Susan J. Spronk and Jeffery R. Webber, eds, Crisis and Contradiction: Marxist Perspectives on Latin America in the Global Political Economy, Brill: Leiden/Boston, 2014.
RATING: 50
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This review first appeared in Capital & Class, 40, 2, 2016, pp. 371-4.
This collection is unfocused, uneven and incoherent, so does little credit to the editors or publishers. It would have been significantly improved had it done more to outline and compare some currently influential Marxist perspectives on Latin America – including Marxist, Leninist, Trotskyist and Gramscian approaches, at a minimum. It would also have benefited from succinctly introducing relevant concepts in relation to these approaches (especially those of ‘crisis’ and ‘contradiction’) and addressing the region as a whole in the global political economy in the light of these as well as selected case study countries. Further, more needed doing to ensure that all contributions related directly to the theme of the book; that each individual chapter was explicitly tied in, at least in introductory and concluding sections, to the principal arguments advanced; and that the organization of the collection overall would be such as to facilitate debate and cumulative understanding. As a result, whilst there are some useful contributions, the individual contributors are poorly served, both by the editors and by the series in which the book appears.
One of the key problems with the collection is that of relevance. Neither Grigera’s critique of structuralist and neo-structuralist thought at ECLAC nor Katz’s account of the ‘global financial crisis’ help to develop the themes addressed. The first is well-informed and largely well argued, but is out of place, especially as it deals with ECLAC’s very relevant recent output only briefly and derivatively. The second is a standard overview with no attempt to turn the focus towards Latin America. As for the rest of the volume, case studies are, reasonably enough, restricted to four countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Venezuela. But no attempt is made to provide introductory background information on even the recent politics of these countries, or to set them comparatively in the broader Latin American context, while the country-specific chapters vary widely in focus and ambition. The most ambitious contribution, and the only comparative one, by Grinberg and Starosta, aims to explain diverse political forms (Brazil’s ‘modern social democracy’ and Argentina’s ‘classic populist regime’) arising from a common experience of capital accumulation through ‘the appropriation of the extraordinary mass of social wealth existing in those national spaces under the form of ground rent’ (237). What they have to say about the intrinsic unity of the world market and the manner in which ‘nationally-differentiated political forms mediate the unfolding of the underlying formal and materiality of the inherently contradictory dynamics of the accumulation of the total social capital at the global scale’ (240) is well said (though footnote 26, page 250 casts some doubt on the rigidity of those dynamics). But they make the fatal mistake of assuming that any really existing political regime can be determined on the basis of such an analysis. It may be that ‘Kirchner’s centre-left populism should be seen as the political and ideological form assumed by the renewed expansion of the specific modality taken by accumulation in Argentina’ (264), but the statement is empty unless that is the only form it could take, and that is an issue they don’t address. Among the single-country case studies, Bolivia fares worst, as Spronk (the least ambitious) unforgivably reproduces verbatim a paper on Cochabamba’s water wars first published in International Labor and Working Class History in February 2007, without acknowledgement, updating or adaptation to the supposed theme of the collection, and Webber uses a case study of TIPNIS to pursue a personal feud with a couple of his critics, with no reference at all either to the recent debates around ground rent that feature heavily in his own co-authored introduction and in chapters by Purcell and Grinberg and Starosta, or to the Trotskyist framework which animates his own work. As a result, neither chapter presents or illuminates any Marxist perspective on Latin America. On Argentina, Féliz argues for considerable continuity between neoliberalism and contemporary neo-developmentalism, but still claims that by 2010 ‘a new form of the state – ready to respond to capital’s demands but able to adapt politically to a renewed class composition’ had emerged, offering Argentina ‘a new path of successful capitalist accumulation without abandoning its dependent and peripheral character’ (71). This seems doubly at odds – theoretically and substantively – with Grinberg and Starosta, but as the two chapters do not engage with each other, one can’t be sure. Castorina repeats the argument for continuity, but with reference to a completely different set of authors (mostly not discernibly Marxist, if that matters), and again with no engagement with the other chapters on the Argentine case. It is hard to discern any clear editorial strategy here. Next, there are two good, tightly focused case studies on Brazil (Selwyn on women workers in horticulture in the Sao Francisco Valley and Vergara-Camus on sugarcane ethanol), but again neither is linked in any way to other contributions or to themes profiled in the introduction. On Venezuela, three contributions complement each other well and a semblance of debate emerges. Hetland, in a Gramscian analysis of the role of the party in the municipality of Torres, is in dialogue with Hardt and Negri on the one hand, and Michels and Weber on the other. His engaging account of local politics in Torres (population 185,275), in the central-Western state of Lara, plunges straight into ground-level detail, highlighting participatory budgeting under genuine popular control, but concluding at the same time that ‘socialism cannot be constructed in one city’, while the national and international requirements are ‘beyond the scope of this article’ (137). The implications of the study therefore remain indeterminate. Azzellini contrasts the antagonistic logics of constituent and constituted power (essentially, politics from below or above), with reference to community councils, and workers’ participation in enterprise management (cogestión) at CVG-Alcasa. On the latter, he is fairly critical, highlighting the negative impact of factionalism, corrupt and clientelistic networks and official unions, and arguing that while there is little yet to show, the ‘model from below is the only one with the capacity to transform the basic industries into productive industries within a framework of new labour relations ‘oriented towards overcoming capitalist relations’ (152). Purcell, in the following chapter, argues that ‘despite its progressive political form, cogestión lacked the scale of intervention necessary to address the material root conditions of declining productivity’ (164). Azzellini comments (152-3) that ‘it is impossible to analyse the “material potentiality of forms of ‘socialist’ production at CVG-Alcasa” ... if the contradictions in the transformation process and the different interests among the actors, and finally the struggle itself, are not taken into account’; Purcell responds that Azzellini focuses ‘exclusively on the social character of institutions’, ‘in isolation from the material bases for an alternative mode of production’, and he subjects ‘radical-voluntarist’ approaches generally to a critique from the perspective of relations of production, the ‘nationally-processed but globally-determined production of surplus value’, and ‘the prism of value-production within the social relations of rentier capitalism’ (165-7). Basing himself on Iñigo Carrera’s analysis of ground rent, the landlord state, and ground rent-dependent industrialization, and Coronil’s account of the ‘magical state’, Purcell outlines clearly and precisely the critical state of Venezuela’s capital-intensive industry in general, and CVG-Alcasa in particular as ‘an industrial capital in chronic decline’ (180), on the eve of Chavez coming to power. A more explicit rationale for ordering these chapters, and for their allocation in the sections within which they are placed, would both have improved the volume.
In sum, this edited collection does not meet its stated goal of helping the reader to improve their understanding of Marxist perspectives on Latin America in the global political economy.
This collection is unfocused, uneven and incoherent, so does little credit to the editors or publishers. It would have been significantly improved had it done more to outline and compare some currently influential Marxist perspectives on Latin America – including Marxist, Leninist, Trotskyist and Gramscian approaches, at a minimum. It would also have benefited from succinctly introducing relevant concepts in relation to these approaches (especially those of ‘crisis’ and ‘contradiction’) and addressing the region as a whole in the global political economy in the light of these as well as selected case study countries. Further, more needed doing to ensure that all contributions related directly to the theme of the book; that each individual chapter was explicitly tied in, at least in introductory and concluding sections, to the principal arguments advanced; and that the organization of the collection overall would be such as to facilitate debate and cumulative understanding. As a result, whilst there are some useful contributions, the individual contributors are poorly served, both by the editors and by the series in which the book appears.
One of the key problems with the collection is that of relevance. Neither Grigera’s critique of structuralist and neo-structuralist thought at ECLAC nor Katz’s account of the ‘global financial crisis’ help to develop the themes addressed. The first is well-informed and largely well argued, but is out of place, especially as it deals with ECLAC’s very relevant recent output only briefly and derivatively. The second is a standard overview with no attempt to turn the focus towards Latin America. As for the rest of the volume, case studies are, reasonably enough, restricted to four countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Venezuela. But no attempt is made to provide introductory background information on even the recent politics of these countries, or to set them comparatively in the broader Latin American context, while the country-specific chapters vary widely in focus and ambition. The most ambitious contribution, and the only comparative one, by Grinberg and Starosta, aims to explain diverse political forms (Brazil’s ‘modern social democracy’ and Argentina’s ‘classic populist regime’) arising from a common experience of capital accumulation through ‘the appropriation of the extraordinary mass of social wealth existing in those national spaces under the form of ground rent’ (237). What they have to say about the intrinsic unity of the world market and the manner in which ‘nationally-differentiated political forms mediate the unfolding of the underlying formal and materiality of the inherently contradictory dynamics of the accumulation of the total social capital at the global scale’ (240) is well said (though footnote 26, page 250 casts some doubt on the rigidity of those dynamics). But they make the fatal mistake of assuming that any really existing political regime can be determined on the basis of such an analysis. It may be that ‘Kirchner’s centre-left populism should be seen as the political and ideological form assumed by the renewed expansion of the specific modality taken by accumulation in Argentina’ (264), but the statement is empty unless that is the only form it could take, and that is an issue they don’t address. Among the single-country case studies, Bolivia fares worst, as Spronk (the least ambitious) unforgivably reproduces verbatim a paper on Cochabamba’s water wars first published in International Labor and Working Class History in February 2007, without acknowledgement, updating or adaptation to the supposed theme of the collection, and Webber uses a case study of TIPNIS to pursue a personal feud with a couple of his critics, with no reference at all either to the recent debates around ground rent that feature heavily in his own co-authored introduction and in chapters by Purcell and Grinberg and Starosta, or to the Trotskyist framework which animates his own work. As a result, neither chapter presents or illuminates any Marxist perspective on Latin America. On Argentina, Féliz argues for considerable continuity between neoliberalism and contemporary neo-developmentalism, but still claims that by 2010 ‘a new form of the state – ready to respond to capital’s demands but able to adapt politically to a renewed class composition’ had emerged, offering Argentina ‘a new path of successful capitalist accumulation without abandoning its dependent and peripheral character’ (71). This seems doubly at odds – theoretically and substantively – with Grinberg and Starosta, but as the two chapters do not engage with each other, one can’t be sure. Castorina repeats the argument for continuity, but with reference to a completely different set of authors (mostly not discernibly Marxist, if that matters), and again with no engagement with the other chapters on the Argentine case. It is hard to discern any clear editorial strategy here. Next, there are two good, tightly focused case studies on Brazil (Selwyn on women workers in horticulture in the Sao Francisco Valley and Vergara-Camus on sugarcane ethanol), but again neither is linked in any way to other contributions or to themes profiled in the introduction. On Venezuela, three contributions complement each other well and a semblance of debate emerges. Hetland, in a Gramscian analysis of the role of the party in the municipality of Torres, is in dialogue with Hardt and Negri on the one hand, and Michels and Weber on the other. His engaging account of local politics in Torres (population 185,275), in the central-Western state of Lara, plunges straight into ground-level detail, highlighting participatory budgeting under genuine popular control, but concluding at the same time that ‘socialism cannot be constructed in one city’, while the national and international requirements are ‘beyond the scope of this article’ (137). The implications of the study therefore remain indeterminate. Azzellini contrasts the antagonistic logics of constituent and constituted power (essentially, politics from below or above), with reference to community councils, and workers’ participation in enterprise management (cogestión) at CVG-Alcasa. On the latter, he is fairly critical, highlighting the negative impact of factionalism, corrupt and clientelistic networks and official unions, and arguing that while there is little yet to show, the ‘model from below is the only one with the capacity to transform the basic industries into productive industries within a framework of new labour relations ‘oriented towards overcoming capitalist relations’ (152). Purcell, in the following chapter, argues that ‘despite its progressive political form, cogestión lacked the scale of intervention necessary to address the material root conditions of declining productivity’ (164). Azzellini comments (152-3) that ‘it is impossible to analyse the “material potentiality of forms of ‘socialist’ production at CVG-Alcasa” ... if the contradictions in the transformation process and the different interests among the actors, and finally the struggle itself, are not taken into account’; Purcell responds that Azzellini focuses ‘exclusively on the social character of institutions’, ‘in isolation from the material bases for an alternative mode of production’, and he subjects ‘radical-voluntarist’ approaches generally to a critique from the perspective of relations of production, the ‘nationally-processed but globally-determined production of surplus value’, and ‘the prism of value-production within the social relations of rentier capitalism’ (165-7). Basing himself on Iñigo Carrera’s analysis of ground rent, the landlord state, and ground rent-dependent industrialization, and Coronil’s account of the ‘magical state’, Purcell outlines clearly and precisely the critical state of Venezuela’s capital-intensive industry in general, and CVG-Alcasa in particular as ‘an industrial capital in chronic decline’ (180), on the eve of Chavez coming to power. A more explicit rationale for ordering these chapters, and for their allocation in the sections within which they are placed, would both have improved the volume.
In sum, this edited collection does not meet its stated goal of helping the reader to improve their understanding of Marxist perspectives on Latin America in the global political economy.