Kepa Artaraz
Earlier this
week Spain’s credit rating was downgraded yet again, reigniting fears that the
Eurozone crisis that never left might in fact accentuate and force the fourth
biggest economy in the Euro to go cap in hand to the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) for a bailout.
Ever since the
Lehman Brothers bank went belly-up in 2008, signalling the beginning of the
biggest global financial crisis since the collapse of Wall Street in 1929, there
have been fears of a disorderly breakup of the European monetary union and of
an unprecedented economic catastrophe.
Cue in, the
international financial institutional architecture, mobilised, along with
national banks. They have effectively ‘nationalised’ the bad debts incurred by private
investors in a weakly regulated banking sector and transferred these to the balance
sheets of sovereign states. As if magic, we are all now in this together and
what was once private debt is now everyone’s debt.
The IMF might
have changed a lot since the 1980s when it acted as the exporter of the neoliberal
‘shock doctrine’ to indebted countries like Bolivia.[1] It
might even have come to realise that employment, equality and social justice
lie at the heart of any project of economic recovery.[2] And
yet, the austerity medicine being dished out is the same as it was then,
austerity that results in falling salaries, reduced pensions, cut welfare
services and unemployment for increasingly impoverished masses.
Some have argued
that neoliberalism is dead precisely because the taxpayer has had to rescue the
banking system.[3]
In fact, the paradox is that a financial crisis created by neoliberalism is
being ‘solved’ by deepening its reach and privatising the remaining bastions of
the welfare state.
The current
financial crisis might have different origins to the one that afflicted Latin
America in the 1980s but its results in the form of sovereign debt and
conditionality-driven ‘rescue’ plans look startlingly similar. As the social
pain increases, what are the populations of Greece – or Spain for that matter –
meant to do? Venting their anger through the ballot box offers little reassurance
since all mainstream political parties are wedded to operating within the same
system. Are we forever condemned to the dictatorship of the market?[4]
Not necessarily.
The last four years in Europe have seen a certain democratic rebirth in the
form of citizen movements that would have been unthinkable only a decade ago. From Spain’s indignados (the indignant) to
Greece’s aganaktismenoi (the outraged), to the growing numbers in the ‘occupy’
movement, spontaneous civil society movements unattached to existing political
parties are starting to find their voice and demand the right to play a part in
the creation of alternative societies.[5]
Given the lack
of apparent grand, alternative narratives to neoliberalism, we are forced to
look for the budding, small scale alternatives that are growing around us. Bolivia,
where resistance to the social suffering caused by the neoliberal revolution
began in the 1990s, can provide a few useful lessons and visions of what the
future might hold for us. For, in the process of implementing popular responses
to neoliberalism’s worst excesses, Bolivia and other Latin American countries
have had a head start that is decades long. [6]
It is a well
established position in the literature that, by the end of the 1980s, the levels
of human suffering being dished out by neoliberalism in Bolivia led to popular
discontent, effectively sowing the seeds towards grassroots mobilisation in
favour of the current process of change.[7]
At the same
period of time following the return to democracy, a crisis of what Bolivians
have referred to as ‘partidocracy’ took hold of political institutions that, mired
in corruption, were unable to represent and channel social demands. Once the
masses reached the conclusion that political parties were in fact part of the
problem and liberal democracy became a byword for illegitimate rule by the few,
a new set of political actors stepped into the void to create new democratic
spaces.[8]
Trade unions, the
unquestioned political actor in their opposition to military governments had
been decimated by the neoliberal revolution and by decree 21060. The political vacuum
left by their loss of influence was filled the social movements. In this way, social
movements became the historic agent for the refoundation of Bolivia, acting beyond
simple opposition to provide alternative visions to the existing hegemonic
model of politics as representative democracy; society, in the form of a
society that excluded a majority of its indigenous citizens; and economy, as
represented by the neoliberal order.[9]
Civil society represents
the reconstitution of the collective political activity of Bolivian society and
every sector of society was incorporated to become part of a process of change
that began with the emancipation of indigenous peoples and their constitution
as political actors. The indigenous marches of 1990 and 2002 were key milestones
in this process and have been most clearly associated with the demand for a
constitutional assembly.[10] This
became most clearly articulated at times of national crises and popular
uprisings that had common roots against the privatisation of natural resources
– as was the case with water and gas in Cochabamba and El Alto during the
crises of 2000 and 2003.[11]
These crises led
the Bolivian population to accept indigenous demands for a constitutional
assembly, a process of debate and deliberation that incorporated every sector
of society, with the mandate to write a new constitution. Thus, during a
process of national crisis brought to a head by the dual economic and political
failings of neoliberalism, the constitutional assembly was presented as the
mechanism that could deliver a resolution to this crisis by creating a roadmap
for a new Bolivia on the basis of new sets of values and purpose.[12]
The story of
Bolivia’s political change since then is one of miracles and frustrations in
equal measure. Who in 2000 would have thought that an indigenous coca grower
could become President five years later? Who could have predicted that by 2010 the
traditional political parties would have all but been obliterated from the new
plurinational assembly?
In spite of its
limitations, Bolivia’s constitutional assembly constitutes a unique democratic
experiment. The final text promises to change the country’s political sphere,
by introducing a range of levels of decentralisation and a new relationship
between the social movements and the state. It also redefines the relationship
between the individual and the state, re-establishing the role of the state in guaranteeing
social protections, integrating excluded majorities, and incorporating their
traditional forms of knowledge.[13]
The constitution
also proposes to regain for the state a dominant role in the country’s economic
steerage whilst incorporating a plurality of forms of economic practice and property
ownership that suggest the possibility of a future post-neoliberal paradigm.[14]
Finally, the constitution also denounces imperialism and promises to redefine international
relations, accepting the existence of interdependencies between regions and
countries – just as between individuals – and building on these
interdependencies through values of solidarity to deliver better futures for all.
ALBA represents this collaborative experiment and a glimpse, perhaps, that
better worlds are possible.
Whilst the new
constitution was written and eventually approved by the Bolivian people, the
political process before, during and after the production of the constitutional
document provided a glimpse of the difficulties involved in renegotiating
national values and power relations in a highly divided society. The 2008 political
crisis following the Porvenir massacre has been followed by the current malaise
that erupted with government plans to build a road through the TIPNIS national
park. In between lie accusations of top level political corruption, a
government that is too cosy with multinational corporations and, in spite of its
anti-neoliberal and climate change rhetoric in the global stage, unable to
think of development in ways that go beyond the extractivist model.
What then, is left of
Bolivia as a ‘resistance movement and counter hegemonic project’ in the Latin
American Region?[15] Does
Bolivia in any way show European countries an image of their own future? In
spite of noticeable progress in economic growth, poverty and inequality
reduction and the introduction of a basic social safety net, the jury is still
out on the long term potential of the current Bolivian constitution to deliver
its promise in the context of long-term social cleavages. On the other hand,
Bolivia’s ability to deliver political renewal and new leaderships through a
healthy civil society is perhaps the best guarantee that the process of change
will not become stagnant in the near future. The biggest legacy from Bolivia’s resistance to neoliberalism
lies precisely in the possibilities offered by this kind of politics to give
people the right to make their own decisions and commit their own mistakes.
Kepa Artaraz is
lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Brighton. His book, Bolivia: Refounding the Nation, was
published by Pluto in April 2012.
Notes
[1] Klein, N. (2007) The
shock doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism. London: Allen Lane.
[2] Stiglitz, J.(2011)
The IMF’s change of heart. Al Jazeera, 7 May 2011. Available on
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/05/20115712428956842.html
[Accessed 19 May 2011].
[3] Mason, P. (2009)
Meltdown: The end of the age of greed. Verso: London.
[4] Younge, G. (2001)
Democracy is no match for market power. Guardian Weekly, 08.07.11, pg 19.
[5] Douzinas, C. (2011)
In Greece, democracy is born. Guardian Weekly, 24.06.11, pg 20. See also
Carrión, M. (2011) Camp Sol: Spain’s ‘indignant’ give lessons in true
democracy. Available on
http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2011/06/camp-sol-spains-indignant-give-lessons-true-democracy
[Accessed 4 June 2011].
[6]
Arze, C. and Kruse, T. (2004) The Consequences of Neoliberal Reform. NACLA
Report on the Americas 38(3): 23-28.
[7] Khol, B. and
Farthing, L. (2006) Impasse in Bolivia: Neoliberal hegemony and popular
resistance. London: Zed Books.
[8] Prats, J. (2005) Bolivia tras el fracaso de la democracia pactada. Corte
Nacional Electoral. Revista Agora, No. 3, September 2005, pp. 4-5.
[9] From Torrez, Y., Ayo, D., and Velásquez, J-C. (2007)
Agenda de la Asamblea Constituyente. Cuadernos de Diálogo y Deliberación. La
Paz: Corte Nacional Electoral.
[10] De la Fuente
Jeria, J. (2010) El difícil parto de otra democracia: La asamblea constituyente
de Bolivia. Latin
American Research Review, special issue entitled ‘Living in Actually Existing
Democracies’, pp. 5-26, pg 8.
[11] Assies, W (2001) David vs. Goliat en Cochabamba:
los derechos del agua, el neoliberalismo y la renovación de la propuesta social
en Bolivia. T'inkazos,
4 (8): 106-134. Olivera, O. and Lewis, T. (2004) Cochabamba! Water war in
Bolivia. Cambridge: South End Press.
[12] Stefanoni, P. (2002) El nacionalismo indígena como
identidad política: La emergencia del MAS-IPSP (1995-2003). Available on
www.clacso.org.ar/ar/libros/becas/2002/mov/stefanoni.pdf [Accessed 15 April
2010].
[13] Asamblea Constituyente (2008) Nueva Constitución
política del estado. Versión oficial. La Paz: Representación presidencial para
la asamblea constituyente (REPAC).
[14] García Linera, A. (2008) Del neoliberalismo al
modelo nacional productivo: Los ciclos de la economía Boliviana. Revista de Análisis, 22 June 2008; García
Linera, A. (2008a) El nuevo modelo económico nacional productivo. Revista de Análisis, 8 June 2008.
[15] Robinson, W. (2008) Latin America and Global Capitalism. Baltimore: The John
Hopkins University Press, chapters five and six.
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