Human Rights and Radical Social Change: Liberalism, Marxism and Progressive Populism in Venezuela

Clark, Tillman

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Human Rights and Radical Social Change: Liberalism, Marxism and Progressive Populism in Venezuela

By Tillman Clark
2010, Vol. 2 No. 03 | pg. 1/13 | »

Keywords: Human Rights Venezuela Hugo Chavez Marxism Populism Liberalism Ideology Social Change Radical Social Change

“Human rights” is a concept so deeply intertwined into the modern discourse that it seems almost impossible to question it or refer to any standard beyond it. The problematic nature of this issue is not so much that people have different conceptions of “human rights”--”right” is pretty straightforward in theory, considering the “right to free speech,” the “right to freedom of association,” the “right to property,” or the “right to a minimal means of subsistence”--but instead the way in which they mask particular interests and ideological motives when demanded or applied in real situations.

How and why the domination of the “human rights” discourse in reference to social ills or malfeasance came to where it is today is beyond the scope of this paper. But two more pressing sets of questions may be asked. Firstly, how does the dominant discourse of “human rights” function when put in practice and not just a theoretical or philosophical abstraction? In other words, what pragmatic function do claims of “human rights violations” or “adherence to human rights” hold? If human rights are linked to a specific institutional apparatus that is required for their “realization,” then what effect does the human rights discourse have on a society undergoing a substantial social and institutional transformation? Secondly, if the discourse of human rights cannot incorporate a theory of radical social change, what justification, if any, is there for abandoning it? If the horns of “human rights violations” are to be sounded every time a society attempts to move beyond the institutions connected to liberal human rights theory, can it be legitimate to ignore them? These two sets of questions are connected, but I intend to make a contribution to the second set before I elucidate the first. This paper will discuss these questions through a case study in one specific context: Venezuela in the period of 1999-2009.

The argument, briefly, is as follows: human rights institutions, groups, and actors promote their own form of discourse, and this discourse concurrently has the effect of eliminating from the conversation a certain element; from one perspective, limiting, a priori, the option for a possibly necessary radical social change and, from another perspective, excusing, in a round about way, violations of general human dignity. The resultant deadlock is the hallmark of progressive or radical politics today and can be identified in the discourse which has embroiled the “Bolivarian Revolution” in Venezuela. Following Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, this project is intended to contribute towards an illumination of what Zizek has termed “the double blackmail,”1 where if one supports human rights, and interventions intended to support them, they are accused of supporting international imperialism, while if one rejects human rights, they are accused of excusing authoritarianism. This paper will make the argument that the political nature, ideology and theory of a radical, progressive movement is the determining factor in discussing human rights as applied to social change.

It may seem that this argument presents a reading in which human rights ideology is somehow false and does not apply to Venezuela or other countries because that are undergoing a certain type of revolutionary social change. While this interpretation is initially understandable, it would be a serious misreading of the argument. Many of the ideas about Venezuela put forth by the human rights discourse are not accurate while some are, and it will be a component of this paper to point them out. But the point is not to show that human rights are themselves “wrong,” but to show that the production of ideas about Venezuela and human rights, through their violation, adherence or interpretation, has important effects, and that the production of such effects plays a significant role in the impediment of social, institutional and structural change.

It is my intention here not to excuse human rights violations or accuse anyone of perpetrating them. It is my position that human rights, both in theory and practice, are positive conceptions but that there exists a possible future in which they can be transcended for something better, which is what makes the discussion of political ideology and projects that much more important. In order to move forward, we must face the deadlock, recognize its character and attempt to overcome it. It is here that I find the human rights discourse is its most limiting when it comes to social change. I agree entirely with Zizek when he states that his,

"problem with this new discourse on human rights [is] that it is part of a precisely concrete universality of a situation where certain questions are no longer permitted to be asked [...] This is the reason I am skeptical about so-called modern liberal politics. Did you notice how the very same people who are deep into this poetry of human rights, the moment you propose a certain political measure which is a little bit utopian or radical, they use a kind of a totalitarian blackmail. They claim; ‘But didn't we learn the lesson [that] this necessarily ends up in a new form of totalitarianism?’ That is to say, the political message of the very people who go into this depoliticized poetry of human rights is to denounce every radical political measure as potentially totalitarian.2"

The claim of totalitarianism is not an empty one, but to say that all radical political projects will result as such is false. Human rights as it functions today, as a point of departure and the ultimate debate for the viability of political change, contributes to this falsity and needs to be unmasked and analyzed. Therefore, what is most important when discussing radical social change is the political ideology and project of any movement or state.

This paper is divided into three parts. The first part will identify liberal and marxist theories of human rights and show how their methodology and application create the conditions for the “double blackmail.” It will highlight the idea that the political nature of the subject of a human rights claim, whether claiming violation or defending against it, is the key point of analysis. The second part will introduce the situation in Venezuela, the political nature of the Venezuelan Chavista movement; its version of radical socialist/populist ideology and attempt at social change. Part three will consist an analysis of the debate between defenders of the Venezuelan project and its detractors and finally part four will focus on the conclusion that the liberal and marxist theories of human rights are in full swing in the Venezuelan human rights discourse and that the limitations of the Venezuelan project show that only with a more concerted effort to develop a modern and comprehensive political theory of social change can the effects of the “double blackmail” be overcome.

Liberal Human Rights Theory

The modern liberal conception of human rights is guided generally by two different viewpoints competing between human rights as needs-based morality and human rights as political commitment to individual liberty. Following Isaiah Berlin, in his essay Two Concepts of Liberty, these can also be seen as “positive” and “negative” rights.3 The former is a contemporary theory and practice premised upon the interests and needs of an individual holder of rights and the necessity to protect them through “active,” or “positive,” intervention. The latter is based upon the moral agency and liberty of the individual as a holder of rights, or a “passive” recognition of the right to noninterference.

What both these theories seem to rely on is an external institution or agent that allows the rights to be “given” or “ensured” to the rights holder. Moreover, both rely heavily upon a theory of individualism. But it can be said that the contemporary human rights movement “lost” something from the past, classical liberal position on rights. As David Chandler puts it:

What was lost in the promulgation of human rights theory in the 1990s was the connection between rights and the subjects who can exercise those rights [...] This separation of rights from their subjects leads to the redefinition of both rights and subjects through the human rights discourse. In fact, the logical conclusion of human rights policy would be the end of politics as a sphere for the resolution of social questions of the distribution of goods and policy making.4

This is seen as the departure from the “negative rights” liberal viewpoint and a move towards the “positive rights” position. But was this ever the case? Was this connection ever “there” in the first place in order for it to be “lost”? The conception of rights in and of themselves seem to presuppose a relationship between a certain type of institution--one that can bestow or grant rights--and the subject and thus a certain apolitical morality and ethics.Continued on Next Page »

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

1.) See; Against The Double Blackmail by Slavoj Zizek (1999); http://www.egs.edu/faculty/zizek/zizek-against-the-double-blackmail.html

2.) Human Rights and Its Discontents by Slavoj Zizek, (1999); http://www.egs.edu/faculty/zizek/zizek-human-rights-and-its-discontents.html

3.) “Two Concepts of Liberty” in Four Essays on Liberty by Isaih Berlin (1958, Oxford).

4.) From Kosovo to Kabul by David Chandler (2002, London) pg. 114-115

5.) [5] Hegel’s Critique of Liberalism by Steven B. Smith (1989, Chicago) pg. 99

6.) Hegel’s Critique of Liberalism pg. 69

7.) Political Liberalism by John Rawls (1993, New York) pg. 151 n16

8.) The Parallax View by Slavoj Zizek (2006, London) pg. 339

9.) On The Jewish Question by Karl Marx (2009); http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/

10.) Critique of the Gotha Program by Karl Marx, Section I (1999); http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/index.htm

11.) Ibid

12.) See, for instance, Barrington Moore’s Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1967) or Leon Trotsky’s Their Morals and Ours (1938)

13.) The State and Revolution by Vladimir Lenin (1999), quoted in the chapter The Transition from Capitalism to Communism; http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/index.htm

14.) Terrorism and Communism by Leon Trotsky, Chapter 2 (2006); http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1920/terrcomm/ch02.htm

15.) It should be duly noted that when out of power, as a resistance movement or political opposition, Marxism has a dutiful history of working for human rights and claiming them in the face of repression. One needs only to look at the history of resistance to Fascism to see Marxism take such a leading role. Additionally, it would not be hard to argue that without a strong labor movement, largely influenced by Marxist theory, the rights that citizens enjoy in Western countries would not exist.

16.) The key difference between this viewpoint and that of Marxism is that Marxism sees the state not just as a dictatorship but as a class dictatorship. For more on this, see The General Will: Rousseau, Marx, Communism by Andrew Levine (1993); specifically Chapter 5, “The last state.”

17.) For an extended look at a history of Latin American populism, see; Populism in Latin America edited by Michael Conniff (1999 London)

18.) This term is largely problematic because of the implications associated with a certain, rigid conception of what economic “discipline” is. For neoliberals and institutions like the IMF it is considered following certain guidelines of what they deem necessary economic policies that may be uncomfortable for broad ranges of the population but necessary to gather revenue to pay off debt; hence the term “discipline.”

19.) Another problematic term. Who decides what “fiscal responsibility” means? Is it “responsible” to cut off social programs to pay off debt, as the IMF sees it, or are some seemingly unsustainable policies necessary for socioeconomic stability with the real fiscal issues laying in other areas, hidden to the ideology of the IMF? Recent history should point to the strength of the latter proposition.

20.) For an in depth look at the crisis and the role of neoliberalism, see Rise and Collapse of Neoliberalism in Argentina by Miguel Teubal (2004). Found here: http://www.hawaii.edu/hivandaids/Rise_and_Collapse_of_Neoliberalism_in_Argentina__The_Role_of_Economic_Groups.pdf

21.) For brief looks at the policies of Perón and Vargas, see, again, Conniff pgs. 22-43 and 43-63, respectively.

22.) While this declaration may seem controversial, there is hardly any doubt that the policies put into place by the first populist leaders were largely unsustainable--especially in the case of Perón--despite their good intentions or origins. While the original pretenses for these policies (their necessity, effectivity etc.) are up for debate, there is little controversy that they largely failed in their intentions and paved the way for the debt crisis of the 80s.

23.) For a look at this type of traditional academia, see; The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America by Dornbusch and Edwards (1991 Chicago). Dornbusch and Edwards see populism largely in economic terms such as redistribution, popular consumption, fiscal expansion all at the expense of macroeconomic stability.

24.) Conniff pgs. 4-7 (1999 London)

25.) From here forward, when speaking of populism it will be in the sense that it is “progressive” populism--a populism that is associated with electoral democracy and progressive economic policy.

26.) Populism and reform in Latin America by Tortuato Di Tella in Obstacles to Change in Latin America (1970) pgs. 47-74

27.) Ibid pg. 49

28.) Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory by Ernesto Laclau (1977 London), pgs. 143-198

29.) Ibid pgs. 172-173

30.) In Defense of Lost Causes by Slavoj Zizek (2008 London) pg. 277

31.) Ibid pg. 282

32.) Against the Populist Temptation by Slavoj Zizek (2006) pg. 5 http://www.lacan.com/zizpopulism.htm

33.) In Defense of Lost Causes pg. 304

34.) For instance, Perón’s “Justicialismo” was a slogan that simply stood for “economic growth and social justice.” Who is against economic growth and social justice? (Conniff pg. 5)

35.) In Defense of Lost Causes pg. 265

36.) Perón, for instance, was notorious for appointing loyalists to important positions of government, including but not limited to his appointment of a supporter to a previously independent position of party secretary of the largest Argentinean Union in May 1946. (Conniff pgs. 33-35)

37.) One of the most telling example of this coming in the form of the military coup in Brazil against Vargas in August 1954, leading to his suicide. (Conniff pg. 51)

38.) For a more specific look at the history and policies of the Chávez presidency up until 2007-2008, see Changing Venezuela by Taking Power by Gregory Wilpert (London, 2007) and Rethinking Venezuelan Politics by Steve Ellner (London 2008).

39.) Changing Venezuela by Taking Power pgs. 16-17

40.) “Additional measures approximating neoliberalism included austere fiscal policies, overvaluation of the local currency, and the retention of the neoliberal-inspired value added tax with the aim of avoiding inflation and shoring up international reserves.” Ellner pg. 112

41.) Ellner pg. 119

42.) Ellner pg. 121

43.) For instance, in the book Democracy and Revolution (London 2006), D.L. Raby states; “The Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela is still very much a dynamic and unfinished project, but already we can see in Chavez’ discourse the emergence of a coherent ‘foundational project,’ the ‘Socialism of the twenty-first century.” She goes on to write that populism can be revolutionary, but only if it’s social base is an “autonomous movement of the dominated classes and where its leader is a true representative of the movement.” pg. 256. It seems, from this perspective, that the conditions for revolutionary populism are “autonomy” and “true leadership”--two highly ambiguous qualifiers that can be interpreted a number of ways.

44.) Ellner pg. 128

45.) Without changing the logic of the system the oligarchy, the elites and the influences of imperialism will remain. The “oligarchs,” “imperialists” and “elites” are not functioning as evil outsiders intent on destroying Venezuela but instead are simply following the logical coordinates of a capitalist system. To identify them as “negative elements” that need to be purged from the purity of the whole is to exactly employ a populist discourse that, as we will see further on, leads to authoritarian tendencies that employ the use of Marxism’s theory of human rights but without a similar systemic analysis of change to back it up.

46.) “The emphasis [of endogenous development] is on agriculture (50%) and industrial production (30%), paying particular attention to achieving elf-sufficiency with regard to the production of food, clothes and shoes.” Wilpert pg. 79

47.) Ellner pg. 128

48.) Against the Populist Temptation (2006) pg. 7 n4

49.) Wipert pg. 193

“Much of the government’s spending has, in recent years, been carried out directly from PDVSA, the state oil company. For example, in the first three quarters of 2008 (January through September) PDVSA had $13.9 billion, or 6.1 percent of GDP in public expenditures.”

The Chávez Administrationat10Years:TheEconomyandSocialIndicatorsby MarkWeisbrot,RebeccaRayandLuisSandoval (Center for Economic and Policy Research, February 2009) pg. 17

50.) Wilpert pg. 82 (How these “ethical responsibilities” are to be monitored has not been detailed, but one can assume it will be through certain state regulations and inspections that would most likely employ highly ambiguous points of reference on ethical standards thus opening up the possibility of corruption.)

51.) Chávez Threatens to Jail Price Control Violators by Simon Romero, February 2007 in The New York Times; http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/17/world/americas/17venezuela.html?pagewanted=print

(The institution of price controls is largely populist because of its refusal to address the systemic nature of the problem. A populist in effect shoots the messenger when instituting price controls because its logic emerges out of a rationality that does not know why prices are so high and thus blames the agent of the last step of the production process, distribution and pricing, for corruption and criminal negligence. In effect, the populist says; “We don’t know why rice prices are so high, but they are and you are selling them higher than we told you to. Either fix the problem or we fine/nationalize you.”)

52.) Wilpert pg. 201

53.) Wilpert pg. 203 (Wilpert goes on to describe how Chávez has called ministers in the middle of the night to perform tasks and that, when faced with criticism, Chávez responds sometimes with “I remind you, you are speaking to the president.”)

54.) This is most notably highlighted by the infamous “Tascon List” which was essentially a blacklisting of opposition members from government industries and jobs following the coup and strike. (Wilpert pg. 205)

55.) Ellner pg. 147

56.) Wilpert pg. 49

57.) “Of the 61 ministers that have served in the Chávez government between 1999 and 2004, 16 (or 26%) were military officers. Also, Chávez supported the election of retired officers to numerous governor’s and mayor’s posts. Following the 2004 regional elections, of the country’s 24 governors, 22 belonged to the Chávez camp. Of these, nine (41%) have a military background.” (Wilpert pg. 49)

58.) Wilpert pg. 40

59.) During my trip to Venezuela, one of the most constant voices of concern was found in relation to the upcoming vote that would eliminate term limits for the presidency and other heads of local governments. The complaint was that leading up to the vote, the amount of propaganda related to campaigning distracted from other legitimate problems. People were told to wait until the end of the vote to voice their concerns and to focus on winning the “voting battle.” Additionally, many people I encountered sympathetic to Chávez mentioned that while they might be opposed to indefinite re-election, they could see no real alternative to Chávez and thus felt obligated to vote for the passage of the new law.

60.) Ellner pg. 111

61.) Wilpert pg. 21

62.) A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela by Human Rights Watch (September 18, 2008); http://www.hrw.org/en/node/64174/section/1

63.) Ibid pg. 2

64.) Ibid pg. 134

65.) Ibid pg. 137

66.) Ibid pg. 38-64

67.) This should not be read as the original intention of Marx in any sense. I use the term Marxist here to refer to, as discussed earlier, the historical record of Marxists when they have taken power with the Soviet Union obviously in the forefront of such a record.

68.) Smoke and Mirrors: An Analysis of Human Rights Watch’s Report on Venezuela by Gregory Wilpert (October 17th, 2008); http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3882#_ftnref

69.) Ibid

70.) A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela pg. 15

71.) Ibid pg. 99

72.) Venezuela mulls tough media law, BBC news (July 31, 2009); http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8177862.stm

73.) A Decade Under Chávez: Political Intolerance and Lost Opportunities for Advancing Human Rights in Venezuela pg. 134-197

74.) Changing Venezuela by Taking Power pgs. 53-64

75.) Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory pgs. 196-197

76.) Against the Populist Temptation pg. 17

77.) In Defense of Lost Causes pg. 304

Tillman Clark graduated in 2009 with a concentration in Political Economics from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA.

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