JAMES PETRAS

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A first approximation towards an understanding of the Morales regime is to briefly recount the role of Morales and his MAS Party in the period preceding his election and the relationship of that party with the dynamic social movements aiming at socio-political change.

This perspective serves to provoke the basis for outlining the theoretical-practical conceptions of Morales-Garcia Linera (vice-president) which guide their strategy and programme of governance. Once having established the “general line” and strategic goals, this provides the basis for analysing the specific policies pursued in important socio-economic sectors and the tactical-political compromises and alliances that the regime has put in place.

Background to theMorales Regime

Contrary to the mythology of many progressive intellectuals, Morales did not play any role in the three major uprisings between 2003 and 2005, which led to the overthrow of two neoliberal client presidents: Sanchez de Losado and Carlos Mesa. To be more specific, Morales opposed the February 2003 uprising. He was in Geneva, Switzerland attending an inter-parliamentary conference during the successful uprising (October 2003), which overthrew Sanchez de Losado and did everything possible to undermine the mass general strike of May-June 2005 that drove Carlos Mesa from power. A serious analysis demonstrates that Morales threw all the weight of the MAS Party and its social movements in support of Carlos Mesa’s successful rise to the presidency, despite having served as vice-president to Sanchez de Losado. Morales intervened again following Mesa’s demise to back the neoliberal justice Rodriguez as interim president in the run-up to the presidential election of December 2005. Subsequently Morales totally transformed the substance of the social movements’ demand for a constituent assembly (CA) to “re-found the republic”. The social movements demanded that the election of the CA take place by and through the mass popular social movements. This would ensure that the CA reflected the interests of the workers and peasants. Morales rejected this demand and came to an agreement with the discredited oligarchic parties to organise the CA elections based on territorial units in which the elite electoral party machines would dominate the elections. The result was the almost complete marginalisation of the social movements from the CA. After a year of procedural conflict in the CA, Morales agreed to give the oligarchic parties a virtual veto over the new constitution by agreeing to a two-thirds vote to approve all constitutional laws. Further evidence of the divergence of the Morales regime from the demands of the insurrectionary social movements was his appointments to the key economic posts in the cabinet and their continuation of orthodox fiscal policies: emphasising balanced budget and tight monetary policies over public investment in social programmes and substantive anti-poverty programmes, for example, the doubling of the minimum wage, substantial salary increase for teachers, health workers and other low-paid public sector workers.

Theoretical Considerations

The decay of “Marxist” social thought is very much evident in the discussions of the political trajectory, structure and policy of the Morales “movement” (MAS and affiliated peasant-Indian movements and trade unions). The logic and theory propounded by “left-theorists” (LT) is deductive, postmodernist, ahistorical and antimaterialist. Instead of examining the empirical class political practices of Morales and the MAS in order to construct a theory, the LT begin by assuming that being “Indian”, of popular origins and having led a popular movement, ipso facto the regime was “radical”, “revolutionary” and “anti-imperialist”. The deductive logic excludes the whole panoply of class accommodations and class “relocations” which accompanied the decisive shift from direct action mass struggles to electoral parliamentary politics.

Postmodernism focuses exclusively on cultural and symbolical action and “political theatre”, over and against substantive class struggles, changes in property and class relations. For the postmodernist Morales’ emphasis on “indigenous” identity, his participation in traditional events in native dress, and his verbal assaults and threats to oligarchs and conspirators are expression of a “new revolutionary” way of doing politics. By focusing on “identity”, the postmodernists ignore the enormous class differences between malnourished landless and subsistence peasants and upwardly mobile middle class indigenous politicians, leaders and power brokers. The postmodernists ignore the overt economic collaborations between the Morales regime and wealthy “white” agroexport elites, the European and US petroleum companies and the Indian millionaires of the Mutun iron mine complex. The postmodernist obsession with the “rhetoric” or “text” of Morales’ presentations before mass audiences, in which he engages in demagogic linguistic acrobatics, blinds them to the actual class and national content of his policy. Hence, his “revolutionary nationalisation” of petrol and gas

Economic and Political Weekly June 9, 2007 was little more than a tax increase on the rate paid by the multinational corporations (MNCs) to the state. Not a single MNC was expropriated. Even the price of gas of $ 5 per million cubic feet to Argentina was 40 per cent below the world price – and Brazil’s payment, one year after “nationalisation” was still the same $ 4 – in some instances as low as $ 1.9 – as during the Sanchez de Losado-Mesa period. Theatre, textual readings and rhetoric are entertaining and occasionally provide some insight into the style but not the material substance – the political economy of a regime.

Economic and Political Weekly June 9, 2007

Losada and a rejection of the social revolutionary movement’s anti-capitalist programme. The M-GL model of NC is neither a complete rupture or simple continuation of the past nor an exclusion of the social movements. The M-GL model is premised on “harnessing” the agrobusiness, banking and overseas MNCs which backed Sanchez de Losada policies by regulating their behaviour so that they pay their taxes and invest, and encouraging them to play by the rules of “normal capitalism”.

In order to pressure the economic elites to conform to the M-GL model of NC, the regime relies on the social movements as a “battering ram”. M-GL use the social movement to block separatist movements against the “Luna” coalition of provinces, centred in Santa Cruz. The regime relies on the movements to counter obstructionist activities in the Congress and constituent assembly and to secure passage of its petroleum and gas contracts with the MNCs. The Morales regime needs the movements to create a political counterweight to the predator neo-liberals, just as M-GL depends on the private economic elites to “develop” the economy.

The problematical “balancing act” is precarious because it requires economic concessions to the business sector (which supports the political right) and constant dramatic acting out of “political theatre” filled with symbolic acts for the social movements.

The social movements are the instruments, not the beneficiaries of M-GL model. They serve to back Morales’ attempt to enlarge the state economic sector as part of a triple alliance composed of foreign MNCs in the extractive sector (petroleum, gas, tin and iron), in partnership with state enterprises and a private “national” sector dominant in agro-export, banking, trade and the medium sized mining sector (“cooperatives”).

Morales’ entire theoretical-conceptual model of “normal capitalism” is based on the harmonisation and articulation of the “triple alliance” (TA). The TA excludes any structural changes in property and social relations. Equally important it depends on excluding the working class and peasantry from any of the economic and political positions of decision-makers or “levers of power”. Instead the TA is totally dependent on the cooperation of movement leaders, the de facto incorporation of the movements as appendages of the state. Periodic “mass meetings” are convoked. Theatrical “military” occupations of foreign enterprises are headed by Morales for dramatic publicity and propaganda. Unsubstantiated foreign elite “conspiracies” and “plots” are periodically denounced (precisely while prejudicial contracts are signed) to give the image of a besieged anti-imperialist president. No plotters are ever arrested or even named and the “investigations” are inconsequential.

To clarify the distance between Morales-Garcia Linera from the social movements and the contrast between “normal” and predator capitalism, it is useful to identify their differences in crucial socio-economic and political issues, which are summarised in the table, which give a

Table: Synoptic Overview of Normal Capitalism, Predator Capitalism and the Social Revolutionary Model

Issues Morales-Garcia Linera Sanchez de Losada Social Revolutionary Movement Model ‘Normal’ Capitalist Model Predator Capitalist Model

MNCs in

petroleum and

gas Agrarian

policy

Race Indian policies

Corruption

Representation

Foreign investment

Income policy

Capital labour relations

Political-economic alliances

Foreign policy

Macroeconomic policy Increase taxes, joint ventures

Theoretical Critique

Over the years, leftists inside and outside of progressive regimes have counterpoised two divergent strategic conceptions of political-economic development with profoundly different consequences. One school of thought argues that a newly elected regime should stabilise the economy, overcome the “crisis”, reconstruct the productive structure left in “shambles” by the preceding reactionary regime before proceeding at a later period with structural changes. The alternative view argues that the progressive government was elected precisely because of the crisis of the economic system and its task is to change the economic structures in order to consolidate power while the capitalist class is still discredited, disorganised and in crisis.

The “stabilisation” strategy of development presents several strategic problems. First of all, it allows the capitalist class time to regroup and recover from their political defeat, discredit and disarray. When the progressive government does not act at the moment of maximum political strength and when the opposition is at its weakest, it loses a strategic advantage. The M-GL strategy of stabilisation illustrates the weaknesses and debilitating consequences of losing a historic moment. In the course of a year, the right wing parties had regrouped, mobilised supporters and paralysed the constituent assembly. The bourgeoisie and landowners effectively dictated the limits of any social changes.

The second problematic aspect of the “stabilisation” policy is that the progressive government imposes the socio-economic costs of reconstruction and crisis management on the working class through austerity budgets, tight monetary and incomes policies. By holding back on social spending and imposing restraints on labour demands and mobilisation, the regime allows the capitalists to recover their rates of profit and to consolidate their class hegemony.

Thirdly, a regime, whose economic policy weakens its popular social base and strengthens the recovery of its class opponents, is creating major obstacles to any subsequent effort at structural change. Even if the progressive regime “adapts” to the regrouped capitalist class it cannot expect any strategic alliance because the capitalist class prefers its own political leaders and instruments and rejects any party or movement whose mass base can still exercise pressure.

Finally, the stabilisation policy revives a powerful economic power configuration within the political institutional structure which precludes any future changes. It is impossible to engage in serious structural changes once the popular classes have been demobilised, the capitalist class has overcome its crisis and the new political class is integrated into the consolidated economic system. Stabilisation strategy does not temporarily postpone change; it structurally precludes it for the future.

History has repeatedly demonstrated that when a ruling class is challenged or threatened by an insurrectionary movement, it will yield regime power to an electoral opposition committed to operating within the institutional parameters of the bourgeois state. The accession to government by “popular leaders” is accepted insofar as the new governing class exercises control over the “dangerous classes”. Insofar as the regime proceeds to simply “moralise” the capitalist economy, guarantee the sanctity of big property interests and submit to the stalling tactics and frivolous procedural arguments in the assembly or Congress, the capitalist class is emboldened and goes on the offensive, attacking the very existence of the unitary state, the legitimacy of the regime and even the minimum reforms.

While Morales-Garcia Linera look to a “national unity” strategy of economic development based on a corporatist social-political model, the resurgent capitalist class (foreign and national) operating from the command of the strategic heights of the financial and export sectors, seizes each concession and demands more. The capitalist class substitutes the class struggle from above, from within the institutions and outside. The fundamental assumptions of “normal capitalism” exposited by Morales-Garcia Linera come into fundamental conflict with the rationality and logic of capitalist accumulation and the need of the capitalists to rule exclusively by and for themselves.

Tolerance for cultural revivals, populist theatre and old fashion political demagogy has its use in times of crisis and real threats in the street. Once consolidated the capitalist class looks to its own organic leaders, technocrats and cultural revindication of its rule.

Caught between a demobilised popular class, increasingly on the defensive and an ascending bourgeois on the offensive, the leaders of “Andean capitalism” have nowhere to turn, except to grant new spaces to party loyalists, neoliberal technocrats and even more clearly defined neoliberal concessions.

EPW

Email: jpetras@binghamton.edu

Economic and Political Weekly June 9, 2007