Venezuela’s Popular Economy: Beyond the Magical State?

• In Event: Rentier Capitalism for the Twenty-First Century?: Theorizing the Political Economy of Venezuela’s Crisis

Abstract

Since the collapse of oil prices in 2014, Venezuela has been plunged into one of the deepest political and economic crises in its history. How do we understand Chavismo and its project of ‘21st century socialism’, in light of this crisis? This paper presents research on Venezuela’s popular economy, posited by Chavismo to be at the center of its project for social transformation. Using a Marxian-inspired, situated case study approach, I argue that the popular economy can be understood as a ‘post-capitalist struggle’, that is, an attempt to articulate new forms of democracy and cooperation that point beyond capitalism. However, the movement also pushes beyond the politics of Chavismo that reproduce, albeit in new forms, the limitations to post-capitalist development associated with the country’s history of rentier capitalism and the ‘magical state’. The popular economy therefore reveals both the country’s potential post-capitalist future, and the barriers that stand against it in the context of the country’s current crisis.

Author

• Manuel Larrabure, Bucknell University