Capitalism is Savagery

[chlamor]

Capitalism Is Savagery.
By Hugo Chávez
Apr 12, 2005, 07:29


The following are excerpts from a speech given by Hugo Chávez at Gigantinho Stadium during the 2005 World Social Forum.

Inspiration.

Ignacio Ramonet, in his introduction, mentioned that I am a new kind of leader. I accept this, especially coming from a bright mind such as Ignacio’s, but I am inspired by many old leaders.

Some very old like for example Jesus Christ, one of the greatest revolutionaries, anti-imperialists fighters in the history of the world, the true Christ, the Redemptor of the Poor.

…Simon Bolivar, a guy that crisscrossed these lands, filling people with hope, and helping them become liberated.

<snip>

Today we are millions.

One of these old guys, he was being ripped into pieces, pulled by horses from each arm and leg – Empires have always been brutal, there are no good or bad Empires, they are all aberrant, brutal, perverse, no matter what they wear or how they speak. When he felt he was about to die, he shouted “I die today but some day I’ll return and I’ll be millions”. Atahualpa has returned and he is millions, Tupac Amaru has returned and he is millions, Bolivar has returned and he is millions, Sucre, Zapata, and here we are, they have returned with us. In this filled up Gigantinho Stadium.

<snip>

Capitalism is savagery.

Before, education was privatized. That’s the neo-liberal, imperialist plan, health systems were privatized, that cannot be, it’s a fundamental human right. Health, education, water, energy, public services, that cannot be given to the voracity of private capital, that denies those rights to the people, that’s the road to savagery, capitalism is savagery.

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_16806.shtml

[knowbody0]

1. i love the pyramid

i love his words. his life is an inspiration. thank you

[Selatius]

2. That pyramid is awesome.

What struck me was that he claims to be a Maoist. That kind of strikes me as odd, since the likes of Mao and Stalin have become almost symbolic of totalitarian socialism and brutality instead of democratic socialism and justice.

However, he seems to think differently from them in that he feels socialism can be brought about through democracy:

We need to transcend capitalism, but capitalism cannot be transcended from within. Capitalism needs to be transcended via socialism, with equality and justice, that’s the path to transcend the capitalist power.

I’m also convinced that it’s possible to do it in democracy…but watch it, what type of democracy…not the one Mr. Superman wants to impose.

I can only suppose he either means Joseph Stalin or perhaps Bush?

[bemildred]

3. Mao is a primary theoretical source for people's revolution.

What he did with it is a different issue. Power, as is
well known, corrupts; and people's revolutions have had
issues with that as far back as one care's to look.

Stalin was effectively nobody, just another power hungry hack.
Mao had something to say before he went around the bend and
decided to found a new dynasty instead, and he has been acknowledged
in that by revolutionary movements all over the World, some honorable
and some not.

4. Like many things the history of China 1949-1976 is more complicated than..

that.

There is nothing in Mao's writings or speeches which suggests that he was trying to set up a new dynasty with himself as emperor.

In fact Mao explicitly argued against the Confucianist model of the cult of personality which had been created by Lin Biao and others in the Chinese Communist Party.

Throughout the period of Mao's life leadership of the Communist Party was contested. There were several times when Mao was not in control, and even when he seemed to be his theories and leadership were often undermined by others from within the Party. Some of these people later went on to create the ideology of the Communist Party as another dynasty and to use Mao as a sort of figure head, similar to the way Bolivar, Gandhi, and other leaders have been used to legitimize later political forces.

While there is a connection between power and corruption, there is no grounds for causation. The simple fact is for corruption to have any meaning it must come from power. Corruption takes as a necessary aspect of its defintion a source of power. In this way the common phrase that "power corrupts" is totally meaningless and suspect. The continuation the phrase, "absolute power corrupts absolutely", is even more empty as there is no such thing as absolute power.

If power itself is the source of all evil then humanity is truly screwed because we organize ourselves politically and politics entails power.

[Selatius]

5. I believe it's a structural issue

When you have decision-making power in the hands of a relatively small group of people, you leave yourself open to manipulation and corruption. A crook on the street isn't as dangerous as a crook with his hands on the levers of power in office. An answer to that was to put power into the hands of as many people as possible, to have the decisions made as close to the population at large as possible, or another answer was to allow the people the power to recall leaders that were elected who failed in some way, shape, or form.

The whole socialist community is divided into two camps where one advocates using the pre-existing power structures to bring about change such as what state socialists advocate, while the other camp advocates change through direct organization and collective self-management as opposed to relying on existing power structures. (Anarcho-socialists) The latter camp arose out of the fear of abuse of power and corruption as was seen in republican or autocratic forms of government.

Mikhail Bakunin famously predicted that if a revolution was won under the direction of a Marxist revolutionary party, the end result would be a regime as bad if not worse than the previous one. He feared the methods Marx advocated toward change because he felt that allowing a relatively few individuals the decision-making power was a recipe for disaster. Only a few bad apples in the centralized decision-making structure and the whole system could be brought down. Stalin was such an example.

[bemildred]

7. Well said. Bakunin was prescient.

Orwell saw this clearly and has been attacked for it, it is the
concentration of political power that leads to temptation (or
opportunity as some will think of it).

I think that one's theoretical political underpinings (communist,
capitalist, monarchist, or ancient hydraulic empire) mean little
when in fact one has a totalitarian/authoritarian state of one degree
or another, and power is in the hands of a few, witness the good old USA.
Hence I agree with those who believe that power must be diffused.

This creates a bootstrap problem, the people must be educated and
prepared for their role as rulers. The interesting thing about
Chavez, like Castro before him, is not what form of economic
theology he espouses but that he seems intent on addressing that
bootstrap problem.

[raccoon]

9. The quote is actually

"power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

[Igel]

6. In a very real sense, government is savagery.

Whenever non-compliance to requirements imposed by others, whether principled or arbitrary, is met with violence, that's one word I can use.

On the other hand, anarchism's also savagery. So there you have it.

[bemildred]

8. It has a long history of that sort of thing.

And yet one can point to exceptions (Iceland, Switzerland)
so I am not convinced that the situation is hopeless. I prefer
to think that we can do better.