Ten Years of 'Bolivarian Socialism' in Venezuela

Hugo Chávez Frías, the current President of Venezuela, was first elected to this office in 1998 and was inaugurated in 1999, now ten years ago.

He had already been a remarkable figure on the Venezolan political scene after having attempted a leftist military coup against the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez. In those days, the oil kleptocracy of Pérez failed and a series of riots by the poor majority of Venezolans, the so-called ‘Caracazo’, destabilized the government. Pérez had been a self-styled social-democrat, but had submitted his country to the liberal rule and ‘reforms’ of the International Monetary Fund, which disappropriated the people of their public goods and bled dry the urban population by abandoning the policies of gasoline subsidy. As a result, the Caracazo erupted and the army intervened to violently repress the revolts against this organized comprador thievery and the umpteenth case of betrayal by social-democracy. Progressive sections of the military, led by Chávez, attempted a coup against Pérez. The coup failed and Chávez was imprisoned, but Pérez was removed from office and his successor freed the coup perpetrators.

In 1998, Chávez’s new “Fifth Republic Movement” (MVR) obtained an absolute majority of votes in the Presidential elections, with Chávez himself as the candidate, defeating the rightist American-trained economist Henrique Salas Römer. Chávez immediately went on to lay the basics for a reconstruction of Venezolan society, inspired by the legacies of so-called ‘democratic socialism’ (in many ways equivalent to left social-democracy) and ‘Bolivarianism’, the Latin American incarnation of popular anti-imperialism. After duly winning majorities in referenda on the subject, a new Constitution was created for Venezuela, which democratized the structure of political offices without yet undertaking any major social reform. Even this formal democratization was too much however for the aggressive reaction of most South American states, and in 2002 Chávez himself was subject to a coup attempt. This attempt briefly succeeded, but was gloriously defeated by an uprising against the government of the bourgeois leader Pedro Carmona (chairman of the Chambers of Commerce), supported by a general strike and an armed uprising, in the best traditions of socialism. The immediate occasion had been the reorganization of Venezuela’s oil company, on which much of the wealth of the nation depends, by Chávez’s government in an attempt to pry it from the grasp of the Venezolan bourgeoisie. The people then rose up to defend their new achievements and the bourgeoisie was defeated. Chávez had even taken care to hold new elections under the terms of the new Constitution, and was duly elected, underwriting his strong position in taking the struggle against the bourgeoisie to the end.

The way having been cleared for further reforms after the defeat of the bourgeoisie, Chávez’s government immediately started the work of socialization in the economic sphere. Price controls were instituted, organized sabotage by the oil company defeated, and good relations with Cuba were undertaken to allow mutual aid against poverty and lack of healthcare. Although the Chávez government’s favored means of reorganizing the economy seems to be the policy of nationalization, which can be progressive but has limits as to its applicability, it has also emphasized the creation of workers’ councils, although their application so far has been unclear and limited. The hindrances here mainly seem to stem from the attempt to reorganize the economic structures from and by the state. The state has great powers for reform and reconstruction once it is in the hands of the workers and peasants with the support of all well-meaning people, but it cannot on its own create the necessary local democratic structures in the economy that are necessary to fully work towards socialism. This can only be done by the people themselves; and though this has often taken the form of appropriations against a hostile state, this need not be so. The main goal here should be to enable such economic democracy and popular government on the part of the state, but not to get in the way. The main way in which the state can be helpful here is by ruthlessly rooting out the opposition and obstruction on the part of the bourgeoisie, which will attempt to reappropriate, legally or by force, what has been taken from it. Both the coup attempt and the defeated recall election against Chávez are proof of this. This also applies to the actions of certain privileged segments that will attempt to maintain their position through corruption or sabotage, for example in the military of such a country or in its labor aristocracy, if present. A Venezolan example of this would be the complicity of the labor aristocratic oil workers’ union, which by sabotage and obstruction attempted to maintain their own privileged position against the rest of the Venezolan population and its working class. The destruction by the Chávez government of such attempts is to be lauded.

Necessary also of course, in a country such as Venezuela, is the diversification of the economy. If a people is to be independent, it cannot rely on exports alone, and certainly not such volatile exports as oil. Keeping oil profitable depends wholly on the maintenance of a cartel against the great consumers of oil, the industrialized nations, which are in this manner extorted to the benefit of the oil exporters. This necessarily makes oil a highly political commodity and puts a government which relies on it in a highly precarious position. Relying on only one particular commodity for export in general makes one supremely dependent on the vagaries and irrationality of the world market, and as such is an immediate force that subsumes the given society under the laws of capital, often in a dramatic fashion. Although Chávez has funded many succesful social programs with the oil income, which has been as much as possible put in the hands of the ‘Bolivarian’ state, there has not yet been great success in the field of diversification, and it is an economically and politically dangerous course to make social reforms dependent on the capitalist world market. In general it is much to be preferred if reforms are not to be doled out by a magnanimous government hand dependent on the condition of its coffers, as this is a form of charity that although welcome will not last and that creates a further dependency on the bourgeois state. The same also applies to the nationalizations of the cement, electricity and steel sectors; these have been justified by the claim that they exported goods much needed by the country to foreign countries because of higher prices. This may well be true, but a nationalization alone is no guarantee that the working classes of Venezuela will ever see any benefit from it, as long as state and national bourgeoisie are in the way to appropriate their ‘due share’. It is to be emphasized that nationalizations and building socialism are not equivalent acts. Aside from this, the ecological implications of further dependency on oil are clear, and this cannot be part of a long-term plan for the future of Venezuela.

That is not to say that Chávez’s government has not more systematically defended Venezuela’s national self-determination as against the pressure from American and other imperialisms. Not just the alliance with Cuba is a necessary form of mutual defence against the United States, but also the good connections with the clerical regime in Iran and with the bourgeois ‘communists’ in China are clear attempts to use whatever strategic means are at hand to strengthen Venezuela’s position against the United States, and to lift the latter’s heavy hand from the people. Chávez’s initiatives to collaborate with other progressive governments in Latin America to create international structures opposed to the ones dominated by the imperialists are also to be supported, and provide much hope for the future for this continent so ravaged by endless British, German and American exploitation. Chávez has actively supported the left-democratic Morales government in Bolivia and so strengthened the cause of democracy in Latin America, in particular with reference to the oppressed native peoples of that continent. In the meantime, Venezuela has had constant strife with its neighbor Colombia, which has been led by a rightist government under Álvaro Uribe, since the latter accuses Venezuela of supporting the leftist terrorist organization FARC within its borders. The fact the United States has warm relations with the Colombian government and uses the country as a base of operations from which to threaten the rest of Latin America certainly also plays a role in this. Nonetheless, if the allegations regarding the FARC are true, Chávez does ill in supporting this movement in Colombia; during its long protracted guerrilla war against the government it has degenerated into an organized ‘left’ gang fighting a fruitless civil war that most Colombians are sick and tired of. Moreover, Chávez’ personal tendency to bluster and loudmouthed rhetoric has damaged his relations with several countries, something an exposed country as Venezuela can often ill afford. It must be noted though that Chávez has called on the FARC to cease their terroristic activities such as kidnapping.(1)

It must be noted that the ‘Bolivarian’ revolution in Venezuela suffers mainly from the same defects that Marx pointed out in Bolivar’s own original movement: an excessive reliance on the power and charisma of an individual leader figure, to the detriment of initiative from below and greatly increasing the chances of corruption and Thermidor. A Napoleonic style, a “propensity for arbitrary power”, an inclination to sweeping rhetoric but unwilling to follow up with the vast, heavy and severe work of implementing these in practice: these are the consistent weaknesses of Latin American progressive leaders, and Chávez is not the least free of them. It is one thing to challenge the imperialists in one’s own country and to denounce them as what they are; it is another to unceasingly fire bluster at them in their own strongholds, and to make rhetoric that cannot possibly be seen as being more than just that. Chávez should guard for an effect similar to that of the “boy who cried wolf”. As Marx pointed out, Bolivar himself had consistently sought not just liberation, but also aggrandization of his personal power, and threatened the prospects of the former by enhancing the prospects of the latter. As a result, he was constantly forced into ever grander rhetorical schemes to give ideological support to his personal ambition, which could not but lead to disappointment. These disappointments in turn weaken the position of the emancipatory forces themselves, and strengthen their enemies.(2) That in the end this led Bolivar to wage war on Venezuela as leader of Colombia is just an irony of history, given the preceding exposition of Chávez’s foreign policy. The Venezolan people are already on their guard against the personal aggrandizement of power by Chávez himself and his nearest supporters: this is why, despite the deserved popularity of his government, they wisely in a referendum rejected further expansion of the President’s powers in 2006. After Chávez appeared to have learned the lesson from this, they subsequently approved an abolition of term limits, although only with a fairly narrow majority.

Overall, the indicators of performance for the Chávez government, seen purely as a matter of statistics, look very favorable. A summary by the economic institute CEPR stated it as follows:

The current economic expansion began when the government got control over the national oil company in the first quarter of 2003. Since then, real (inflation-adjusted) GDP has nearly doubled, growing by 94.7 percent in 5.25 years, or 13.5 percent annually.
* Most of this growth has been in the non-oil sector of the economy, and the private sector has grown faster than the public sector.
* During the current economic expansion, the poverty rate has been cut by more than half, from 54 percent of households in the first half of 2003 to 26 percent at the end of 2008. Extreme poverty has fallen even more, by 72 percent. These poverty rates measure only cash
income, and do not take into account increased access to health care or education.
* Over the entire decade, the percentage of households in poverty has been reduced by 39 percent, and extreme poverty by more than half.
* Inequality, as measured by the Gini index, has also fallen substantially. The index has fallen to 41 in 2008, from 48.1 in 2003 and 47 in 1999. This represents a large reduction in inequality.
* Real (inflation-adjusted) social spending per person more than tripled from 1998-2006.
* From 1998-2006, infant mortality has fallen by more than one-third. The number of primary care physicians in the public sector increased 12-fold from 1999-2007, providing health care to millions of Venezuelans who previously did not have access.
* There have been substantial gains in education, especially higher education, where gross enrollment rates more than doubled from 1999-2000 to 2007-2008.
* The labor market also improved substantially over the last decade, with unemployment dropping from 11.3 percent to 7.8 percent. During the current expansion it has fallen by more than half. Other labor market indicators also show substantial gains.
* Over the past decade, the number of social security beneficiaries has more than doubled.
* Over the decade, the government’s total public debt has fallen from 30.7 to 14.3 percent of GDP. The foreign public debt has fallen even more, from 25.6 to 9.8 percent of GDP.
* Inflation is about where it was 10 years ago, ending the year at 31.4 percent. However it has been falling over the last half year (as measured by three-month averages) and is likely to continue declining this year in the face of strong deflationary pressures worldwide.

(3)
Furthermore, the Venezolan government has banned the practice of trawl fishing(4), has blocked foreign mining operations in their country(5), and has correctly identified global warming as a product of the capitalist mode of production(6), thereby giving good examples of how progressive governments can and must take ecological considerations into account when attempting to reform or revolutionize the mode of production.

There is, in summary, much to be praised in the efforts of the Venezolan reform movement. They have not yet liberated themselves from reliance on charismatic state leadership; they have not yet become systematically revolutionary, or displayed the necessary initiative ‘from the bottom up’ against the logic of capital; they remain in an unstable and exposed position, and have little certainty of remaining in power in the future; they have not gone beyond liberal parliamentarianism, or developed a principled foreign policy. But they have achieved much that is great, and it is always easier to criticize than to actually go out and undertake reforms, especially against such concentrated vile opposition as in countries like Venezuela. At the very least, if they do not or cannot go beyond the point they are currently at, their creation of a ‘really existing’ left social-democracy puts every so-called social democratic party in the world to shame, and the mere fact of pointing out both the possibilities for reform and the limitations of social-democracy in and through political practice would already be a great virtue of the Venezolan movement.

1) “Hugo Chavez tells Colombian rebels to stop kidnapping”. Reuters (Jan. 13, 2008).
2) See: Karl Marx, “Bolivar y Ponte”. In: New American Cyclopedia, Vol. III, 1858.
(3) Weisbrot, Ray & Sandoval. The Chávez Administration at 10 Years: The Economy and Social Indicators. CEPR (Feb. 2009).
(4) Erik Sperling, “Venezuela Bans Controversial “Trawl” Fishing”. Venezuelanalysis (March 17, 2009).
(5) Bernardo Delgado, “Venezuela Limits Foreign Mining Operations”. Venezuelanalysis (Sept. 22, 2005).
(6) Chris Carlson, “Venezuela to UN: Global Warming a Product of Capitalism”. Venezuelanalysis (Sept. 27, 2007).

If you liked Obama’s Cash for Clunkers program, you’re gonna love this

As part of the Obama administration’s “economic stimulus” package, $300 million in rebates for buying energy-efficient products has been set aside as a reward for ditching your old appliances. State governments were required to submit detailed plans to the Obama administration to explain how they would give that taxpayer money away. So unlike the “Cash for Clunkers” program, each state is in charge of its own “Cash for Appliances” plan.

Programs have already been scheduled for California, New York, and Florida. If you think your neighbors should be paying to replace your no longer trendy refrigerator and harvest gold washer with newer appliances, Arizona’s energy department contact information is here.  Michelle Bermudes, the energy coordinator in charge of Arizona’s appliance rebate program, can be reached at (602) 771-1151.

Back in January, the liberal New York Times, a newspaper that endorsed Obama for president, wrote this about the “stimulus” costs estimates:  But anyone who looked closely [at the table of numbers from the Congressional Budget Office] would have seen something strange about the table. It suggested that the bill would cost only $355 billion in all, rather than its actual cost of about $800 billion.

Why? It turns out that the table was analyzing only certain parts of the bill, like new spending on highways, education and energy. It ignored the tax cuts, jobless benefits and Medicaid payments — the very money that will be spent the fastest.

Even the New York Times gets it.

A World Without McDonald's French Fries?

The interesting programs I find in the middle of the night on PBS often teach me things I want to know that I couldn’t find anywhere else.  “The Botany of Desire” (www.pbs.org) is a good example.  Created by Michael Pollan, the program warns of the hazards of monoculture and ponders the relationship humans have with plants and nature.  It seems that McDonald’s purchases only the Burbank russet potato wherever it’s  grown, and the monoculture that creates on farms all over the world increases the need for pesticides (the more plants in one place, the more bugs.)  Knowing that made me never want to eat a McDonald’s french fry again!

But there’s good news, yea, great news in “The Botany of Desire”:  an organic potato farmer who grows a variety of potatoes (a biodiversity)–not a monoculture like his neighbors–is earning just as much money.  Pesticides don’t come cheap anymore. This shift in the economics of farming, albeit a small example, could be the beginning of something wonderful:  farmers growing our food in harmony with nature.  That would have to be beneficial to everyone’s health.

In the new economic structures that will replace our current system, everyone will be a farmer of sorts, gathering to plant in community gardens or growing fruit and veggies in their back yards and on their porches.  Land of any kind, even soil in a pot, will be treasured for its life giving properties.  Friends and neighbors will barter with their excess produce.  Our relationship with plants and nature will heal itself.  Why?  Because growing your own is good for the soul.

Hunkering down in foreboding Michigan economy

            After about three miles, the road goes from paved – crushed stone poured on fresh tar, affectionately known as “tarvee” roads around here – to gravel, but it doesn’t matter all that much. Crews do an adequate job keeping gravel roads level and durable, which is saying something. Winter is seldom gentle here, though always magnificent, and the occasional 50-year rain can heartlessly destroy roads, as it did early last year.

            In this slice of the Midwest, you look skyward for hints of the future, good or bad. In one way or another, we all live within the weather’s margins.

            I had picked a beautiful day for this spur-of-the-moment urge – a crusade of sorts – to reintroduce myself to the back roads of Western Michigan. It’s not that I had forgotten Michigan. I grew up on and near Lake Michigan, its beaches, and its sand dunes, but 40 years ago I ventured elsewhere for jobs, eventually working in six other states. I returned recently and moved into a small house near Round Lake in Mason County. Here cable remains a tedious analog and the telephone too sluggish for DSL. Cell phones and wireless Internet counter that shift back in time, for which I am daily grateful.

            My reintroduction to the back roads does not tell you much. I know the roads. I know this part of Western Michigan fairly well. I spent way too much of my youth prodding and poking the woods, fields, and roads around here, an undaunted boy searching for a mystery to examine or malevolence to fathom. Pure of heart and anything but innocent, he feared only not knowing. That fear guided him the rest of his life.

            Today, I am due no purity or innocence, but I cannot help feeling the woods and fields entrap the unpolished purity and knowledge I seek. With that indefinable goal, I drove into the Manistee National Forest no longer guided by fear. One cannot find what I’m after if you are afraid of it before you find it.

Money and no money

            Detroit isn’t the only place suffering from unemployment. When the auto industry gets a cold, people all over Michigan start sneezing. You cannot drive 25 miles in this state without passing at least one company, large or small, supplying parts for cars and trucks.

            As the auto industry rolls into the abyss, people in all corners of the state discover they were living paycheck to paycheck. That reality finds its way into every restaurant, resort, dry cleaners, hardware store, and hair salon. Grocers close. Gasoline stations turn to gray and rust as grass materializes from cracks in the concrete. Small town pharmacies become junk shops.

            This part of Michigan, 250 miles northwest of Detroit, is best known for its almost pristine Lake Michigan beaches, fruit trees, a few dozen inland lakes, and forests. Those benefits do not obstruct financial collapse. As you drive around north of U.S. 10 and east of U.S. 31, you cannot help but see the deepening recession. Near our many lakes, every third cottage nears “shabbiness,” it’s homemade “for sale by owner” sign occasionally obscured by tall grass and weeds. It’s the same for residential homes sprinkled in lush fields along the road. An occasional house-in-progress has been halted with a roofed over basement. This basement “home” is almost a Michigan tradition of hunkering down and taking cover. Foliage covered piles of bull-dozed top soil and scrap wood concrete frames await better times. An increasing number of people offer campfire wood for $3 a bundle on roads used by people who gather their own wood in the backyard.

            You can’t spit out here without hitting an inland lake or a taxidermist. Sometimes both. Michigan has more than 11,000 lakes, not including the Great Lakes, and nearly as many rivers and streams. A man becomes very fond of these lakes not because most states do not have them but because we are all drawn to clean water. Our ancestors crawled from it. We were born in it. Our DNA demands it. We cannot live without it. With a little snickering, Michigan natives watch big city tourists flounder in it.

            Here, we also play in it. From a very young age this water philosophy becomes imbedded in our psyches. People around here own lots of boats – from canoes to Coho salmon fishing party boats – and talk about water activities so casually it sometimes takes you by surprise. Kayaks today are fashionable, too. Everybody swims, and nearly everyone fishes. You learn to bait a hook before you’re 7. Friday all-you-can-eat fish dinners serve deep-fried Great Lakes catches.

            But the tourist business – based mainly on this water – has truly suffered, especially in these back-country areas. Though originally the summer gathering places of the city well-off, these areas have become vacation spots for the working families, people who bear most of the weight of our economic malaise. Thus, the small town café, which expanded five years ago, no longer opens everyday and has not hired help in months. The bait shop stays open only because the owner has no idea what else to do. The corner laundry closed two years ago. After all, some businesses pull the short straw sooner than others. The auto industry has been staggering for years.

            People can endure the loss of a part-time job or reverting to an old wardrobe and driving the clunker for another year or so. What truly weigh on people are the vanished dreams. The kids may not go to college. The new house will not be. Doctor visits drop to only emergencies. The economy has robbed them of their visions and replaced them with delusions.

The anger

            Change is in the air, and so are fear and anger. Most people around here are hanging on, but many already seek out people and ideas to blame. I hear it often and stay clear for fear of unleashing even more anger and frustration – theirs and mine. You can see it in their sneers and smell it in the clothing fatigue. An old farmer in the produce section of the local grocery told two businessmen global warming is “bullshit,” a story made up to scare people and make them manageable. The international conspirators don’t scare him, though, he said. He says he’s ready for them, and I’ll bet he is.

            In the fast food “dining room,” a tall, long-haired late 50s man saw me reading Time magazine and sipping coffee. I had barely sat down. He raised his voice to cover the distance and informed me newspapers have gone into the toilet and news magazines will soon follow. It’s all part of the general demise of America, he told whoever would listen. Two others looked up at him and glanced at me, the target of his salvo. Keep all of us poorly informed, the man declared, and you can do anything in this country. I ignored him, as he started to tell someone passing him with a tray that he was about to eat Argentine beef. American beef is history.

            The man’s assessment of newspapers and magazines hits the mark. I agreed with everything, but I did not tell him so. I know more about that than he’ll ever know.

            I stopped for breakfast recently at what was then one of my favorite home-style restaurants. About 10 local men in their 50s had three tables end to end and talked brashly about their worries. I listened. They picked at their breakfast remains as one man loudly declared it was all the fault of “those damn niggers” in Washington.

            I could not ignore this. I slowly turned around to put a face to the comment. Everyone saw me and grew quiet, as though I’d somehow splashed water over the table or would start a fight. I had his face for memory, and he has mine, too. His face remains familiar just in case it appears over my shoulder or in the grocery line.

            I have not been back to that restaurant, and two friends asked why. The food is good and it’s a great location. Why punish the owner? He tolerates that kind of raucous hate and stupidity in the middle of his establishment, I explained. He’s one of them.

            The anger comes from fear of change they do not understand and, so far, feels like a threat to their way of life. Right Wing politicians toss gasoline on this fire almost daily. This cultural transformation emerges as un-American, foreign in initiation and content, so it becomes easy to talk about on the street. We would not do this to ourselves, right? We should have seen it coming. By God, we will see it next time, if we survive this.

 

            Much of it seems unfair. I like these people. They work hard. The Protestant Ethic surges through them. Over the years they have worked hard and steady and not gotten rich and endured some pretty harsh winters, but what is their reward? This experience challenges their trust. They have seldom trusted government – the institution constantly meddling in people’s lives – and now they are losing trust in almost everything else.

Survival

            Increasingly, it is all about riding out the economy, identifying bogus political ideas, trusting in the Lord, and surviving everything else.

            I visited a gun show some weeks ago to see if it is just like evil news media depict. The newest vehicle in visitors’ the parking lot was three or four years old. Most were pickups. A group of five stood smoking just outside the entrance doors and eyed those coming in and noting those leaving. They were friendly, though, suggesting I get a jacket. It was colder inside than out.

            They were right. The air conditioning ruled. About 60 people strolled through the largest field of handguns, shotguns, rifles, and ammunition I have seen since the army discharged me. Much of the display was military or pseudo-military. It would only require a smile, some small talk, and a pocket full of cash to buy one or two rifles capable of taking out people from a mile or so.

            The customers did not adorn fatigues or camouflage. They looked like people you might meet in the pharmacy. When you talked with them you did not conjure images of skin-heads and the final battle. But you could feel the uneasiness, their sense of an approaching unknown, the mystery that tomorrow always holds but this time may also be holding back its clues. They would not call it fear, but it has made them anxious. When civilization shakes violently, nothing good follows.

            “I don’t know how it will happen or how it will start,” one gun shop owner told me. “But you can feel it coming.” These people will be ready, and in being ready, they likely will become part of the problem we all must face. Some of us can peek far enough over the approaching horizon to see some of what they see. It sends a chill through you.

My abode

            I have been lucky enough to find a repossessed house the bank wanted off its hands. Isolated and in need of love and work, the house had languished long enough to drop thousands more in value.

            Such a house – somewhere between shabby and fragile – requires a learning curve. Today I know how to put up drywall, fix some plumbing, seal concrete, find a septic tank, calk cracks, install 12X12 tiling, and be grateful for clean well water and a rebuilt pump to deliver it. A nifty 300-gallon propane tank rests out my kitchen window, and an ancient, wall-mounted antique gas furnace blasts me regularly with hot air.

            Worse, I look forward to finding worn but recoverable book shelves, though I am likely to build my own. Boxes of books, remnants of a career of reporting, writing, professing, and thinking, remain in piles here and there. They will adorn my walls soon enough, I figure, and meanwhile they can hold the Earth in place until the snows come.

            A pile of Sunday New York Times and Wall Street Journals also await my attention, as well as a few items a friend sent to me. I am likely the only guy in the neighborhood with such a reading list. An optimist at heart, I hope to find two or three people I can argue philosophy with over plenty of coffee. Only a strange group would welcome a man who can explain “M Theory” well enough that members could point out its flaws. Now that’s a discussion.

            I do not see many people out here yet. A school bus passes by on the nearby tarvee road about 4 p.m. The UPS truck thunders down that road shortly after that but the driver seldom glances down my gravel road. Though I already suffer from too much reading, I might get big brown to come down my road if I found yet another book I need.

            As it is, three or four cars going by on the gravel road constitutes traffic which may need monitoring. Any more than four vehicles will require a stop light. I then would have to petition Mason County and get my neighbors’ signatures, if I had neighbors.

Water pressure

Long time readers will know that I have a minor fetish with respect to water, and water pricing, and water policing. For all that it is in short supply, water is ridiculously cheap. I estimate that we will pay about $400 this financial year (ending 30 June 2010) for our household water usage. That’s $400 that we would happily spend on other necessary items if we didn’t have to spend it on water, but it’s hardly a steep charge – less than $10 per week, even on SA Water’s new price schedule, which is much more expensive than the old schedule. Our annual water rates charge is much higher than that, but most of it is taken up by fixed charges which are completely beyond our control.

Because SA Water either can’t, or won’t, charge enough for actual usage, and so won’t send a decent market signal in order to limit water use, they resort to social pressure instead. The pressure is intensely felt by some people; an elderly friend of mine keeps a bowl of water on her bench to soak dirty plates in, rather than running the tap over them, saving maybe 5 litres a day. Even at the highest price that SA Water charges, that will save her about 0.1c per day, or 36.5c per year. So my elderly friend carries a weight of social responsibility, simply because her neighbours, and businesses, use water casually.

SA Water doesn’t just deploy social pressure to get us to minimise water use. They’re into propaganda as well.

We got our quarterly water bill a week or two ago. On the back of the bill was a chart showing us how our household water usage compares. We are invited to compare our water usage with other SA Water customers. We have a household of 5 people, and a large allotment. The “range of litres used per day” for a household like ours goes from 740 to 915. So given our actual usage, 621 litres, we’re looking pretty good.

Not so fast. When SA Water ask, “How does your household water use compare?” they don’t say what the comparison is too. My assumption was that our usage would be compared to average usage. I think that’s a reasonable assumption.

But there’s a sneaky asterisk beside the column header, “Range of litres used per day.” It turns out that the range of litres used per day is based on “waterwise to average households…” Instead of giving us a standard comparator (average usage), they’ve given us a low one, and it takes a bit of careful reading to work out exactly how your own household is doing with respect to water usage.

I’m rather tired of the dishonesty around water. As you can see, our water usage isn’t too bad at all – well below average for the size of our household and allotment. Even if we figure that three kids are equivalent to say two adults in terms of water use, and look at the figures for a household with four members, we still do well. So this is not about SA Water trying to browbeat me into “better” behaviour. However, I wish they would trust us with accurate information, and treat us like adults, instead of trying to manipulate us.

What I would like to see is a change to pricing policy. I would like to see a very low charge for basic water use, so that people’s basic needs are met. After that, they should charge like wounded bulls. Any water use above the basic level should be very, very expensive, for households and businesses (including farms) alike. The profits (and I’m betting there would be a lot) should be used for all those fantastic projects that will help us to meet our water needs (damns, stormwater harvesting, rainwater tanks on public buildings, whatever).

And if SA Water really wants to apply some social pressure, then I suggest that they send their water inspectors out at 2am. You would be amazed by the number of watering systems that are in use at that early hour. I should imagine that most clandestine waterers would give up after too many nights broken sleep.

Pro-Union Strategy: Shop Non-Union

Well, this is fun:

As we’ve followed the buildup to the present labor dispute between King Soopers, Safeway and Albertson’s stores and their United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) employees, we’ve taken an interest in technological and other developments since the last big strike that might change the game. In particular, we’ve found the efforts of a local liberal advocacy group to inform consumers about alternative shopping locations they can patronize in the event of a strike to be rather innovative–as we’ve said we can’t predict what the outcome will be, but ubiquitous dissemination of information online is a factor that didn’t exist back in 1996.
[...]
Those retailers, according to an early view of the group’s website locator map, tend to be stores where unions are not represented, such as Target, Costco and Whole Foods.

So as a defense of the union (and the picket line), they are directing shoppers to go to non-union stores instead, with some number potentially shifting their shopping habits in the long term (perhaps due to the lower price or the lack of union bullshit hassles). Sure, it could make the particular store chains see the risk and concede, on the other hand, it could convince them that the best strategy is to not have unions.

Listen, I know the valuable role unions have played and still could play, but as often as not they just come off completely tone-deaf or ridiculous. I mean, we are in the midst of a major recession with sky-high unemployment. All those with no jobs are not likely to be very sympathetic to those who do have jobs whining because of this or that benefit.

Rick Santorum explains why socialism is hostile to the family and Christianity

Story here at the Ruth Institute blog.

Excerpt:

Both the family and the Church stand in the way of socialism’s triumph, former US Senator Rick Santorum told Christians gathered for the 17th International Week of Prayer and Fasting last week. The pro-life champion warned attendees, however, that both institutions are under heavy attack from Obama-administration policies.

“We are under a great assault with this President and this Congress on the issue of life. We are under a great assault, maybe even greater assault, on the foundational issue of the family,” Santorum told those gathered for the October 11 dinner at the Omni Shoreham Hotel.

And more specifically:

Santorum argued that Obama’s reforms will transform health-care into “an account in the federal government” in which “accountants” or Congress will determine how much healthcare an individual gets “as part of our budgetary process.”

Once the health-care of individuals is totally dependent on the central government, the left has secured power, Santorum explained.

[...]The Netherlands, “the most liberal country in Europe” today, Santorum said, is the only country that “did not go along with the Nazi doctors in doing sterilizations and abortions” and suffered persecution for it.

“And yet, within two generations, as a result of socialized medicine and the government’s attempt to contain costs, doctors were turned into accountants,” said Santorum.

Now in the name of cutting costs, Dutch doctors counsel assisted suicide, deny care to premature-born babies under 25 weeks, and euthanize children born disabled.

“This is the custom and the practice in socialized medicine countries, who have limits on budgets. It is simply too expensive to do it any other way,” reiterated Santorum.

Read the rest here.

Social conservatives, repeat after me: SMALL GOVERNMENT IS GOOD. Do it yourself – don’t hand your money to a bunch of secular ideologues and then hope they will take care of you. They will use that money to take care of themselves.