Communes And Workers' Control In Venezuela

Dario Azzellini (Ph.D. in Political Science, 2010, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany; and Ph.D. Sociology, 2012, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico) is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria. He has published monographs, edited volumes, articles and documentaries on Latin America, workers' control and social movements, including An Alternative Labour History (Ed., Zed Books 2015) and They Can't Represent Us! (with Marina Sitrin, Verso, 2014).

• AcknowledgementsAbbreviations1. Introduction1.1 Venezuela’s specific path1.2 The dilemma of the state1.3 Two-track construction1.4 Local self-government, communal councils (CCs), and communes1.5 Cooperatives, co-management, self-management, and workers’ control1.6 The revolution without Chávez2. Class, Constituent Power, and Popular Power2.1 Updating the concept of classTheoretical notes on class and multitudeClass composition and breadth in Venezuela2.2 Socio-territorial segregation and class formation2.3 From taking power to process: Constituent power and popular powerCrisis as a motor of history: Constituent power vs. constituted powerThe popular constituent processThe simultaneity of foci: Resistance, insurrection and constituent powerPopular power: The knowledge of resistance3. Movements and Alternative Construction in Venezuela3.1 Social movements or popular movements?3.2 The historical current for change and the ruptures of the continuum3.3 The new framework of action3.4 Popular actors and autonomous constructionThe Bolívar and Zamora Revolutionary CurrentThe Settlers’ MovementNational Network of Communards4. The Communal Councils: Local Self-Administration and Social Transformation4.1 Participatory budgetingThe failed CLPP initiativeMetropolitan Council for Planning Public Policies (CMPPP)The Municipal ConstituentThe Local Work Cabinets in Caracas4.2 The communal councilsThe genesis of the CCsMakeup and structureRigid law and flexible praxisFinancing and financial administrationProjectsDecentralisation or centralisationDevelopment, situation, and contradictionsRelationship between CCs and institutionsCCs and popular movementsRelations between CCs and communitiesThe appropriation of CCs by communities and the question of the state4.3 The CCs as a means of participation in the barrios of CaracasThe ‘Emiliano Hernández’ Communal Council, Magallanes de Catia, CaracasThe CC as a body of self-administrationParticipation as a process of development and of social recognitionParticipation as a process of democratisation and of building collectivityThe CC ‘Unidos por el Chapulún’, Parroquia Nuestra Sra. del Rosario, BarutaCCs in Caracas: ConclusionsParticipationRelationship between communities and institutions5. New Collective Business Paradigms5.1 CooperativesRoots of cooperativism in VenezuelaGovernmental policies of support for cooperativesLimitations of state support for cooperativesInternal organisation of cooperativesThe problematisation of cooperativism5.2 New entrepreneurial modelsPrivate enterprise and co-managementCo-management in state businessesSocial Production Companies6. Workers’ Control, Workers’ Councils, and Class Struggle6.1 Recuperated companies and nationalisation6.2 Workers’ control and workers’ councilsThe movement for workers’ controlThe Socialist Workers’ CouncilsThe CVG and the 2009–19 Socialist Guayana Plan6.3 Workers’ control: The example of InvevalFrom the struggle for pay to the struggle for the factoryThe workers abandon the cooperative and form a council6.4 Alcasa: Class struggle for productive transformation against bureaucracy and corruptionRevolutionary co-managementThe victory of bureaucracy and corruptionWorkers’ control returnsThe organisational structure of the new AlcasaWorker inventiveness workshopsThe Alcasa initiatives and the institutional embargoThe attack on workers’ control and the negation of the Socialist Guayana Plan6.5 New struggles for workers’ control6.6 Approaching the issue of new worker subjectivities in the context of participation and class struggleHorizontality in the factory and change throughout societyThe new collective self7. Communes, Production, and the Communal State7.1. CommunesOrigin and formCommunes and constituted power7.2 Companies of Communal Social Property and the construction of a communal economy7.3 Communal state: State or non-state?8 Local and Worker Co-Management, Two-Track Construction, and Class Struggle: A Preliminary Assessment8.1 The Bolivarian process and class struggle8.2 Communal councils, communes, and communal state8.3 Property models, the administration of the means of production, and class struggle8.4 Nationalisation, workers’ control, and the Socialist Workers’ Councils8.5 The relation of constituent and constituted power to class struggleInterviewsReferencesIndex