chávez’s Revolution,” and cannot mean to so casually insult the sectors of Venezuelan society agitating to deepen the process. The members of the National Peasant Front Ezequiel Zamora I met while down in Venezuela last spring would be shocked to learn that the revolution they fight for—the revolution that over 200 peasant leaders have been gunned down while defending in Western Venezuela—is solely Chávez’s.)
Anyway, the authors assert that “his rhetoric, combined with his view of a strong, central core of beliefs somehow was to mystically reach the country’s lower class.” This is utter condescension—an array of missions, educational programs, and attempts to spread this message exist, whether successful or not. If the authors had been to Venezuela, they would see state-subsidized book-stores and book-fairs wherein revolutionary literature is widely distributed.
The authors go on to write of the “nation’s middle class opposition leadership,” a sociological point they underline when they write of “The fact that many university students are looked upon as the children of the middle-class opposition.” Since it is a widespread delusion that there is no upper-class in America, it’s understandable that the authors neglect to imagine the possibility of an upper-class in Venezuela. Understandable, but wrong. Some of the opposition’s leadership is “middle-class” and some is upper-class. But even the Venezuelan middle-class structurally identifies with the upper-class, since (a) their incomes still dwarf the lower and lower-middle classes and (b) some members of the middle classes used to be upper-class.
Indeed, some quick numbers on Venezuelan income distribution prove the point: in 2006, the bottom income group, class E, 58 percent of the population, earned an average of 830bF a month; the next group, class D, 23 percent of the population, earned 1,171bF a month; the next, C-, 15 percent of the population, 1,929bF a month. The remaining 4 percent, divided into classes C, B, and A, earned an average of over 3,700 bF a month. Those middle-class folk are not sociologically equivalent to Americans driving Toyota Camrys. They are powerful members of the ancien regime.
There are other issues, too: their analysis of the 2008 Venezuelan regional elections is surreally wrong-headed. I shall quote them at length:
More recently, in November 2008, Venezuelans were called on once again to cast their ballots, this time to choose regional governors and mayors. Chávez’s PSUV party turned out a winning performance, but the victory was not as decisive as in past elections. The opposition scored victories in some of the country’s largest cities, including Caracas and Maracaibo. A partial explanation for these important losses to the opposition is that, currently, throughout the country there are shortages of food staples, high inflation and an elevated unemployment rate (up to 7.2% in June 2008, 6.1% in December 2008). These handicaps generated tinder box conditions that could pose dangers to the “Bolivarian government” placing the PSUV candidates in a difficult position. As a result, the poorer stratum of Venezuelan society are beginning to voice discontent over their deteriorating situation in talk-shows such as “La Entrevista” on RCTV, or “Aló Ciudadano” on Globovisión, both of which are anti-government channels. The ineffective measures taken by the authorities to address the current situation in the country up to now seem to render the allure of the PSUV candidates less appealing to voters.
I am unclear on a number of points.
One, the authors compare the victory to “past elections.” Yet the PSUV candidates garnered 53 percent of the vote, and opposition candidates 43 percent. This was a yanking turn-around from the Dec. 2, 2007, election, in which the referendum on economic reconstruction and the elimination of presidential term limits lost by 2 percent. Clearly, that is the relevant benchmark for assessing the results of the most recent electoral cycle. As Venezuelan sociologist Javier Biardeau, surely situated further left than many PSUVistas, comments, “the Venezuelan revolution has recovered significantly from the electoral setback of December 2, 2007 (the day of the failed referendum). As he continues, the elections could have amplified that setback, or they could have “directed the electoral trajectory toward the recovery of the level of support reached in the 2006 electoral cycle,” which is what happened.
Two, the authors note that throughout “the country there are shortages of food staples, high inflation and an elevated unemployment rate (up to 7.2% in June 2008, 6.1% in December 2008)” as explaining part of the losses in Venezuela’s urban centers. They get it dead-wrong. The cities are violent and dirty, due to inadequate sanitation and ineffectual policing. Place the blame for that where you will—inflation did not seem to be a major issue. “Shortages of food staples” is a strange locution to obliquely allude to the Venezuelan poor’s vastly increased purchasing power, and the Venezuelan privately-owned agrarian system’s refusal to disburse food supplies within Venezuela. When poor people have more money and rich food producers are less willing to sell their goods in country, you get food shortages. There have been several cases of trucks laden with supplies heading to Colombia to evade price controls on basic foodstuffs.
Three, a Center for Economic and Policy Research report, comprising the freshest, most definitive, most careful compilation of statistics concerning the economy and social indicators, suggests that “Average caloric intake has risen from 91.0 percent of the recommended levels in 1998 to 101.6 percent in 2007. Even more importantly, malnutrition-related deaths have fallen by more than 50 percent, from 4.9 to 2.3 deaths per 100,000 in population between 1998 and 2006.”
Four, the unemployment statistic is off. A percentage that runs in a trend-line from 7.2 percent in June 2008 to 6.1 percent in December 2008 could not possibly explain decreased chavista/lower-class support for the PSUV in that time-span—positing that there was decreased chavista/lower-class support for the PSUV in that interim, which there was not. The statistic is taken from a month-by-month timeline put out by the Venezuela Statistical Office. They correctly repeat the numbers, but the numbers are useless for understanding the Venezuelan employment rate. Unemployment numbers shift rapidly from month-to-month without necessarily reflecting substantive underlying economic changes. Moreover, according to CEPR, the December numbers, in particular, should be handled carefully. They often reflect a seasonal up-tick in employment numbers. Again, the CEPR report is illuminating: it gives an unemployment rate of 10.6 percent in 2006, 9.2 percent in 2007, and 7.8 percent in 2008. Still, these numbers explain little—particularly since Chávez was arguably at the apogee of his power in 2006, when he won his campaign for re-election with 62.87 percent of the votes.
So five, there has been some decline in support since 2006, and an increase in support since 2007. The prevailing explanations are, as I’ve suggested, terrible violence in the cities and utterly inadequate systems to collect garbage.
Closing in on the end of the article, the authors write of “The world gas crisis has also profoundly affected Venezuela, and Chávez may be forced to cut back on his ‘domestic oil politics’ that have helped him and his party to remain so popular for so long.” Did anyone vet this piece before COHA published it? What could the “world gas crisis” possibly be? What are his “domestic oil politics”? The programs offering subsidized food and free medical care to the Venezuelan poor?
And finally, the authors get to their conclusion: “Arguably, it makes sense that Chávez wishes to remain in power, as no apparent or suitable successor exists from within his party’s ranks or, for that matter, the opposition.” All that piece-by-piece marshalling of information, statistics, biographical details on powerful figures within the PSUV, all for a milquetoast explanation of the drive for indefinite re-election—which is incidentally supported by radical chavistas, for example, anarchist journalist Jose Roberto Duque, who suggests that Chávez’s presidency is merely a bulwark for the project—one Duque conceives of as revolutionary, but not statist. Under the Chávez government, writes Duque, the population “has conquered space to organize and self-govern. So I prefer a democrat like Chávez for 20 years in Miraflores” to the old two-party system of alternating COPEI and AD malgoverance.
Let me re-iterate my point, in the clearest terms possible: I do not dissent from the suggestion that the PSUV has leadership problems. And I do not tar COHA as some US government mouthpiece. It is precisely for that reason that COHA should be making sure to get it right, and not issuing tawdry, third-rate analyses of Bolivarian Venezuela (how about a serious criticism of chavista economic development strategy from a sympathetic perspective?).
I will add that I know that COHA will respond to this letter, which is fine. I know that COHA produces its analyses using unpaid students. That’s fine too. What isn’t fine is disseminating factually incorrect analyses of Bolivarian Venezuela, rife with sociological misinterpretations, condescension to the Venezuelan people, economic errors, and sundry other items that altogether taint the report immeasurably. Leave that kind of stuff to Foreign Policy magazine.
Max Ajl
Brooklyn, NY
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COHA Responds:
We thank Max Ajl for an extremely thoughtful letter and take note of his corrections and his reservations, all of which we respect and many of which we accept. However, he should be made aware of the fact that the average 45 researchers who make up COHA’s staff come from a variety of backgrounds, including graduate and undergraduate students, as well as young professional researchers, retirees, and academics on sabbatical, many of whom have gone to distinguish themselves in many fields. COHA has always been a qualified admirer of President Chávez, however, we feel that it does him no disrespect to challenge him when we feel this is necessary. This approach is based on the belief that his revolution is more important than the man and that he is neither imperial nor above criticism.
A few comments on the recent letter from Max Ajl protesting your article
on
Venezuela’s New Constitutional Reform 2009: If not Chávez, then Whom?
Unlike Mr. Ajl I have usually found the COHA analyses to be unacceptably
skewed to a chavista position. ignoring most contrary indications,
The article in question surprised me by its acknowledgement of several
facts which are well known: that there really is no one else behind Chavez,
in part because his government is so heavily personalist, and in part
because Chavez himself is a relentless maker and breaker of organizations
and alliances. Nothing lasts too long because anything that is institutionalized
may get in the way of the leader-mass relation that is so critical to this regime
Mr Ajl has a few facts wrong and relies on sources that are less than reliable
Among the facts he has wrong is the notion that Chavez was almost murdered in
the failed 2002 coup attempt. There has never been any suggestion that his life
was in danger. In point of fact, as was the case in the failed coup of 4F, where he was the
only one of the comandantes who failed to achieve his objective Chavez surrendered at the
first sign of danger.
He also relies on less than reliable economic sources. Contrary to what he suggests
statistics from the Center for Economic and Policy Research are anything but the “freshest, most
definitive, most careful compilation of statistics..” He may well believe this, but
very few economists, do, just as very few believe the governments economic figures, its
claims about petroleum production, unemployment, inflation, distributions, not to mention
its budgets. This is a government with very little transparency, and its figures are neither check able nor credible
With respect to the hastily called referendum of February 15, 2009, although to be sure
it does not guarantee a monopoly in power, given the government’s record of turning
electoral institutions into partisan actors, that is at least likely. And the wording of this
referendum, like the finally approved wording of the recall referendum some years ago hides the obvious
intent of the action, which is to ensure continuity in power for the soi disant indispensable leader
of a movement that, as COHA points out, has no alternative to his leadership.
As to Mr. Ajl’s perplexity about the reference to Chavez’ domestic oil policies
the simple answer is subsidize local consumption by keep local prices low, give away a lot of petroleum and petroleum products at subsidized prices to political allies,
a policy that is economically unsustainable as income starts (as it has) to fall way below projections.
As to whether or not Chavez “wishes to remain in power” one would think that self evident’
from his insistence on a referendum point already defeated by voters. Coming back so quickly with the same proposal already rejected suggests a sense of urgency on the part of President Chavez
as the economy tanks, support dwindles, the opposition appears to unite, and time grows short
on this term in office. The well documented official efforts to hamper elected opposition figures from exercising their offices, in some cases even from taking office, adds to this impression, as does the
enormous government publicity blitz in favor of the referendum, the well documented
pressures on government workers, the rash of bombings and assaults (on the mayoralty of Caracas, the Papal Nunciature, , the headquarters of AD, various universities and media, also adds to this picture.
A look beyond pro Chavez sources would enlighten Mr Ajl.
Daniel Levine
one further note for Mr. Ajl
With respect to the 2008 election results, the overall vote count
masks the fact that in the most populous cities and states the government lost
handily, despite many earlier efforts to disqualify opposition candidates through the notorious
process of removal of political rights by decree, with no judicial process. (inhabilitaciones)
OK, so, both commentators seem to agree that crime is a key, if not the main, issue. How about talking about it? At a broad level, I don´t think I´m creating straw men by saying that the left has often sought to explain high crime statistics, particularly in Latin America, by referring to high levels of poverty, inequality, etc. I think that´s a reasonable assumption, although slightly limited: organized crime can create its own self-sustaining dynamic which may outlive any rise in the standard of living. We can see that just by looking at Brazilian cities, which continued to be plagued by violence throughout the country´s strong growth record under Lula.
However, Chavez has been in power for 10 years. His sympathizers stress the amount of investment going into neighborhood areas, the fact that its based on local solidarity, community organization, etc. Surely, if these achievements were as glorious as we are led to believe, they would have reduced incentives to indulge in criminal acts? The murder rate in Caracas is well over 100 intentional acts of homicides per 100,000 citizens. That´s not just a minor gripe in an otherwise successful system, it´s a social catastrophe. Surely at least some Chavez sympathizers would be brave enough to step forward and try and explain how this is occurring at the same time as the magnificent Bolivarian transformation?
At the same time, I´m not buying the opposition line that his rhetoric encourages people to steal. Ironically, Venezuela´s high crime levels undermine arguments that he´s a totalitarian, because no totalitarian worth his salt would allow this to be happening. However, I do believe that Chavez, and his allies, have proven themselves lousy law and order administrators, and I can only assume that´s because they put too much emphasis on politics and ideology. In the wake of the 2002 coup, Chavez took the decision to reduce the budget made available for a section of the Caracas police force because it was overly associated with the opposition. He´s clearly not prepared to work with any members of the opposition whatsoever, even if they do propose viable crime-fighting initiatives. Doubtless, his supporters will justify that position, but it seems a good example of how the type of ideological radicalization and polarization that Chavez promotes damages the lives of ordinary Venezuelans on a daily basis.
Yes, violent crime was rising before Chavez took over, and no, I´m not claiming to be an expert on what is obviously a complex phenomenon. What I am saying, though, is that if a President has been in power for ten years, wants to be in power for ten more, and takes pride in personally micro-managing significant sectors of society…surely it´s not too much to expect him to do a bit more than just downplaying the issue or blaming it on someone else?
It’s unfortunate that with serious issues at stake, Daniel Levine has chosen not to respond to what I wrote, and instead has chosen to respond to a rather fanciful reconstruction of it. This makes making his point easier, of course, but it’s hardly an honest course. Among Levine’s few serious claims, he says that “Among the facts he has wrong is the notion that Chavez was almost murdered in the failed 2002 coup attempt. There has never been any suggestion that his life was in danger.”
I cite from “Hugo!” by Bart Jones, the most serious English-language study of Chavez [p. 354] Jones writes, “Chavez had noticed conflicts among some of the soldiers. He believed some came with orders to kill him, while others wanted to stop it.” Jones quotes Chavez: “Two of them were there to kill me, but the others no, they were constitutionalists. In the moment in which they were going to carry out the order, I was standing up like this. One of those mercenaries walked around me and stood behind. I said to myself, ‘This one is going to give it to me in the back.’ I turn around and look at him in the face. ‘Look at what you are going to do,’ I tell him. And at that moment another young officer jumps to my side and says, ‘If you kill the president here we’ll all kill one another.’ That neutralized those two mercenaries and saved my life.”
But Levine knows better. He goes on to claim that “Contrary to what he suggests statistics from the Center for Economic and Policy Research are anything but the “freshest, most definitive, most careful compilation of statistics..” He may well believe this, but
very few economists, do, just as very few believe the governments economic figures, its claims about petroleum production, unemployment, inflation, distributions, not to mention its budgets. This is a government with very little transparency, and its figures are neither check able nor credible.”
Thank you Daniel. “Very few economists” thought that we were going to enter a severe recession/depression either. The minority was right. I’ll stick with CEPR, and so should COHA readers.
Levine writes that “With respect to the hastily called referendum of February 15, 2009, although to be sure
it does not guarantee a monopoly in power, given the government’s record of turning electoral institutions into partisan actors, that is at least likely.”
This is literally incoherent, and means nothing.
Levine writes that “With respect to the 2008 election results, the overall vote count masks the fact that in the most populous cities and states the government lost handily, despite many earlier efforts to disqualify opposition candidates through the notorious process of removal of political rights by decree, with no judicial process. (inhabilitaciones).”
This is non-sense. In many urban centers the loss was close; as in most the most populous states–I take up the claims here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/nov/27/hugo-chavez-venezuela
and more generally at my blog: http://www.maxajl.com
It’s markedly unclear why that should matter, anyway. Rural voters count the same as urban ones in a democracy.
Levine ends with a condescending bon mot: “A look beyond pro Chavez sources would enlighten Mr Ajl. ”
I can only say, a look at the real world would enlighten Levine and the rest of the opposition liars. What they say might sound nice from their Chacao mansions and Altamira penthouses. From the desperate ranchos, things look a little different.
Mr Ajl should consult a wider variety of sources including many in Spanish for a fuller and more accurate account. As to the question of the government’s partisan use of electoral institutions, it is not meaningless but at the heart of any assessment of electoral fairness. Mr Ajl should consult some of the academic literature on elections including Venezuelan elections. as to economics and economists, the truth is that many economists saw the US recession coming. Those who did not listen were in the banks making money and in the government helping them.
I do not know Mr. Ajl but I do not label him as a liar–I simply believe his analysis is so shaded by his desire to believe in President Chavez that it fails to look closely at economic and political realities.
Again, Daniel Levine is unable to answer the charges on their merits and resorts to insinuating condescension. If he looks through my sources–including two that I quoted directly–Javier Biardeau and Jose Roberto Duque, and several that I merely allude to, in the Ezequiel Zamora National Peasant Front–he would see that the problem is not that I don’t consult Spanish-language sources, since those are precisely Spanish-language sources. Rather, they don’t agree with Levine. So they are wrong.
I don’t consider the right-wing institutionalist political scientists’ work very valuable, in the main because it tends to have major design flaws in its research methodology–crucially, it does not take the world into account. Daniel Levine’s conference paper at the 2008 American Political Science Association proves the point: he refers to how “The campaign against the media reached an apex with the revocation of the license of Radio Caracas TV to use public space,” although the government declined to renew the license, a rather different thing (the station had participated in the 2002 coup).
Or take his claim in the same paper–available here:
http://www.allacademic.com/one/prol/prol01/index.php?cmd=prol01_search&offset=0&limit=5&multi_search_search_mode=publication&multi_search_publication_fulltext_mod=fulltext&textfield_submit=true&search_module=multi_search&search=Search&search_field=title_idx&fulltext_search=The+Logic+of+Bolivarian+Democracy+in+Venezuela%3A+Domestic+and+International+Connections
That “President Chávez and his government clamped down on opposition (for example, firing up to 20,000 PDVSA officials to make the company red totally red” although those workers had participated in an illegal strike against the oil industry, almost destroying the Venezuelan economy, plunging millions into poverty, and in the process intentionally sabotaging equipment as they left their posts.
Take his claim that a part of Venezuela’s foreign policy “has been the regime’s close and well documented involvement with the Colombian FARC, ranging from provision of finance and weapons.” He provides no evidence and no footnote. Fair enough, since it is a fabrication.
He claims that “This government turns out to be no more incorruptible than others; egalitarian rhetoric is not matched by economic reality,” although the Gini index has been descending due to Chavez’s economic policies, also observable in the CEPR report, available here:
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/report-examines-economy-and-social-indicators-during-the-chavez-decade-in-venezuela/
Levine’s work is an excellent example of the “academic literature on elections including Venezuelan elections” that he urges me to check out. Thanks, Daniel, but when I want to read fiction, I’ll grab a novel.
I do not know Mr. Levine, but did study under one of his counterparts, who was a liar. Levine is surely lying too. Once again he signs off with a smugly condescending, “I simply believe his analysis is so shaded by his desire to believe in President Chavez that it fails to look closely at economic and political realities.” Of course, he doesn’t bother to show or prove any of this. His privilege, of course, but until doing so, he can’t expect to be taken seriously.