And if Venezuela ever end up failing, many(, not enough,) won’t forget that it succeeded :
The story about the transformation of Ramón’s and Abigayl’s lives reminds us of a fundamental aspect of the Bolivarian process ; namely, that throughout the years of the Chávez government, millions of poor people saw their lives improve.
They were better fed ; were better schooled ; acquired better housing, received free healthcare, wheel chairs, vaccinations, university scholarships, single mother scholarships, and pensions ; and participated in sports programs and cultural education.
According to ECLAC, the United Nations Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean, income-based poverty rates fell from 48.6% of the population in 2002 to 27.8% of the population in 2010 (Tinker Salas 2015:192).
Per the National Statistics Institute, overall poverty levels fell from 55.6% in 1998 to 21.2% in 2012. Extreme poverty dropped from 25.5% in 1998 to 6% in 2012.
In addition, there were significant welfare improvements not captured through income-based statistical methods (Weisbrot and Sandoval 2007).
In a UN-Habitat report from 2012, Venezuela was ranked with a Gini index of 0.41, the best score in Latin America (the lowest level of economic inequalities). This is a significant improvement compared to the 1990s (UN-Habitat 2012).During my time in the barrios in the Chávez era, people responded rather univocally that they had never before had such access to social welfare (though it was by no means perfect).
Indeed, people’s subjective assessment of the situation for themselves as well as their peers was that not only was poverty reduced and social services more available, but also that they enjoyed increased access to different arenas and venues for self-development, being it through education, community media, sports, culture or work programs.
I met numerous people who expressed that their lives significantly changed for the better through the government’s policies. To present a few examples : one was my neighbor in 23 de Enero, a slim, nervous single mother of three, constantly biting her teeth. She was a beneficiary of Misión Madres de Barrio (Mothers from the Barrio), through which she had gotten a small scholarship while following courses and other requirements that the program demanded. She told me with pride about when she resigned her scholarship from the government and signed a contract with Metro de Caracas. For the first time in her life, she had a job with pension benefits and cestatickets.
Another one was a young girl who was severely physically dysfunctional because of a rheumatic condition, presumably because of an untreated virus infection when she was a child. Her condition was irreversible, and the doctors who originally treated her said that she was bound to end totally crippled in bed. It could perhaps be halted through operations, medication and physiotherapy, but it would require intense follow-up, which the family was not able to pay for through private medical insurance. At the time, public health was also in shambles, and it required a lot of payment on the side. In the early years of the Bolivarian process, her family sought out help through the Cuba-Venezuela health program. The girl was sent to Cuba several times together with her mother, all expenses paid for. The longest stay lasted for three months. Today, the accentuation of her condition has been halted. Two years ago, she graduated as a lawyer at the Bolivarian University (Universidad Bolivariana).
Another example is the numerous elderly people who underwent free surgeries for cataracts and similar conditions. This is a quick and relatively cheap procedure, but it had been out of reach for numerous people in the barrios. Through the so-called Misión Milagro set up by the Chávez government, 676,790 people had undergone eye surgery by 2012 (Correo del Orinoco 2012). One of them was Elizabeth, who lived together with her sons, their girlfriends and her grandchildren in a barrio in Catia. She had slowly lost her eyesight over several years, and when I first met, her vision was so bad that she did not dare to leave her house. After the operation, it was as if she could resume her life all over again.
Another example, again of which there are many, is the numerous people, above all women, who went back to school through the government’s educational missions. One was my neighbor in Propatria, a dark-skinned, slim woman in her fifties. Her seven children, whom she had raised alone, were grown-ups (and one was dead). After having completed high school through Misión Ribas (high school level educational program), she was now studying comunicación social (journalism) through Misíon Sucre (university level educational program). She, as many others middle-aged beneficiaries of the educational missions I spoke to, expressed that going back to school above all meant an increase in self-respect and a new sense of purpose. As many worded it, “it has opened our eyes.”
Another example is the numerous people who were able to upgrade their homes. In the context of housing projects, the phrase recurrently used was to have a vivienda digna (a dignified home). Over the years, I have visited countless barrio homes. While some are quite comfortable, others live in substandard and even dangerous conditions. In one home I visited, one of the walls was completely covered with mold, producing a nauseating smell and tickling sensation that made me instinctively want to run out. A whole family lived and slept in this room, including children. Their grandmother had recently died from a respiratory disease. Another home was flooded every time it rained, damaging their belongings and furniture. The children had become traumatized and started crying and screaming that they had to move their things out every time rain started. In innumerable homes, people shower and go to the toilet behind a curtain or an old sheet in the absence of a door. In most barrio homes, people share beds and bedrooms, and often they cook, sleep and spend their time in the same room. People may spend years and decade improving their homes, slowly saving up money to add an extra room or construct a proper bathroom. The housing rehabilitation (or relocation) projects therefore represented a giant leap for many people in terms of living conditions, but also for their sense of dignity.I am emphasizing these histories for two reasons : one is in order to highlight the subjective experiences of poverty reduction, welfare improvements and improved life opportunities that undercut people’s embrace of the Chávez government’s pro-poor policies. Another is to provide a preamble for the ensuing discussion about the contradictions and paradoxes surrounding the use of oil revenues for collective consumption. Because all these social policies cost money. State money. Oil money. The social justice ethos of the Bolivarian process hinged on the promise of repaying the state’s social debt to the poor.
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« Before, Venezuela was run by three families. The Cicneros, the Zulvaga and the Phelps. It is in their nature to oppose Chávez because he runs against their interests. I accept that they oppose him. It is in their nature. But look how much this government is spending on the poor and still there is money left ! »
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the government pledged that everyone who was left homeless would be relocated to new and safe housing. When the mission was launched, everyone living in inadequate housing conditions was encouraged to apply for a new home. The government vowed to build 2 million new homes between 2011 and 2017, which was the estimated housing deficit across Venezuela. This would be done through a concerted effort of the state, the private sectors and the communal councils, as well as the communes. More than 10 million people registered, supplying data on social and economic conditions, which would be the basis for an analysis on who was in fact eligible. By the end of November 2012, 293.799 homes, apartments or houses, depending on location, had been constructed. The overall goal was set to 3 million homes by the end of 2019.
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However, as a final comment I want to suggest that there is reason to be cautious when notions of “rentist citizens” and “oil pathologies” are brought up, both in scholarly analysis and as articulated in “folk wisdom.” These are seductive templates that may be used and manipulated in ideological and class-biased discourses without making explicit underlying political assumptions or agendas. As the Venezuelan economist and oil analyst Carlos Mendoza Potellá maintains in the case of Venezuela :
« The abusive use of the label “rentist” has served the supporters of oil expansion [privatization] in a subordinated association with foreign oil capital in discrediting the Venezuelan struggle for ensuring a just distribution of wealth of national patrimony. (Flama 2011:39, interview) »
Chávez’s critics repeatedly framed social spending for the poor as populist oil-demagoguery. This position is also reflected in the scholarly literature (e.g., see Corrales and Penfold 2007; Penfold-Becerra 2007; Rodríguez 2007).
However, these arguments often serve as barely concealed resistance against the very idea that the Venezuelan state should control and prioritize redistributing oil revenues toward its poor citizens.
To state the obvious : when cubans will emigrate for economic reasons, we’ll say they’re fleeing a “dictatorship”. And when we’ll talk of its economic problems, we’ll accuse socialism instead of the empire.