Venezuela to adopt forced farm labor for citizens

[luiz]

Another great innovation of 21st Century Socialism:

Venezuela's new decree: Forced farm work for citizens

A new decree by Venezuela's government could make its citizens work on farms to tackle the country's severe food shortages.

hat "effectively amounts to forced labor," according to Amnesty International, which derided the decree as "unlawful."
In a vaguely-worded decree, Venezuelan officials indicated that public and private sector employees could be forced to work in the country's fields for at least 60-day periods, which may be extended "if circumstances merit."
"Trying to tackle Venezuela's severe food shortages by forcing people to work the fields is like trying to fix a broken leg with a band aid," Erika Guevara Rosas, Americas' Director at Amnesty International, said in a statement.
President Nicolas Maduro is using his executive powers to declare a state of economic emergency. By using a decree, he can legally circumvent Venezuela's opposition-led National Assembly -- the Congress -- which is staunchly against all of Maduro's actions.
According to the decree from July 22, workers would still be paid their normal salary by the government and they can't be fired from their actual job.
It is a potent sign of tough conditions in Venezuela, which is grappling with the lack of basic food items like milk, eggs and bread. People wait hours in lines outsides supermarkets to buy groceries and often only see empty shelves.
Venezuela once had a robust agricultural sector. But under its socialist regime, which began with Hugo Chavez in 1999, the oil-rich country started importing more food and invested less in agriculture. Nearly all of Venezuela's revenue from exports comes from oil.
With oil prices down to about $41 a barrel from over $100 about two years ago, Venezuela has quickly run out of cash and can't pay for its imports of food, toilet paper and other necessities. Neglected farms are now being asked to pick up the slack.
Maduro's actions are very similar to a strategy the communist Cuban government used in the 1960s when it sought to recover sugar production after it declined sharply following the U.S. embargo on Cuban goods. It forced Cubans to work on sugar farms to cultivate the island's key commodity.
It's important to note that Maduro has issued decrees before and they often just languish. In January, his government published a decree that put in place mechanisms to restrict the access and movements to the money in the accounts. In other words, a kind of bank freeze. However, that hasn't happened yet.
The National Assembly is expected to discuss the decree on Tuesday. But it would largely be symbolic: under Venezuelan law, the Assembly can't strike down a decree.
This latest action by Maduro may also be a sign that at least one other leader may be calling the shots on this issue. Earlier in July, Maduro appointed one of the country's defense ministers, Vladimir Padrino, as the leader of a team that would control the country's food supply and distribution.
It's powerful role, especially at a time of such scarcity in Venezuela.
"The power handed to Padrino in this program is extraordinary, in our view, and may signal that President Maduro is trying to increase support from the military amid a deepening social and economic crisis," Sebastian Rondeau, an economist at Bank of America, wrote in a research note.
Venezuela is the world's worst economy, according to the IMF. It's expected to shrink 10% this year and inflation is projected to rise over 700%. Beyond food shortages, hospitals are low on supplies, causing many patients to go untreated and some to die.
The country's electoral authorities are still reviewing the petition, which Maduro strongly opposes.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/29/news/economy/venezuela-decree-farm-labor/

So Bolivarianism has turned the country with the world's greatest oil reserves into a failed state where starving people drive 12 hours to Colombia or Brazil just to buy food. And to address this problem, the 21st Century Socialists desire to use a very 20th Century Socialist tool, forced labor.

I think it's time for the world to talk about Venezuela. It's falling apart; quite literally there's no food. The dictatorial regime is increasingly dependent on the armed forces and militias to brutalize the population into submission and prevent a general uprising. This is a potentially explosive situation in a major South American nation, not that far from the US. If it comes to worse and the country plunges into anarchy or civil war, we could be talking of millions of refugees rushing to Colombia, Brazil and eventually the US. A lot of them are already coming, but it could rise exponentially very fast.

I think the world, and particularly South America, is in denial. The previous Brazilian and Argentinian governments were of course complicit with the Chavista dictatorship, but now that they're gone it's necessary to join voices with Colombia and strongly press for de-escalation and democratic reforms in Venezuela. We are on the brink of a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions that could destabilize the entire continent and nobody is doing anything.

 

[dutchfire]

Venezuela to adopt forced farm labor for citizens

That usually ends well....

 

[Bootstoots]

It is quite remarkable that serious hunger is returning to a country where it had been uncommon for a rather long time. That's a really good recipe for a civil war.

What's the status of the recall referendum effort, and failing that is there any chance of a military coup? I'd imagine after the 2002 attempt, and Chavez's subsequent efforts to make sure that didn't happen again, that the military is probably Chavista-dominated, but how much is it controlled by Chavistas compared to the rest of the Venezuelan state?

 

[Kaitzilla]

President Nicolas Maduro is using his executive powers to declare a state of economic emergency. By using a decree, he can legally circumvent Venezuela's opposition-led National Assembly -- the Congress -- which is staunchly against all of Maduro's actions.

Sounds familiar.

I think the world, and particularly South America, is in denial. The previous Brazilian and Argentinian governments were of course complicit with the Chavista dictatorship, but now that they're gone it's necessary to join voices with Colombia and strongly press for de-escalation and democratic reforms in Venezuela. We are on the brink of a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions that could destabilize the entire continent and nobody is doing anything.

I'm sure the world would send food if Venezuela asked for it.

 

[Cheetah]

Heard about this. Looks like we're entering the final stages of Venezuela's experiment with "soft state communism".

I hadn't considered the potential refugee situation before though. Hopefully it won't get that dire.

 

[Lexicus]

Just waiting for luiz to rant about how this means Jeremy Corbyn is an idiot, hopefully he'll throw in some slighting reference to Jacobin mag as well.

 

[Bootstoots]

That's always been kind of the problem with luizism - a failure to recognize how heterogeneous the "left" really is, even if at various points a bunch of leftists supported or even still support Chavez and Maduro. Chavez is not Corbyn, who is not Sanders, who is not Tsipras, and none of these people are Stalinists, Trotskyists, or Maoists. Although Maduro's forced farm labor thing is a rather Maoist thing to do, it's being done because he has mismanaged his nation into starvation rather than because it's a direct part of his ideology.

 

[Leonel]

Strange how other socialist countries don't do this.

 

[luiz]

Just waiting for luiz to rant about how this means Jeremy Corbyn is an idiot, hopefully he'll throw in some slighting reference to Jacobin mag as well.

Hum, I talk about Corbyn in threads about Corbyn. This one is about Venezuela. If you wanna talk about the kind of people who think Bolivarianism is awesome (like Corbyn), feel free to start that discussion.

That's always been kind of the problem with luizism - a failure to recognize how heterogeneous the "left" really is, even if at various points a bunch of leftists supported or even still support Chavez and Maduro. Chavez is not Corbyn, who is not Sanders, who is not Tsipras, and none of these people are Stalinists, Trotskyists, or Maoists. Although Maduro's forced farm labor thing is a rather Maoist thing to do, it's being done because he has mismanaged his nation into starvation rather than because it's a direct part of his ideology.

Luizism - I have my own thing!
Anyone who read my posts about Chávez, as far back as 2001, knows that I always said he was more of a typical Latin American caudillo than a socialist revolutionary. I know the left is extremely heterogeneous - as is the right. I just hold leftist leaders accountable for their support of murderers and dictators. Everybody holds right-wing leaders accountable for that, but somehow it is morally acceptable to socialize with Fidel Castro and be a groupie to Hugo Chávez.

Strange how other socialist countries don't do this.

I don't know, from the USSR to China to Cambodja to Cuba to Venezuela, all self-professed socialist countries seem to have a thing for forced labor.

 

[plarq]

It's quite debatable that gulags and forced labor camps are a specialty of socialism. Almost everybody does it, and the reason is simple: slavery suppresses wages mostly.

 

[Algeroth]

It's quite debatable that gulags and forced labor camps are a specialty of socialism. Almost everybody does it, and the reason is simple: slavery suppresses wages mostly.

Don't think that's the reason. Not only because in planned economy, you don't care that much about wages.

 

[luiz]

It's quite debatable that gulags and forced labor camps are a specialty of socialism. Almost everybody does it, and the reason is simple: slavery suppresses wages mostly.

Well right now in South America there's only one country talking about forced labor, and it isn't the poorest. But it is the one where El Presidente wears red jackets. And he's certainly not doing it to suppress wages. He's doing it because he is literally lost at the gigantic hole he and his predecessor dug, and now the people are starving.

 

[dutchfire]

So, what do you all think is going to happen:
1) Maduro exiles to Cuba
2) Coup by the military/others in the regime
3) Revolution that overthrows the Bolivarianist government
4) Something else?

 

[Cheetah]

Collapse of the Venezuelan state's monopoly of violence. I.e. a slow deterioration of society until we realise there's an actual civil war there, and it's been going on for a few weeks.

Already crime is rising fast, and there is food around, but it's being held by criminal gangs whom sell it at exorbitant prices.

 

[Bootstoots]

Luizism - I have my own thing!
Anyone who read my posts about Chávez, as far back as 2001, knows that I always said he was more of a typical Latin American caudillo than a socialist revolutionary. I know the left is extremely heterogeneous - as is the right. I just hold leftist leaders accountable for their support of murderers and dictators. Everybody holds right-wing leaders accountable for that, but somehow it is morally acceptable to socialize with Fidel Castro and be a groupie to Hugo Chávez.

I'll step back a little bit: I do know you have a reasonably nuanced understanding of politics across the political spectrum. You've earned your own thing.

The problem is that you seem to jump with relative ease from "[Leftist A] supports [dictator B]" to "[Leftist A] would support [dictator B]-like policies in his home country," which is usually not the case. Democratic leftists do often support authoritarian leftists, and I agree that's a strike against them, morally at least. It doesn't necessarily make anything else they are advocating invalid, though, nor does it mean that they would pursue similar policies if they were to gain power unless they explicitly say so.

 

[FriendlyFire]

I'm sure the world would send food if Venezuela asked for it.

Would only work for a short time given how corrupt Venezuela government is and how wide spread crime is. It seems that for years the subsidised food has resulted in people buying it and reselling it across the border for profit. Sending humanitarian aid would stabalize the country but then what ?

You could set up food kitchens to feed people day by day but I wouldnt trust the Venezuelan government to distribute food given its record of only feeding its own supporters while denying food to the opposition

 

[Kaitzilla]

Would only work for a short time given how corrupt Venezuela government is and how wide spread crime is. It seems that for years the subsidised food has resulted in people buying it and reselling it across the border for profit. Sending humanitarian aid would stabalize the country but then what ?

You could set up food kitchens to feed people day by day but I wouldnt trust the Venezuelan government to distribute food given its record of only feeding its own supporters while denying food to the opposition

Perhaps the UN could set up and manage some kind of oil for food program.
That seems the best way to prevent any starvation.

 

[mrt144]

Strange how other socialist countries don't do this.

Don't let the secret out.

 

[Oerdin]

Perhaps the UN could set up and manage some kind of oil for food program.
That seems the best way to prevent any starvation.

There output has been falling for years as the government chased off most foreign investors, merged their development into the state owned oil company, tgen used it as a cash cow to bribe people and attack abyone who didn't support the dictator. They took so much money out of that cash cow there was little left over for developing new fields or even maintaining existing fields. Worse, the government fired all the skilled technocrats who actually made the state oil company run and replaced them witg loyalists of tge dictator even though they had no experience or training in the business. This has resulted in massive bloat and horrible mismanagement.

They killed tge goose which layed tge golden eggs even before the price of oil crashed due to excess world supply and lower demand.

 

[Zelig]

Would only work for a short time given how corrupt Venezuela government is and how wide spread crime is. It seems that for years the subsidised food has resulted in people buying it and reselling it across the border for profit.

I'm pretty sure we could make food that's nutritionally complete yet unappetizing enough to be essentially worthless to anyone with other options.