A Weapon of Class Conflict
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G Model EXIS 258 No. of Pages 14 The Extractive Industries and Society xxx (2016) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect The Extractive Industries and Society journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/exis Original article Neo-extractivism in Venezuela and Ecuador: A weapon of class conflict Thomas Chiasson-LeBel, PhD candidate* Political Science Department, York University, Ross Building, S633,4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3, Canada A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Article history: Received 15 December 2015 Over the last four decades, the role of the extractive sector in the development models of Venezuela and Received in revised form 15 October 2016 Ecuador has changed significantly. This study examines how class struggle affected the role of rent within Accepted 18 October 2016 three divergent development models: import substitution industrialization (ISI)-corporatist, neoliberal- Available online xxx fragmented, and rentier-controlling. It argues that the attitude of the capitalist class towards the state and the working class was crucial in the transition from the ISI-corporatist model to the neoliberal- Keywords: fragmented model. It led to a process of privatization in the oil industry and competition among Venezuela capitalists for rent. In response to the social consequences of this shift, the left-wing governments Ecuador reclaimed state ownership of hydrocarbon resources and obtained more rent in efforts to recover some Social classes state autonomy. A more unified capitalist class in Venezuela reacted more aggressively to this Development model Neo-extractivism transformation of the social property relations around hydrocarbons, while in contrast, a more divided capitalist class in Ecuador reacted more mildly. However, both governments redistributed rent and created subservient popular sector organizations in order to curb popular power as well as offset the power of the capitalist class. In contrast to some analyses of extractivism, this paper takes a class perspective that emphasizes the changing role of resource extraction within different development models despite outward appearances of continuity. ã 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction development model in Venezuela and Ecuador and the role that the extractive sector has played within it. Neo-extractivism is a concept frequently applied in critiques of Extractivism is a mode of accumulation based primarily on Latin American governments associated with the “pink tide”, the extractive activities, especially mining and oil extraction, but also wave of left-wing governments that have spanned across Latin on primary production for international markets (Acosta, 2011, 1 America since the beginning of the 21 st century. While in the 2009; Gudynas, 2012, 2010; Merino Acuña, 2015; Pellegrini, 2016; 1990s most Latin American governments were enacting the Seoane et al., 2013; Veltmeyer and Petras, 2014). The prefix “neo” economic program of the right and left parties were barely alludes to the fact that pink tide governments also pursue winning electoral space (Weyland, 2010), by 2009, almost two extractivism, but in contrast with their predecessors, it is now thirds of Latin Americans lived under a government associated justified by the need to generate the rent necessary to support the with the left (Levitsky and Roberts, 2011, p. 1). Despite this poverty alleviation strategies and other social justice programs important turn, the countries governed by the left have not put in that characterize their administrations (Gudynas, 2012, p. 134). place policies to steer economic structures away from extractivism. The high commodity prices of the first decade of the 21st century This paper examines how class conflict has influenced the are being blamed for fostering the convergence that Svampa (2013, pp. 31–6) calls “commodity consensus”: a tacit agreement by most Latin American governments, both on the left and on the right, on the absence of real alternatives to the exploitation of internation- ally traded commodities. Neo-extractivism, then, expresses the * Correspondence to: Permanent address: 2643 Rue Sicard, Montéal, Qc, H1V unfulfilled expectations that left-wing governments would radi- 2Y8, Canada. cally change the development model to move away from a E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (T. Chiasson-LeBel). 1 commodity export-led model. To use the concept of this special For South America, it includes, amongst others, the governments of Hugo edition, an extractive imperative has taken over the logic of other Chávez in Venezuela (1998, 2000, 2006, 2011) and Rafael Correa in Ecuador (2006, 2009, 2013). state activities (Arsel et al., 2016, this issue). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2016.10.006 2214-790X/ã 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article in press as: T. Chiasson-LeBel, Neo-extractivism in Venezuela and Ecuador: A weapon of class conflict, Extr. Ind. Soc. (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2016.10.006 G Model EXIS 258 No. of Pages 14 2 T. Chiasson-LeBel / The Extractive Industries and Society xxx (2016) xxx–xxx 2 Despite the newness of the concept of extractivism, the reality wealth from a percentage of the GDP or of exports to other units, it describes for countries like Venezuela and Ecuador is far from such as the level of production and reserve, gives less clear results new. Petroleum has been a dominant product for the Venezuelan (Stijns, 2001, quoted in Rosser, 2009, p. 168). economy since the 1920s, and for Ecuador, since the 1970s. In its While cross-country correlations identify a general tendency, critique of the development model adopted by underdeveloped they cannot explain the exceptions. Botswana, Indonesia, Norway countries, the concept of extractivism shares common ground with and Chile are often mentioned as models for having mitigated the dependency approaches to development. They both take issue economic downsides of resource extraction (Hujo, 2012a). Some with the importance that primary resources have acquired in scholars theorize how the curse can be successfully dealt with peripheral countries. The extraction of these resources, often in (Humphreys et al., 2007; Ovadia, 2016), while others show that the enclaves and according to the needs of metropolises, entails little symptoms related to the Dutch Disease do not apply in certain processing at the local level and results in limited technological cases. For instance, Venezuela’s main historical waves of industrial transfer that could sustain the diversification of peripheral investment followed the cycles of oil windfalls, and did not move economies (Acosta, 2011). This kinship between critiques in terms counter-cyclically, while the exchange rate did not follow the of extractivism and the dependency approach, although some- pattern identified by the Dutch Disease models (Di John, 2009). times recognized, is often rejected by theorists of neo-extractivism These examples are a reminder that despite the general tendency, due to the limited environmental concerns included within the the effects of resource abundance in an economy are not uniform dependency framework (Gudynas, 2011, pp. 25–27). nor inevitable. It leads one to wonder why resource-rich countries While it is certainly right to underline the fact that dependency do not adopt the necessary measures to avoid the curse. theorists pay scant attention to environmental questions, is this This question leads to the second group of explanations for the alone a sufficient reason to dismiss their analyses entirely? The resource curse. According to this literature, closer to the field of debates between different streams of the dependency approach set political science, the abundance of resources has a negative impact the tone for explaining the varying importance of primary on institutions. Easy access to rent from resource extraction resources in underdeveloped social formations. According to Frank weakens institutions by breeding corruption and rent-seeking (1971), for instance, the history of colonization and the pressure of behaviour (Krueger, 1974). It hinders democratization efforts the world market have created an internal structure in underde- because easy access to financial resources diminishes the need veloped countries that supports a lumpenbourgeoisie, a class that for sound taxation arrangements with business elites and makes precludes development that departs from primary production and patronage an easy way to dampen democratic pressures from resource extraction. In contrast, Cardoso and Faletto (1979) argue below (Ross, 2001). Natural resource rents thus act as an incentive for differentiating between countries driven by national capitalists for authoritarianism and unsustainable policies, such as excessive and those dominated by foreign capital operating in enclaves. borrowing to feed clientelism and patronage. Some even go further While one could be tempted to read this as an attempt to contrast and suggest that an abundance of natural resources makes violent extractivist and non-extractivist economies, it would be more conflict more likely (Collier and Hoeffler, 2005; Welsch, 2008). appropriate to read Cardoso and Faletto as avoiding primary Here again, cross-country correlations identify a general tendency, resource determinism, trying instead to understand how different with resources associated with negative consequences. But once balances of class forces influence the roles of specific sectors in a more, shifting the unit of