Neoliberalism for Beginners
These days we all talk about the rebellion that the peoples of the continent lead against neoliberalism. It is necessary to know what the main policies of this model are and their consequences for the peoples that moves them to explosive insurgency.
By Elías Jaua Milano
The neoliberal model has its theoretical support in the monetarist theses of the American economist Milton Friedman, from which policies are developed in the field of fiscal discipline with the aim of stabilizing macroeconomic indicators (deficit, inflation, etc); of state deregulation to favor the liberation of the market, especially the financial and commercial market; transfer of assets and public powers to the private sector; the reduction of social and productive investment, as well as the elimination of any type of subsidy to the most vulnerable sectors.
The ultimate goal is to reduce the money supply in the hands of people to achieve macroeconomic stability and the expansion of the financial and commercial sectors in the context of a globalizing economy. This goal translates for the majority of the population into massive layoffs of formal jobs and their move towards informal occupations, a decrease in the purchasing power and exclusion from necessary consumption of the great working majorities, and the limitation of access to the enjoyment of fundamental rights such as education and health.
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The population subject to these types of policies is forced to work in conditions of overexploitation and systematically borrow to maintain minimum living conditions, while, through alienation processes, accept that social exclusion is part of nature.
However, as the model advances in the privatization of all aspects of social life, containment dikes are cracked and the delivery of the people occurs, as we are seeing with admiration in the streets of our sister Republic of Chile and in the vote of the Argentine people last Sunday, October 27 of this year 2019.
Against this model, we Bolivarians under the leadership of our Comandante Chávez, in order to programmatically direct the popular and military, anti-neoliberal rebellions which we starred between 1989 and 1992, we raised the “Bolivarian Alternative Agenda” as a model to curb consolidation of Neoliberalism in Venezuela.
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The programmatic bases of the model proposed by Chavez in 1997, establish that the purpose of our economic policies pursues the satisfaction of the basic needs of human beings, food, health, education, housing, clothing, recreation. In this regard we move forward, as never before in our history, in the first decade of this 21st century. Our people know it because they lived it.
How was it achieved? Recovering the role of the State so that, together with the traditional private sector and the subjects of the nascent popular economy, and within the framework of strategic planning, national production will rise, based on the democratization of credit policies and other support, and national consumption, through the sustained recovery of the purchasing power of the working people and the inclusion of historically marginalized sectors. Production and consumption were the fundamental levers for the period of greatest economic growth with the highest levels of social inclusion recorded in Venezuela.
Today, in the face of the popular anti-neoliberal offensive, it is necessary to review our programmatic foundations and identify the keys, in this moment, so that our people and the peoples of Our America can return the path of building a humanly gratifying society. That is the biggest and most urgent challenge of the popular democratic currents that are in battle in our region. With Cristina Fernández, we say Neoliberalism, never again!
Translated by JRE/EF
Elias Jaua Milano
Elías José Jaua Milano is a Venezuelan politician and former university professor who served as Vice President of Venezuela from January 2010 to October 2012.He was Minister of Foreign Affairs since January 2013. Jaua obtained a Sociology degree from the Central University of Venezuela. In 2000 he was part of the Comisión Legislativa Nacional and Minister of the Secretaría de la Presidencia from 2000 to 2001.
He was nominated as Venezuelan Ambassador to Argentina in 2002. Jaua served as Minister of Agriculture in President Hugo Chávez's government before being appointed as Vice-President in January 2010, while remaining Minister of Agriculture. On 15 December 2011, following a major reshuffle of the Venezuelan political leadership, President Chávez proposed Jaua to be the PSUV candidate for governor of the state of Miranda (reported in El Universal).
He resigned the vice presidency on 13 October 2012 to compete in the election and was replaced by Nicolás Maduro. He lost the election on 16 December 2012 to the former governor Henrique Capriles who had stepped down in June 2012 to unsuccessfully challenge Hugo Chávez for President. Jaua succeeded Nicolás Maduro as Minister of Foreign Affairs on 15 January 2013.
