Bolivian co-ops and government minister killing

[alanjjohnstone]

When i read the headline that Bolivian miners had murdered a government minister my first gut reaction was…not to shed any tears…until i read this article offering more details than the usual media.

Behind the Bolivia Miner Cooperatives’ Protests and the killing of the Bolivian Vice-Minister

The Bolivian mining cooperatives themselves underwent this process, and have become businesses whose owners hire labor.  Roughly 95% of the cooperative miners are workers, and 5% are owners.  It is common for the employed workers to be temps, or contracted out employees as we refer to them here. They have no social security, no job security, no health or retirement benefits.

The co-ops rejected cooperative employees the right to unionize, since they are not cooperative co-owners. The cooperatives owners did not want their workers represented by unions. The requested a  loosening of environmental regulations for the mining cooperatives. Another key demand was to revoke the law disallowing national or transnational businesses from partnering in cooperatives. The cooperatives want the right to form partnerships with multi-nationals.

Vice Minister of Coordination with Social Movements, Alfredo Rada, pointed out the cooperative workers are exploited by the owners, who have created a hierarchy inside the organizations for their private benefit. Rada added, “We respect true cooperativism, where all are equal, but these companies have been converted into semi-formal capitalist businesses.”

The article explains

Quote:

“However, like many cooperatives in the US that arose out of the 1960s, they have turned into small businesses. Regardless of their initial intentions, cooperatives existing in a surrounding capitalist environment must compete in business practices or go under.”

Not exactly how sure I am of the interpretation as being biased and sympathetic towards Evo Morales but it has the ring of truth.

I think I’ll explore further for a SOYMB blog post or a Material World article

[Anonymous]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

When i read the headline that Bolivian miners had murdered a government minister my first gut reaction was…not to shed any tears…until i read this article offering more details than the usual media.http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/08/behind-the-bolivia-miner-cooperatives-protests-and-the-killing-of-the-bolivian-vice-minister/#more-63859The Bolivian mining cooperatives themselves underwent this process, and have become businesses whose owners hire labor.  Roughly 95% of the cooperative miners are workers, and 5% are owners.  It is common for the employed workers to be temps, or contracted out employees as we refer to them here. They have no social security, no job security, no health or retirement benefits.The co-ops rejected cooperative employees the right to unionize, since they are not cooperative co-owners. The cooperatives owners did not want their workers represented by unions. The requested a  loosening of environmental regulations for the mining cooperatives. Another key demand was to revoke the law disallowing national or transnational businesses from partnering in cooperatives. The cooperatives want the right to form partnerships with multi-nationals.Vice Minister of Coordination with Social Movements, Alfredo Rada, pointed out the cooperative workers are exploited by the owners, who have created a hierarchy inside the organizations for their private benefit. Rada added, “We respect true cooperativism, where all are equal, but these companies have been converted into semi-formal capitalist businesses.”The article explains

Quote:

“However, like many cooperatives in the US that arose out of the 1960s, they have turned into small businesses. Regardless of their initial intentions, cooperatives existing in a surrounding capitalist environment must compete in business practices or go under.”

Not exactly how sure I am of the interpretation as being biased and sympathetic towards Evo Morales but it has the ring of truth.I think I’ll explore further for a SOYMB blog post or a Material World article

The so called Bolivian socialism is just a myth, like all the others leftist government that existed in  Latin America including Cuba, and the coops are also another myth, they are not based on the ideas of Robert Owen as they are saying,  Robert Owen was a paternalists, but they are not paternalist either, the owners of the cooperatives they are exploiters like any other capitalist class it is just another extension of the workers economical exploitation.  It is not a new experiment, it was tried in the Caribbean in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico many years ago,( 1961 until now )   and they became profitable business like any other business, even more, some of those coops were part of some workers unions, ( Sindicato Unido )  and they opened super-markets and grocery stores ( Bodegas )  for them, and now they are part of the banking system.Many so called socialists from Venezuela and Bolivia are spreading the idea that coop is one step toward socialism,( it sounds like Lenin who said that state capitalism was a step toward socialism  and for the benefits of the majority )  but, we have written many articles indicating that coop and communes will not conduct makind toward socialism, they were tried in Europe, and in Israel ( Kibbutz )  and it was a complete failure, they still existed in Europe, USA and Mexico, but they are operated by the sane law of the capitalist system.They have some so called Quaker socialists teaching Christian religion to the workers of the communes and the coops, but they are just brainwashing the workers to become Christians, and to justify the economical exploitation, many of those experiments were also tried by the proponents of the Liberation theology, some had problems with the governments, many were deported, or became political exiles,( Jose Cabezas and Miguel Dominguez )  but, it does not mean that they were socialists 

[alanjjohnstone]

In the end,  i opted for a short SOYMB blog on the situationhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-story-of-co-operative-failure.html

[Anonymous]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

In the end,  i opted for a short SOYMB blog on the situationhttp://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-story-of-co-operative-failure.html

 This is what is really taking place with the miners in Bolivia. Many left wingers do not know, or do not want to want  that during the government of Salvador Allende there was a miners strikes and he sent the military troops in order to attack the workers and to  stop the strike. One miner said: If the cooper belongs to the Chilean peoples as the government,  can I take some to my house ? 

[alanjjohnstone]

I do recall a transport "strike" during Allende's time but it was i recollect an engineered political strike by the owners of trucks and trucking businesses, of elements who could be described as petty bourgeoisie.Another "strike" in the UK was the petrol drivers, a proxy "strike" by employers and capitalists. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2000/no-1154-october-2000/editorial-fuel-tax-disputeIn Venezuela, were they not "strikes" by oil workers against Chavez but which were orchestrated by the oil companies themselves. In Bolivia there seems to be a debate about who owns natural resources…the producers – the co-operatives – lay claim to the fruits of their labour, but Morales and the constitution says that the State – or in other words "the people" –  not the miners, own it.In this regard i think we can sympathise with the pro-Morales argument that Bolivia's resources belong to all sections of Bolivian society, and not one section – our case against syndicalism.I don't think the counter-argument against the co-operatives claims is simply one of nationalised industry V the co-ops but a wider concept. 

[Anonymous]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

I do recall a transport "strike" during Allende's time but it was i recollect an engineered political strike by the owners of trucks and trucking businesses, of elements who could be described as petty bourgeoisie.Another "strike" in the UK was the petrol drivers, a proxy "strike" by employers and capitalists. http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2000/no-1154-october-2000/editorial-fuel-tax-disputeIn Venezuela, were they not "strikes" by oil workers against Chavez but which were orchestrated by the oil companies themselves. In Bolivia there seems to be a debate about who owns natural resources…the producers – the co-operatives – lay claim to the fruits of their labor, but Morales and the constitution says that the State – or in other words "the people" –  not the miners, own it.In this regard i think we can sympathise with the pro-Morales argument that Bolivia's resources belong to all sections of Bolivian society, and not one section – our case against syndicalism.I don't think the counter-argument against the co-operatives claims is simply one of nationalised industry V the co-ops but a wider concept. 

I think a group of peoples called petty bourgeois died a long time ago, even more, the capitalists class in England at the beginning of capitalism used  to be called like that, we do understand that our society is divided between capitalists and workers.  The trucking business was part of the Chilean capitalism, and they had their own agendaWe do also understand that in a society based on state capitalism there is also a capitalist class at the level of the state apparatus, unless that in the Soviet union there was not a capitalist class, and all the workers revolt at the point of production were orchestrated by others capitalistsDuring the miners strike in Chile they State already owned the cooper mining and that process was not initiated during the government of Salvador Allende, it culminated during his presidency, and there were capitalists inside and outside of Chile who wanted to take it  back again, and others wanted to keep it the way it was, but many strikes were voluntary actions of the working class, even more, Salvador Allende was not very popular either within the Chilean peoples, he won the election by an act of the Chilean congress .Neither in Bolivia or Venezuela the natural resources do not belong to the workers, even more, in Venezuela at the present private capitalist still own most of the oil reserves that exist in the country, and Gitgo who was a state run   gas retailer company which even had branches in the USA was sold to private capitalists at  a bargaining price in order to accumulate dollars, despite that  all the gold reserves were repatriated again from London, and the USA.It is known that some strikes in Venezuela were also provoked by private capitalists, but we must know that the state capitalists and the private capitalists were producing profits from the labor of the working class, and the strikes were a sign of discontent among the members of the working  class, unless there were capitalists  earning a salary.We do know that the state does not represent the peoples and the peoples do not own the state, and the expression of peoples is a contradiction too, because in every country there are harmonic interest between the workers and the capitalists, it is like in the legal system where the use the expression the Peoples vs someone else, in reality the state does not represent the peoples either in any legal actionThe problem with the communes and the cooperatives is that they are claiming that it will conduct the workers toward a socialist theory, and we do know that it is not true, and it is very old experiment who has been tried in others countries and they have failed, and they had to run like any other capitalist enterprise, in the same way, that the factories taken in Argentina by the workers they had to be run as capitalist enterprises, and then, the state passed law to take them over again when they were producing profits

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