By Rafael Enciso Patiño - workerscontrol.net, Feb 4th 2012
Based on the analysis of the historic experience of what we call the Soviet mode of production – to differentiate it from the socialist mode of production theoretically formulated by Marx, Engels, and Lenin – we here analyze the experience of Venezuela, its process of recuperation of national sovereignty during the government of President Chávez since 1999 and the road traversed with the construction of the material and cultural bases of socialism since his reelection in December 2006 when the chief of state declared socialism as the path of development and the strategic objective to be obtained.
By Rachael Boothroyd - Venezuelanalysis.com, Feb 1st 2012
Even in a regulated economy such as Venezuela, financial traders and the commercial elite, the same bourgeoisie which Carroll continues to cite as a reliable source on all things Venezuelan at the expense of engaging with ordinary citizens, have found a way of speculating and exploiting the economic situation whilst giving the proverbial finger to the majority of Venezuelans and the national government.
The Venezuelan government has announced Venezuela’s “irrevocable” withdrawal from the World Bank affiliated arbitration body the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
Indepabis, the Institute for the Defence of People in the Access to Goods and Services, has published a list online of over 1,000 new regulated prices for medicinal products.
Communal grain packing company Hijos de Bolivar (Bolivar’s children) in Los Guayos, Carabobo state, inaugurated six months ago, is packaging 16 tonnes of sugar per day as well as beans, and soon rice, which it then sends on to communal councils.
The “great social missions” created over the last six months could contribute to reducing the national rate of extreme poverty from 7 to 3.5 percent in the medium term.
Over 27,500 Venezuelans have registered in the first two days of the government’s new Knowledge and Work mission, which aims to incorporate over 800,000 unemployed citizens into the labour market within the coming year.
Venezuela produced 7.79 million tonnes of cement in 2011, an increase of almost 10% from 7.1 million tonnes in 2010, the Venezuelan Minister of Industries Ricardo Menendez confirmed this week.
The Venezuelan government has described its arbitration hearing at the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) as a “successful defence” after it was told to pay just US$907 million to the Texas-based oil company Exxon in return for the nationalisation of one of its projects in Venezuela.
