Allow me to cover three areas with you: how to
distance ourselves from Neo-Liberalism, how the state relates to social
movements, and socialism.
The four pillars of Neo-Liberalism
Over the past five to seven years, peoples on the
continent, worthy people, working people, oppressed people have slowly
begun to initiate processes of mobilization, struggle, and confrontation
against what we call Neo-Liberalism. Latin American people without a
doubt are in the vanguard of the struggle against Neo-Liberalism that
has materialized and taken root all over the world in the last 25 years.
Paraphrasing Marx, one can say that the specter of
anti-Neo-Liberalism or of post-Neo-Liberalism is stalking the continent,
from Oaxaca in Mexico, through Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, Bolivia, etc, to Tierra del Fuego in Chile.
The continent serves as the vanguard of reflection and planetary
mobilization responding to Neo-Liberalism and its effects. To look into
this, to know why we are fighting, it is important to remind ourselves
of the 3-4 main points as to what Neo-Liberalism is.
First off, Neo-Liberalism signifies a process of
fragmentation – structural disintegration – of support networks,
solidarity, and popular mobilization. Throughout the whole world,
especially in Europe, Latin America, and Asia,
Neo-Liberalism has grown out of the pulverization, fragmentation, and
disintegration of the old workers’ movement, the old peasant movement,
and the urban mobilizations that developed in the fifties and the
eighties.
The fragmentation of society and the destruction of
both solidarity networks and the fabric of cohesion have fostered the
consolidation of Neo-Liberalism.
Secondly, Neo-Liberalism has taken form, advanced,
and imposed itself on the world through privatization, i.e. private
appropriation of collective wealth and public properties, including
public savings, land, minerals, forest, and pension funds.
Neo-liberalism developed through privatizing those resources.
Thirdly, the introduction of Neo-Liberalism was
accompanied by reducing the state and deforming it, especially that
aspect of the state relating for better or worse to the collective or to
ideas of commonwealth. Neo-liberalism set out to destroy this notion of
the state as collective or commonwealth in order to impose a type of
corporate ideology calling for appropriation and squandering of
collective wealth accumulated many times over by two, three, four, or
five generations.
Fourth, the implementation of Neo-Liberalism led to
limitations on people’s political participation; democracy was
ritualized into casting a vote every four years. The citizen voter no
longer takes part in decision-making. Tiny circles of the political
elite take it upon themselves to represent the people. These then are
the four pillars of Neo-Liberalism – fragmentation of the laboring
sectors and worker organizations, privatization of public resources, the
diminished state, and impediments to people’s decision making.
If there are four items, four pillars of
Neo-Liberalism that have created so much poverty, marginalization, and
misfortune in the country, then clearly we have to remove them. We must
substitute other structures, other mechanisms, by which society,
nations, and poor working people might regain the right to decide their
own destiny.
Bolivia exemplifies the workings of social fragmentation. But we can also look at Mexico, Ecuador, and Argentina.
The best way to resist Neo-Liberalism is through consolidation of the
social movements. These include popular networks and autonomous
organizations of men and women, youth, workers, peasants, professionals,
students, and indigenous peoples. Organization, i.e. the
re-establishment of civil, popular, peasant, and indigenous society,
becomes our first pillar for dismantling the neo-liberal regimen. That
means organizing the hardest hit sectors of the last 25 years, the
working class, women workers, the indigenous, peasant, and youth
sectors, all of them, fragmented, weakened, and marginalized, their
rights abused. The task today is to devise new methods of worker
organization that correspond to the prevailing style of fragmented
production work, work that is no longer concentrated in big production
centers, organization also of peasants and indigenous people defending
their rights to take back land. Young people need to be mobilized to
pursue real citizenship, so that they no longer turn into economic
exiles in Europe or North America. This
work – reconstruction from below, from the base – is the first great
task we have to undertake to bring down the neo-liberal regimen. We have
taken steps along these lines here in Bolivia,
and we are very pleased. We look to the world in a direct, respectful
way as we offer a body of experience toward remaking the social fabric –
less now in the workplace, and more where people live – around quite
specific issues, water, land and hydrocarbon. These are the vital, basic
points of unification essential for reforming networks of popular,
worker, peasant, and indigenous groups that have been dismantled over
the last 25 years.
Secondly, struggle against neo-liberalism implies a
return to socialization of the collective wealth, restoring to the
rightful owners what belonged to all before it was privatized over the
last decades by small family groupings. And that means recovering
natural resources, hydrocarbons, water, land, and forests. Only by means
of social re-appropriation of wealth common to us all can we go about
dismantling the Neo-Liberal core. Experiences throughout the continent
and in Bolivia
particularly indicate this to be the road by which people will be
standing up for themselves. People at the base have been thinking and
pondering in directed, independent ways. Here in Bolivia,
mobilization was based on defense of the coca leaf, defense of water,
of land, gas and oil. These were the axes around which society recovered
confidence and regained capacity for mobilization, leadership
development, and building networks to unify city and country. Thanks to
that we can now say that in Bolivia we have a government of social movements.
The third mechanism for struggle against
neo-liberalism relates to empowerment of the state. Why the state? Why
is it important to build up the state now? Situations of adverse
international context and state take-over go together, especially when
political regimes that disregard national borders are involved or
foreign companies with more economic and political power than two,
three, or four states together. The purpose of consolidating a state
with economic, cultural, and political strength is to provide a
protective shield for the social movements, an international armor for
growth of the social struggles. Yes, reinforce the state, but not in the
sense of the old state capitalism, which was a way to privatize public
resources. It is a subordinated state that has to be strengthened, one
always controlled and permeated by the demands, activities, and
insurgency of the social movements, which exist to keep the state from
serving as an alibi for new entrepreneurs and new privateers.
And a fourth feature of this struggle against
neo-liberalism is the introduction and unfolding of democracy in ways
that place personal destiny in one’s own hands. Democracy is not just
casting a vote every four years. Rather it is having the capacity to
participate in what’s happening in the country, from the matter of
municipal investments to deciding if a petroleum contract should be
signed or not signed. And in Latin America
we are full of experiences of democracy at the base, what with our
indigenous communities, urban neighborhoods, workers’ districts, and
groups of unemployed. There are many seeds of real democracy, direct
democracy, democracy in the community, and participatory democracy.
These are the necessary settings for development, initiatives,
proposals, and realization of rights. People have to fight for their
rights in order that rights sanctioned by law and the state can gain
legitimacy. .
So this struggle against neo-liberalism is based on
four fundamentals: varying forms of democratic expression
(community-based, territorial-based, direct, and participatory), the
recovery by society of its collective wealth, the reinforcement of the
state – subordinated to society – for the sake of international
protection, and, lastly, unification of the social movements. Country
and city come together, also indigenous people and peasants, young and
old workers, the unemployed and the homeless, and the landless and the
destitute.
Having taken these four items into consideration, I
do nnot have the least doubt that the consolidation of whatever follows
Neo-Liberalism, or replaces it, will take place initially on this
continent, and from here extend to other continents, if we have the
strength and capacity. May Latin Americans stay in the vanguard of the
construction, discussion, and organization of post Neo-Liberal
societies.
The state and the social movements
But a question arises here, one implicit in the
name of this gathering: how does the relation between state and social
movement work? At first glance they appear to be contradictory notions.
The idea of state implies the concentration of decision making; the
state has a monopoly in that area. The term social movement signifies
diffusion of decision-making, socialization of the process. This is a
tension that we have to deal with, and that will take practice. State as
centralization, movement as socialization: it is a permanent tension.
And I am describing the experience of our own
government, that of permanent tension between mandates from the social
movements – choosing a person for the state bureaucracy, for example, or
the elaboration of a law – and, on the other hand, decisions to be
imposed upon opposition forces in society. This is an old discussion
that goes back to the Paris Commune, is taken up by Lenin’s soviets, by
the Hungarian Councils in Europe. Here in Bolivia
there is a long experience from Catavi, from the “52”, and is being
repeated now. How to build a state managed and led by social movements
would seem to be contradictory. But no, perhaps it is this very tension,
between socialization and concentration, between democratization of
decision making and monopoly, through which revolutions of the 21st
century will have to proceed.
The social movements here bear significant
responsibility. In resolving this tension we Latin Americans may even
become able to conceive of and propose other social movements elsewhere
in the world.
Until the year 2003, the discussion was about
social movements being separate from the state. Or, as the old left
would have it, the state had to be under the control of one party
separated from the social movements. The 21st century would seem to be
setting off on another route, one derived from our experience as Latin
Americans, that of permanent tension and ongoing dialectic between the
state and social movements, between socialization and concentration.
Here the social movements take on the challenge of how to achieve social
leadership. Because it is not enough to be part of the state and make
decisions. For those decisions to gain legitimacy you have to depend
upon backing from other sectors in society, not solely from social
movements, workers, and indigenous people. And in Bolivia the challenge
for our indigenous movement is being able to appeal to, attract, and win
over the unorganized middle classes, how to attract the professional
sectors that aren’t mobilized, indeed how to win over 90% of society. If
we can do that, Compañera Silvia, success is guaranteed, because not
only will there be a government of social movements but there will also
be a State of social movements able to articulate and unite the homeland
in its entirety, society in its entirety. (Garcia is addressing Silvia
Lazarte, President of the Constituent Assembly)
Socialism of the 21st century
The question remains; what comes after struggle
against neo-liberalism; what does post neo-liberalism has to do with
socialism? Does post neo-liberalism necessarily imply a type of
socialism? That is another discussion, among social movements,
intellectuals, and leaders – and a discussion too inside our government.
It is clear that socialism, understood as a society
of overall well being, where the people recover control of their
economic, cultural, and political decision making in a community-based
way is not something built up in a year, or ten years, or even 50. Nor
is socialism anything defined by decrees. It is part and parcel of the
struggle against Neo-Liberalism. We revolutionaries have to transform
tendencies into practice and deeds, not just on paper. Within our own
society we have to strengthen the organizing capacity of indigenous
communities. They are besieged, fragmented, and oppressed by
colonialism, but internally have the potential for incorporating wealth,
production, the use of land, water, skills, and materials into the
community. Revolutionaries have the duty to harness the struggle against
Neo-Liberalism with the movement toward a socialism based fundamentally
upon the collective and social re-appropriation of our wealth. This
movement is embedded in our indigenous communities in Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. We need to waken it, propel it, and expand it into a proposition that extends far beyond simple neo-liberalism.
The new workers movement and the indigenous –
peasant movement could generate on the continent the potential for real
socialism of the 21st century.
There are two other considerations. The old workers
movement based on unionization of big companies is gone, but the
working class has not disappeared. There are more new workers now than
ever before, but most of them are young people and women, their rights
gone; they are unorganized, unassociated, fragmented, and dispersed
among tiny work places. Finding a new discourse, revolutionaries have to
re-articulate a new workers movement composed of women and young people
that have other perspectives. They have to be grouped by neighborhoods,
districts, and occupation, no longer by work place. Now there are five
workers here, ten there, 20 there, 30 over there. They do not make up a
tight community. We have to devise methods to empower a powerful
continent-wide workers movement. It appears that on the Latin American
continent the virtual union of the indigenous-peasant movement together
with the new workers movement may be able to generate here the social
potential for a socialism of the 21st century.
There is then, compañeros and compañeras, a lot to
do. We undertake these tasks in one’s own country, district, union, or
university. But the struggle of one person alone is not enough. For one
district, one region, one province, one state, or one country to fight
alone is not enough either. That’s because Neo-Liberalism, and
capitalism even more so, is a planetary construct. And the only way to
transcend a worldwide system is to invoke another one, specifically an
expanding worldwide struggle for rights and for making good on basic
needs.
Your struggle is also ours
Your presence here provides cheer. We are not
alone. And we are grateful that you came to our country to tell us:
“Bolivians, You are not alone.” Thank you very much for coming. Everyone
knows that your struggle is also ours. We know ourselves that we won’t
be winning if you do not triumph – and you, and you! Either we all win
or we all lose. That’s the plan for the 21st century. That’s why – What
does the Compañera say? (Silvia Lazarte) – We are obliged to globalize
the struggles in order to be able to win where we are. And there has to
be an articulation of the social movements and progressive states to
allow ties of solidarity to keep on expanding.
And it is very important, compañeros, that we
understand your struggles. It is very important you are here and
teaching us what you are doing – what’s going on in Ecuador, Argentina, Mexico, and in France.
We need to learn, and we’ll be able to share it not with just a few
intellectuals. We have an obligation today to each peasant, indigenous
person, and worker who are eager to learn and eager also to collaborate
with projects in the future. Compañeros and compañeras, in the name of
the President of our Republic, in our name, we thank you for your
presence here.
We ask you not to abandon us. And be assured that
we will not abandon you in any one of your initiatives, or your
struggles, or any one of your victories.
Thank you very much.
