Download or read book Communes and the Venezuelan State written by Anderson Bean and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-03-01 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 2006, Venezuela has witnessed an explosion of different forms of popular power and participatory democracy. Over 47,000 grassroots neighborhood-based communal councils and 3,000 communes have been constructed. In Communes and the Venezuelan State: The Struggle for Participatory Democracy in a Time of Crisis, Anderson Bean offers a critical analysis of these experiments in popular and workers' power and their potential for societal transformation within and beyond Venezuela. Drawing on extensive ethnographic research, Bean demonstrates how workers and peasants, through networks of popular power, exercise agency over their own development while facing challenges from the capitalist state. Most importantly, this book connects with the far-reaching implications that the communal movement in Venezuela has for building a society responsive more to the needs of ordinary people than to the desires of the elites.
Download or read book Communes and Workers Control in Venezuela written by Dario N. Azzellini and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2016-10-05 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Communes and Workers' Control in Venezuela: Building 21st Century Socialism from Below Dario Azzellini offers an account of the Bolivarian Revolution from below with extensive empirical examples and original voices from movements, communal councils, communes and workers.
Download or read book Building the Commune written by George Ciccariello-Maher and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2016-11-01 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Latin America’s experiments in direct democracy Since 2011, a wave of popular uprisings has swept the globe, taking shape in the Occupy movement, the Arab Spring, 15M in Spain, and the anti-austerity protests in Greece. The demands have been varied, but have expressed a consistent commitment to the ideals of radical democracy. Similar experiments began appearing across Latin America twenty-five years ago, just as the left fell into decline in Europe. In Venezuela, poor barrio residents arose in a mass rebellion against neoliberalism, ushering in a government that institutionalized the communes already forming organically. In Building the Commune, George Ciccariello-Maher travels through these radical experiments, speaking to a broad range of community members, workers, students and government officials. Assessing the projects’ successes and failures, Building the Commune provides lessons and inspiration for the radical movements of today.
Download or read book Commune Or Nothing written by Chris Gilbert and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2023-10 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A front-row seat to Venezuela’s most innovative socialist project, with important lessons for movements worldwide Commune or Nothing! Venezuela's Communal Movement and Its Socialist Project opens a window on one of the most ambitious revolutionary projects of our time, as it took shape in a country suffering the cruel consequences of US imperialism. In recent years, repeated coup attempts and U.S. sanctions, combined with falling oil prices, have plunged Venezuela into a series of severe shortages leading to malnutrition, sickness, death, and mass migration. Still, as author Chris Gilbert shows, the Venezuelan people have not been passive in the face of these attacks. Resisting the pressures of capitalism, a significant segment of the population persists in pursuing the strategy for socialist construction that Hugo Chávez developed in his final years in dialogue with the popular movement. That strategy consists in building socialism with the commune as “its basic cell.” Gilbert’s account gives readers a front-row seat on the country’s communal movement as he chronicles the efforts of grassroots initiatives and gives voice to the communards living and working in communes such as El Panal, El Maizal, Che Guevara, and Luisa Cáceres. He blends these firsthand accounts of communal construction with theoretical reflections and historical insights. The central story of the book is how Venezuelan communes bring people together to democratically determine their ways of living and working, thus generating a new, non-alienated social metabolism that the communes also work to extend to the whole society. Along the way, readers learn how Venezuela’s communal project draws inspiration from advanced Marxist theory—including the innovative work of István Mészáros—and derives from Indigenous and Afro-Venezuelan traditions of communal self-governance. Titled after the battle cry of this heroic movement, “¡Comuna o Nada!,” Commune or Nothing! portrays an expanding network of communes pursuing the strategic goal of—not only overcoming the entire capitalist economy—but transcending the state formations upon which the capital system relies. The communal project in Venezuela has proven the viability of its model of all-round human emancipation as an alternative to the increasingly exploitative, destructive, and unsustainable capital system. For this reason, Commune or Nothing!, like the trailblazing movement it depicts, offers important lessons not only regarding the construction of socialism in Venezuela, but for socialist praxis worldwide.
Download or read book Venezuela s Bolivarian Democracy written by David Smilde and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2011-08-05 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looking beyond Hugo Chávez and the national government, contributors examine forms of democracy involving ordinary Venezuelans: in communal councils, cultural activities, blogs, community media, and other forums.
Download or read book Commune Or Nothing written by Chris Gilbert (Professor of political science) and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Gilbert's account gives readers a front-row seat on the country's communal movement as he chronicles the efforts of grassroots initiatives and gives voice to the communards living and working in communes such as El Panal, El Maizal, Che Guevara, and Luisa Cáceres. He blends these firsthand accounts of communal construction with theoretical reflections and historical insights. The central story of the book is how Venezuelan communes bring people together to democratically determine their ways of living and working, thus generating a new, non-alienated social metabolism that the communes also work to extend to the whole society. Along the way, readers learn how Venezuela's communal project draws inspiration from advanced Marxist theory-including the innovative work of István Mészáros-and derives from Indigenous and Afro-Venezuelan traditions of communal self-governance"--
Download or read book We Created Ch vez written by Geo Maher and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since being elected president in 1998, Hugo Chávez has become the face of contemporary Venezuela and, more broadly, anticapitalist revolution. George Ciccariello-Maher contends that this focus on Chávez has obscured the inner dynamics and historical development of the country’s Bolivarian Revolution. In We Created Chávez, by examining social movements and revolutionary groups active before and during the Chávez era, Ciccariello-Maher provides a broader, more nuanced account of Chávez’s rise to power and the years of activism that preceded it. Based on interviews with grassroots organizers, former guerrillas, members of neighborhood militias, and government officials, Ciccariello-Maher presents a new history of Venezuelan political activism, one told from below. Led by leftist guerrillas, women, Afro-Venezuelans, indigenous people, and students, the social movements he discusses have been struggling against corruption and repression since 1958. Ciccariello-Maher pays particular attention to the dynamic interplay between the Chávez government, revolutionary social movements, and the Venezuelan people, recasting the Bolivarian Revolution as a long-term and multifaceted process of political transformation.
Download or read book Extraordinary Threat written by Justin Podur and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The US foreign policy decisions behind six coup attempts against the Venezuelan government – and Venezuela's heightening precarity In March 2015, President Obama initiated sanctions against Venezuela, declaring a “national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela.” Each year, the US administration has repeated this claim. But, as Joe Emersberger and Justin Podur argue in their timely book, Extraordinary Threat, the opposite is true: It is the US policy of regime change in Venezuela that constitutes an “extraordinary threat” to Venezuelans. Tens of thousands of Venezuelans continue to die because of these ever-tightening US sanctions, denying people daily food, medicine, and fuel. On top of this, Venezuela has, since 2002, been subjected to repeated coup attempts by US-backed forces. In Extraordinary Threat, Emersberger and Podur tell the story of six coup attempts against Venezuela. This book deflates the myths propagated about the Venezuelan government’s purported lack of electoral legitimacy, scant human rights, and disastrous economic development record. Contrary to accounts lobbed by the corporate media, the real target of sustained U.S. assault on Venezuela is not the country’s claimed authoritarianism or its supposed corruption. It is Chavismo, the prospect that twenty-first century socialism could be brought about through electoral and constitutional means. This is what the US empire must not allow to succeed.
Download or read book Jackson Rising Redux written by Kali Akuno and published by PM Press. This book was released on 2023-04-11 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mississippi is the poorest state in the US, with the highest percentage of Black people and a history of vicious racial terror. Black resistance at a time of global health, economic, and climate crisis is the backdrop and context for the drama captured in this new and revised collection of essays. Cooperation Jackson, founded in 2014 in Mississippi’s capital to develop an economically uplifting democratic “solidarity economy,” is anchored by a network of worker-owned, self-managed cooperative enterprises. The organization developed in the context of the historic election of radical Mayor Chokwe Lumumba, lifetime human rights attorney. Subsequent to Lumumba’s passing less than one year after assuming office, the network developed projects both inside and outside of the formal political arena. In 2020, Cooperation Jackson became the center for national and international coalition efforts, bringing together progressive peoples from diverse trade union, youth, church, and cultural movements. This long-anticipated anthology details the foundations behind those successful campaigns. It unveils new and ongoing strategies and methods being pursued by the movement for grassroots-centered Black community control and self-determination, inspiring partnership and emulation across the globe.
Download or read book Maroon Comix written by Russell Shoats and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Escaping slavery in the Americas, maroons made miracles in the mountains, summoned new societies in the swamps, and forged new freedoms in the forests. Maroon Comix is a fire on the mountain where maroon words and images meet to tell stories together. Stories of escape and homecoming, exile and belonging. Stories that converge on the summits of the human spirit, where the most dreadful degradation is overcome by the most daring dignity. Stories of the damned who consecrate their own salvation.
Download or read book Modernity and Colombian Identity in the Music of Carlos Vives y La Provincia written by Manuel Sevilla and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-07-24 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By the late 1980s and early 1990s, a great number of TV shows and music acts blossomed in Colombia, all of which resorted to regional identity as the narrative core for a renewed idea of national identity. Among them was “Clasicos de la provincial,” an album by Colombian singer Carlos Vives and his band La Provincia (1993), which marked the beginning of a successful career that has spanned nearly three decades. Vives´s work not only earned much deserved recognition in the musical industry from the beginning, but most importantly, has come to be renowned as a landmark in the cultural history of Colombia. This book is the first in-depth analysis focused on the creation and production process of Vives´s work, its main musical and literary features, and its influence on other musicians and in the construction of a narrative about national identity that is still relevant today. More than fifty interviews with Vives and members of the band, musicians, journalists, radio programmers, musical producers, and other key players of the process, together with an extensive review of hundreds of documents, are the sources for this book, which earned its authors a national award in Colombia (2015).
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of the Oil Nation Venezuela written by Carlos A. Rossi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-12-28 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explains why Venezuela is so rich in natural resources—it has been producing oil since 1922 and harbors the largest oil reserves in the world—and yet it is also a failed nation of class-divided citizens exhibiting deep poverty in a corrupt, incompetent state. Venezuela is a bipolar nation, where two marked poles in the society exist which have historical origins and are mutually exclusive. The book provides a critical analysis of Venezuela's history, economy and politics and explains the context and implications of the bipolar poles, known as the elite pole and the resentful pole. Both, it shows, have done serious harm to Venezuela’s prosperity. The author describes the vicious circle of oil wealth, corruption, inefficiency and world market dependency and gives recommendations for a better future.
Download or read book The Workings of Diaspora written by Mario Nisbett and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-11-04 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Engaging the past, the present, and the future, The Workings of Diaspora: Jamaican Maroons and the Claims to Sovereignty shows how the lived experience of Jamaican Maroons is linked to the African Diaspora. In so doing, this interdisciplinary undertaking interrogates the definition of Diaspora but mainly emphasizes the term’s use. Mario Nisbett demonstrates that an examination of Jamaican Maroon communities, particularly their socio-political development, can further highlight the significance of the African Diaspora as an analytical tool. He shows how Jamaican Maroons inform resistance to abjection, a denial of full humanity, through claiming their African origin and developing solidarity and consciousness in order to affirm black humanity. This book establishes that present-day Jamaican Maroons remain relevant and engage the African Diaspora to improve black standing and bolster assertions of sovereignty.
Download or read book Cooperatives and Socialism written by Camila Piñeiro Harnecker and published by Springer. This book was released on 2012-11-29 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book demonstrates that the cooperative model is based on principles essential to building a more just and democratic society. It is argued that this is the best economic reform alternative to neoliberal capitalism and authoritarian socialism in Cuba, and that this model can also radically transform other economies around the world.
Download or read book Beyond Nationalism and the Nation State written by İlker Cörüt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-05-30 with total page 163 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book centers on one fundamental question: is it possible to imagine a progressive sense of nation? Rooted in historic and contemporary social struggles, the chapters in this collection examine what a progressive sense of nation might look like, with authors exploring the theory and practice of the nation beyond nationalism. The book is written against the background of rising authoritarian-nationalist movements globally over the last few decades, where many countries have witnessed the dramatic escalation of ethnic-nationalist parties impacting and changing mainstream politics and normalizing anti-immigration, anti-democratic and Islamophobic discourse. This volume discusses viable alternatives for nationalism, which is inherently exclusionary, exploring the possibility of a type of nation-based politics which does not follow the principles of nationalism. With its focus on nationalism, politics and social struggles, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of political and social sciences.
Download or read book Marginalized Groups in the Caribbean written by Ann Marie Bissessar and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-11-16 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the world, policy makers argue that they develop and implement policies to benefit all members of their society. Marginalized Groups in the Caribbean argues that the policies introduced by several governments in the Caribbean lead to the exclusion of groups within these societies. Using both research and interviews, the authors explore how certain groups are excluded from the policy-making process and do not have a voice. The groups highlighted in this book include criminal deportees, women, children, first peoples, refugees, and victims of floods. The three authors in this book are experts in separate disciplines: policy making, social work, as well as gender and development. They bring their respective experiences to bear in their arguments, showing many sides to the exclusionary effects of laws and promoting strategies for change.
Download or read book Really Free Culture written by and published by PediaPress. This book was released on with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
