The Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, who in his youth was a champion of the Latin American left and later evolved into an outspoken conservative, has been caught up in a struggle between two presidents camped out on opposite ends of the political spectrum — Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and Peru’s Alan Garcia.
The two presidents frequently trade barbs as Chavez positions himself as the leader of the left in Latin America who favors nationalizing companies, while Garcia presents himself as the polar opposite who has won the support of conservatives by vigorously defending free enterprise, signing free trade deals, and strengthening ties to the United States.
On Thursday, Garcia jumped on Chavez after Vargas Llosa was delayed for more than an hour while passing through immigration in Caracas, where authorities told him that because he was a foreigner he was prohibited from making political comments while in Venezuela. “Any attack against free thought and expression is unfortunate, intolerant and anti-democratic,” Garcia said of the delay. Vargas Llosa, who was on his way to speak at a conference hosted by the Cedice think tank that promotes free markets, called the warning an “intimidating gesture” and said “nobody can put limits on free speech.”
Vargas Llosa also defied the prohibition and warned that “Venezuela is getting closer and closer to being a Communist dictatorship and farther and farther away from a liberal democracy.” Venezuela’s state news agency, ABN, focused on Vargas Llosa’s softer comments, running with the headline “Vargas Llosa recognizes that this isn’t a totalitarian country” after the writer said that “If Venezuela were a totalitarian dictatorship we wouldn’t be here.” Chavez has yet to address the Vargas Llosa episode.
Vargas Llosa, who many critics say is one of the finest Latin American novelists ever, has been criticized by his peers for abandoning the left and has never won the Nobel prize. He was once an admirer of Cuba’s Fidel Castro, but later became a sharp critic. He also had a high-profile falling out with Nobel prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who was a longtime supporter of Castro. Vargas Llosa and Garcia Marquez were once great friends but came to blows in a famous fight three decades ago that was ostensibly over a woman but was widely believed to be about politics as well.
Photo credit: REUTERS/Edwin Montilva. Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa speaks to the media in Caracas May 28, 2009
(Additional reporting by Frank Jack Daniel and Marco Aquino)
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1. Privatization is not a defining characteristic of socialism, but one of capitalism.
2./3. You speak in contradicting terms, maybe you have strictly different definitions for these words..
Chavez is absolutely undermining capitalistic interests in Venezuela, one can be a nationalist in any way. He is not merely striking back at foreign interference but de-privatizing industries critical to socialist governance.
What are you referring to when you say free trade capitalist economy?? Is there such a thing? What is the difference between this and a socialist economy?
I was unaware that these were real economic terms.. indeed the only characteristic that strictly defines a government as more or less capitalistic or social is who’s in control of public infrastructure - The highest bidder or the people’s democracy.
4. What is a socialist economy? An economy lacking private sector control of the media? I was unaware that socialism was an economic term??
5. Symbiotic is an unequivocal concept in any context, it means for mutual benefit. The basis of any society and governing system. Socialism simply represents a more symbiotic principle because it is by nature more democratic, and that is the only difference between socialism and the anti-democratic capitalism. Other than that there are no other characteristics that cant be shared by either system.
As more democracy is achieved in socialism more equality will naturally follow as an inevitability of symbiotic democracy.
Thus in an anti-democratic capitalist country where the social infrastructure is not democratically controlled, more privatization (less democracy) will, and always has lead to less equality, naturally.
With respect, I don’t think you understand what these terms actually mean. I mean, you equate a non-capitalist state to a workers state..
- Posted by brianYou don’t seem to realize that a Socialist state leaves room for nationalism, free market economy and private enterprise.
Perhaps you are making the same mistake as Peric and confusing a Totalitarian Communist system with the drastically different Democratic Socialist system.
Brian, it would be tempting to post an essay but with the constraints of the box here It can only be said;
1: capitalist nations have always nationalized, in fact, all capitalist nations have nationalized in their history.
2: Chavez is not undermining the capitalist basis of the Venezuelan economy or setting up a state command economy - not to speak of a democratic socialist economy - he is merely striking at foreign interests in Venezuelan by nationalizing certain industries. This is a nationalist course no different from many third world countries in the world.
3: The class structure in the country is sharply unequal. The economy is 99% private. It is a free trade capitalist economy.
4: To preempt you, I should say neither Cuba or China are Socialist economies. This just highlights the point that even if Chavez nationalized a million times over, he still would not be president of a socialist country.
5: What does symbiotic mean in this context? Socialist economy is a post-capitalist, classless, needs based economy where the means of production are democratically controlled by the whole of society, to start. Not even the Soviet Union was that.
6: On the other hand, the Soviet Union was non-capitalist, aka, a workers’ state. Nationalist states do not abolish private property in the means of production or capitalist profit relations.
That’s probably too much as well.
- Posted by Roy FairbankThat’s an interesting perspective indeed Roy, so you’re saying despite all the socialist things he is doing he is really a capitalist in disguise? Do you think Washington would agree with you?
So when a “Capitalist” leader takes apart the capitalist infrastructure piece by piece and de-privitises corporate control of public resources, while encouraging their neighbors to do so, at what point along the transition from capitalism to socialism do they earn the title of a socialist? As the uneducated “news tarts and careerists” would give them..
Socialism belongs to no book, its a symbiotic principle that’s been around long before we created the word to describe it.
- Posted by brianI roll my eyes
Chavez is neither a Socialist or a Communist
That FOX news (or even Reuters) repeats the allegation is not adequate for calling him so. Chavez is a capitalist president of a capitalist government of a capitalist country.
He is a nationalist, and so defies the US and calls himself a “Socialist” to outline his national plan in demagogic language in a country that is well sick of Washington regimes.
He has and will betray Venezuelans who have illusions in him. Meanwhile the petty-bougeoisie throughout the world are glad to back him as a “socialist” in their effort to prop the capitalist system.
Really, Its a huge problem: If only people were willing to read Trotsky’s Revolution Betrayed. But no; Socialists are defined not on the basis of even cursory study of Marxist writing or history but on the basis of teleprompter words by News tarts and careerists who haven’t even read a word. Its the government that writes the news.
- Posted by Roy Fairbank