Crisis and Contradiction: Marxist Perspectives on Latin America in the Global Political Economy

399 Pages·2015·1.63 MB·English

by  Edited by Susan J. Spronk and Jeffery R. Webber (Eds.)

Crisis and Contradiction
Historical Materialism
Book Series
Editorial Board
Sébastien Budgen (Paris)
Steve Edwards (London)
Marcel van der Linden (Amsterdam)
Peter Thomas (London)
volume 79
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hm
Crisis and Contradiction
Marxist Perspectives on Latin America in the Global
Political Economy
Edited by
Susan J. Spronk and Jeffery R. Webber
LEIDEN | BOSTON
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crisis and contradiction : Marxist perspectives on Latin America in the global political economy / edited by
Susan J. Spronk and Jeffery R. Webber.
  pages cm. — (Historical materialism book series, ISSN 1570-1522 ; volume 79)
 Includes bibliographical references and index.
 ISBN 978-90-04-22617-3 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-90-04-27107-4 (e-book) 1. Latin America—
Economic conditions. 2. Latin America—Economic policy. 3. Economic development—Political
aspects—Latin America. 4. Marxian economics—Latin America. I. Spronk, Susan. II. Webber, Jeffery R.
 HC125.C777 2014
 337.8—dc23
2014029510
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual ‘Brill’ typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering
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issn 1570-1522
isbn 978-90-04-22617-3 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-27107-4 (e-book)
Copyright 2015 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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Contents
Acknowledgements  vii
List of Figures and Tables  viii
List of Abbreviations  ix
Note on Contributors  xii
1 Introduction – Systemic Logics and Historical Specificity:
Renewing Historical Materialism in Latin American Political
Economy  1
Susan J. Spronk and Jeffery R. Webber
Part 1
The ‘New’ Working Class: Decomposition and Recomposition
under Neoliberalism
2 Roots of Resistance to Urban Water Privatisation in Bolivia:
The ‘New Working Class’, the Crisis of Neoliberalism, and
Public Services  29
Susan Spronk
3 The Neo-Developmentalist Alternative: Capitalist Crisis, Popular
Movements, and Economic Development in Argentina since
the 1990s  52
Mariano Féliz
4 The Reproduction of Democratic Neoliberalism in Argentina:
Kirchner’s ‘Solution’ to the Crisis of 2001  73
Emilia Castorina
5 Doubly Marginalised? Women Workers in Northeast Brazilian Export
Horticulture  98
Ben Selwyn
6 Emergent Socialist Hegemony in Bolivarian Venezuela: The Rôle
of the Party  120
Gabriel Hetland
vi contents
7 Venezuela’s Social Transformation and Growing Class Struggle  138
Dario Azzellini
8 Socialist Management and Natural Resource Based Industrial
Production: A Critique of Cogestión in Venezuela  163
Thomas F. Purcell
PART 2
State and Market in Late Capitalist Development
9 Conspicuous Silences: State and Class in Structuralist and
Neostructuralist Thought  193
Juan Grigera
10 Sugarcane Ethanol: The Hen of the Golden Eggs? Agribusiness and the
State in Lula’s Brazil  211
Leandro Vergara-Camus
11 From Global Capital Accumulation to Varieties of Centre-Leftism in
South America: The Cases of Brazil and Argentina  236
Nicolas Grinberg and Guido Starosta
12 The Three Dimensions of the Crisis  273
Claudio Katz
13 Revolution against ‘Progress’: Neo-Extractivism, the Compensatory
State, and the TIPNIS Conflict in Bolivia  302
Jeffery R. Webber
References  335
Index  380
Acknowledgements
Susan Spronk would like to thank the Social Science and Humanities Research
Council (Canada) and the University of Ottawa for financial support for this
project. Both editors would also like to thank Eva Mascolo Fortin, Rebecca
McMillan, Adrian Murray and Calais Caswell for research assistance, as well as
Ruth Felder and Yael Shubs for translating Claudio Katz’s essay. Our gratitude
also goes to the contributing authors for their patience.
List of Figures and Tables
FIGURE CAPTION
8.1 opec dependency on oil  170
8.2 Alcasa cost of production and world market price  183
11.1 Fluctuations of exchange rates around their purchasing power
parity  244
11.2 Ground rent relative to total surplus value  245
11.3 Net inflow of external credit in million us$ 2004  247
11.4 Labour productivity relative to us levels  248
11.5 gdp and industrial value added (1953=100)  248
11.6 Real industrial wages (1955=100)  249
11.7 Economy-wide real wages (1985=100)  258
table CAPTION
8.1 Aluminium production 1997–2007  184
14.1 Poverty and inequality indicators in Bolivia/ethnic-linguistic
condition  330
14.2 Bolivian distribution of national income  331
List of Abbreviations
AD Acción Democratica (Democratic Action)
AR Absolute Rent
BNDES Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social
(Brazilian Development Bank)
CAP Carlos Andrés Pérez
CC Communal Council
CCL Consejos Consultivos Locales (Local Consultative Councils)
CP Convertability Plan
CEPAL Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (United
Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean, ECLAC)
CFK Cristina Fernández de Kircher
CGT Confederación General del Trabajo (General Labour
Confederation)
COB Bolivian Workers’ Central (Central Obrera Boliviana)
CODAEC Comité para la Defensa del Agua y la Economía Familiar
(Committee for the Defense of Water and the Family Economy)
CONTAG Confederação Nacional dos Trabalhadores Agrícola (National
Confederation of Rural Workers)
CTA Central de los Trabajadores Argentinos (Central of Argentine
Workers)
CTERA Confederación de Trabajadores de la Educación de la República
Argentina (Confederation of Education Workers of Argentina’s
Republic
CUT Central Unica dos Trabalhadores (Unitary Workers Union)
CVG Corporación Venezolana de Guyana
CVG-Alcasa Corporación Venezolana de Guyana-Aluminio del Caroní S.A.,
DR Differential Rent
ECLAC Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (United
Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the
Caribbean, CEPAL)
EPS Empresas Productivas Sociales (social production companies)
FDI Foreign Direct Investment
FDPS Frente Popular Darío Santillán (Popular Front Darío Santillán)
Fabriles Federación de Fabriles de Cochabamba (Federation of
Manufacturing Workers of Cochabamba)
x list of abbreviations
FEDECOR Federación Departmental de Regantes y Sistemas Comunales
del Agua Potable (Federation of Irrigator’s Associations from
the Department of Cochabamba)
FEJUVE Federación de Juntas Vecinales de El Alto (the Federation of
Neighborhood Councils of El Alto)
FTV Federación Tierra y Vivienda (Land and Housing Federation)
JyJDH Plan Jefes y Jefas de Hogar (Heads of Household Program)
IIRSA Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of
South America
IMF International Monetary Fund
INDEC Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos (National Institute
of Statistics and the Census)
IPC International Petroleum Cartel
ISI Import Substitution Inudstrialisation
MAS el Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement towards Socialism)
MIBAM Ministerio del Poder Popular para las Industrial Básicas y la
Mineria (Ministry of Basic Industry and Mines)
MNR Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (Revolutionary
Nationalist Movement)
MST Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (Landless
Rural Workers’ Movement)
MTD Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados Anibal Verón
(Movement of Unemployed Workers Anibal Verón)
MVR Movimiento Quinto República (Fifth Republic Movement)
NEP New Economic Policy
NIDL New International Division of Labour
NPM New Productive Model
OCC Organic Composition of Capital
OPEC Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries
PB Participatory Budget
PDVSA Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (Petroleum of Venezuela)
PJ Partido Justicialista (Justicialist Party)
PNPB Programa Nacional de produção e Uso de Biodiesel (the
National Programme of Production and Use of Biodiesel)
PPT Patria Para Todos (Fatherland for all Party)
PSDB Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira (Brazilian Social-
democratic Party)
PSUV Partido Socialista Unida de Venezuela (the United Socialist
Party of Venezuela)