The Devil's Excrement

This week, while the People’s Ombudsman, was saying that the US Government had no moral right to talk about human rights, his ears must have been buzzing, because that same day the OAS Interamerican Commission for Human Rights (CIDH) was once again blasting the Chavez Government for precisely that. Of course, the Ombudsman has seldom defended human rights, devoting his time mostly to the defense of the same Government the CIDH was blasting.

Just so you understand the CIDH is composed of seven members, each proposed by a member country of the OAS. But the members are not representatives of the Government, the Government’s propose them, but they have to be people who have a track record in the defense of human rights. Once they are accepted as members of the commission, the members are independent of the Governments.

Besides hearing cases on human rights, the members of the CIDH, write a yearly report. This report includes a chapter on which countries are considered to be “delinquent” countries in that severe human rights violations are or have taken place.

In 2005, the CIDH had four countries in the list: Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador. Ecuador, because democratically elected Presidents had been removed from office. Colombia, because of the continued violation of human rights by the paramilitary and Cuba and Venezuela for numerous violations. What sets apart Cuba and Venezuela is that in the other two cases, the CIDH did not say the Government was doing nothing about it, while in both the cases of Cuba and Venezuela, the CIDH noted the lack of effort by the Government’s to defend Human Rights.

This years report was no different in the case of Venezuela. There were four cases heard in front of the commission: The situation of human rights defenders in Venezuela, the problems of freedom of speech, the problems of instutotiunaility and respect for human rights and the problems with citizen security and para-police groups.

This generated a confrontation at the CIDH when the Venezuelan representative accused that body of bad faith, partiality and distorting informations. Members of the CIDH were offended by the language used by the Venezuelan diplomat in charge of human rights.  They said never had the commission been as insulted. Moreover, he noted the attitude of the Chavez Government towards the CIDH and its seven members. The head of the CIDH recalled that Chavez called tem intellectuals eunuchs and once again reminded everyone that the Venezuelan Government ahs not allowed the customary visit by CIDH members and staff, which in his opinion, proves the lack of political will by Venezuela. He noted that his term will expire and he has never been able to go to Venezuela. Moreover, the Government has yet to act on any of the requests by the Commission to provide special protection to more than 200 jpurnalists or human rights activists that have been attacked, largely by pro-Chavez activists.

The Venezuelan Government considers many of the actions and activities of the CIDH to be an intromission in the country’s affairs, but country’s that signed the charter, recognize that it has constitutional hierarchy within the country, something the Chávez administration has refused to recognize.

For the second year in a row, Venezuela will once again be in the delinquent list, while the People’s Ombudsman and Chavista human rights defenders look the other way or spend their time defending the rights of the Government.

Fifth and last part. here are parts One, Two,Three and Four

Fifth problem: Government by witticism

The central problem of political economy is probably how to coordinate the action of the innumerable agents of a complex society, so that it results in the efficient management of goods in short supply. In capitalism that coordination takes place due to the decentralized initiative of economic agents, guided by prices that form impersonally in open and competitive markets. In the standard theory of socialism, the State assumes upon itself the tasks of coordinating agents through centralized planning, fixes prices and production quotas of many goods and services and assigns which agents must produce and which receive each thing. Markets are marginal and state planning becomes the key to the economy.

A good part of the failure of real socialism lies on the fact that in societies as complex as contemporary ones, with well develop individual and collective subjectivities, and in which cultural creation and technological innovation are decisive to generate economic value, the precise information to carry out efficient planning is not within the reach of the State. It is not, because the bulk of the information is subjective, thus only each agent knows his own. On top of that, the invasion of the economy by the bureaucratic logic continuously intervenes the generation and transmission of information, introducing distortions. The citizens lie, the civil servants lie, and the politicians lie, each according to their purposes, without effective horizontal controls, as in open societies. These problems are common to all systems with central planning, but in the case of real socialism they proved themselves to be fatal.

Planning has never been a local specialty, thus we can fear that what failed in East Germany will even more of a reason to fail here. Happily we are not going to have that problem, because XXIst. Century Socialism does not consist in the central planning of the economy but a Government by the witticism of the Caudillo. His slogan is not “power of the Soviets and electrification of Russia” like Lenin, but more “The Comanadante orders, we obey” as in most local events. That is the technique of economic coordination of Venezuelan-style socialism, very similar to that of the Pharaohs of the VIth. Dynasty (also XXIst. Century but before Christ). Thus, we do not need economic information but that which the Comandante wants to give us in each moment with his great pedagogy. Why more?

The Comandante has a lot of witticism, which is why he orders this or that, according to his inspiration: today the African palm tree, tomorrow vertical chicken coops; here hydroponic farms, there Indian water buffalos; first cooperatives, later co-managed companies; with this one you form a mixed company this and that way, but then on May 1st. you break the contract; there is nobody here, so build a federal city and there, where there are so many people, why is it that no housing has been built. The Ministers learn of many initiatives that they have to execute in the same event in which they are announced to the country, thus, with the hands still warm from applauding, they have to leave urgently to figure out how you go about doing it. In the majority of cases it never gets done, and the results in terms of economic matters is a cemetery of solemnly announced projects, failed and abandoned a couple of years later, after burying a few billions.

XXIst. Century socialism will be, in summary, something completely novel: a nationalized economy on the back of a crumbled State; businesses without businessmen and markets without merchants, for an economy of imports or empty shelves; inspired by the improvisation of the Caudillo instead of the coordination of the market or central planning, and above all, the distribution of oil wealth in exchange for political obedience, money flowing without effort nor risk, so that the people and the bon vivants continue belonging to Chavez. For this journey, truly, we don’t need more of a New Man, than that Venezuelan who voted for Lusinchi because “the Adecos steal and let you steal”