Socialism from below. posted by Richard Seymour

Touching on the theme of the unrest in the Southern hemisphere in the last post, I was reminded of the efforts by workers in Venezuela to take control of workplaces .

Just yesterday, I read in The Guardian of how in Argentina businesses shut down by the bosses were invaded and re-opened by workers who now run them as cooperatives, "an important symbol of another world that is possible, necessary, and emerging." In doing so, they have often increased employment beyond what was achieved by the capitalist bosses themselves and created micro-models of participatory democracy that mimic the shorahs, cordones, workers councils and soviets of the 20th Century.

Naturally, the Argentinian government and judicial system are more or less in the pockets of business, and will try to normalise and reproduce capitalist relations by evicting the workers and returning the factories to their former owners. The extent to which they will be able to do this will depend on how much the workers who have shown such imagination and courage, in the middle of economic chaos, are up for a fight - and how far they will take that fight. There is still a great deal of militancy among workers in Argentina. Just last week, 50,000 bank workers went out on strike demanding higher wages, while fish packers in the south have been on strike for over a month. The worst of the economic crisis may be over, but the political situation is far from decided.

Meanwhile, Bolivia, one of the poorest countries in South America, is experiencing considerable tumult , with roadblocks and strikes paralysing the country. There have been threats to impose a dictatorship (interesting, amid recent reports that key multinationals supported the Latin American dictatorships in the Sixties and Seventies). They find themselves pitched against a state that has been eagerly transferring public utilities to multi-nationals. They managed to stop them privatising the water supply through mass strikes (so the water company involved tried to sue the Bolivian government ). Remember how that one started - in 1998, the World Bank refused to guarantee a loan to finance water services in Cochabamba unless the utility was privatised and the costs passed on to consumers. In 1999, consortium led by Bechtel won the contract, and immediately doubled the price of water, which meant that for many it cost more than food. The World Bank kindly announced that it supported the full-cost pricing and declared that none of its loan could be used to subsidise water for the poor. In 2000, mass strikes and demonstrations broke the government and Bechtel were ordered out.

At every step, Bolivian workers have been up against a triumvirate of powers: capital, the state and what Peter Gowan calls the "Dollar-Wall Street-Regime". In this most recent spate of strikes, over who controls the country's gas resources, the same old enemies have re-appeared, and the Bush administration has been "very concerned about serious challenges to Bolivia’s stability from radical opposition groups that threaten the country’s hard-won gains in democracy" . The attempt by the US-backed President Carlos Mesa to avert demands for nationalisation by offering a referendum on local government autonomy and an assembly to rewrite the constitution seems to have failed . The main opposition group, the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) has squandered a great deal of credibility by refusing to back the calls for nationalisation, while the leader of the main trade union has said he would support a strong military leader, much to the dismay of the indigenous movements.

There are crucial arguments here: how far is it possible to use the existing state for reforms; is it sufficient to take control of the state through elections (or placing your support behind some colonel); would it be possible to avert the state through autonomisation? This discussion , between anticapitalist author John Holloway and Alex Callinicos of the Socialist Workers' Party, illuminates a lot about such questions - in particular, look at the last contribution from the floor. The fact that such discussions are taking place shows that socialism is not just an ideal, nor is it just an electoral programme - it is a world that is "possible, necessary and emerging". These are the arguments that ought to be at the centre of the G8 protests on July 6th. Why not join the protest ?