Class Strategies in Chavista Venezuela: Pragmatic and Populist Policies in a Broader Context

• Date: 01 January 2019
• Author: Steve Ellner
• Published date: 01 January 2019
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X18798796
• Subject Matter: Articles

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 224, Vol. 46 No. 1, January 2019, 167–189

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X18798796

© 2018 Latin American Perspectives

167

Class Strategies in Chavista Venezuela

Pragmatic and Populist Policies in a Broader Context

by

Steve Ellner

The governments of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro responded to the opposition’s

attempts at regime change by implementing pragmatic policies favoring businesspeople

who refused to participate in destabilization actions, as well as populist social measures

benefiting the nonprivileged. Both sets of policies have to be placed in political context. The

characterization of allegedly pro-government businesspeople as a new ruling elite referred

to as the boliburguesía fails to take into account the sharp tensions between them and the

Chavista leadership. The primary importance of social programs in the Chavista political

triumphs over an extended period of time and of the periodic initiatives that sparked life

into individual programs implicitly rules out claims regarding the government’s failure

to alleviate poverty or achieve other social objectives. The Chavista governments failed to

take full advantage of favorable periods and junctures when the opposition was demoral-

ized following defeats in order to correct the negative side effects of pragmatic and populist

class policies, such as bureaucratization and crony capitalism.

Los gobiernos de Hugo Chávez y Nicolás Maduro respondieron a los intentos de la

oposición por el cambio de régimen implementando políticas pragmáticas que favorecían

a los empresarios que se negaban a participar en acciones de desestabilización, así como

medidas sociales populistas que beneficiaban a los no privilegiados. Ambos conjuntos

de políticas deben situarse en un contexto político. La caracterización de empresarios

supuestamente progubernamentales como una nueva elite gobernante conocida como

la boliburguesía no toma en cuenta las fuertes tensiones entre ellos y la dirigencia

chavista. La importancia primordial de los programas sociales en los triunfos políticos

chavistas a lo largo de un período prolongado y de las iniciativas periódicas que aviva-

ron los programas individuales contrarresta la afirmación sobre la incapacidad del

gobierno para aliviar la pobreza o alcanzar otros objetivos sociales. Los gobiernos

chavistas no aprovecharon al máximo los períodos y coyunturas favorables cuando la

oposición se desmoralizó tras las derrotas con el fin de corregir los efectos negativos de

las políticas pragmáticas y populistas, como la burocratización y el capitalismo

amiguista.

Keywords: Hugo Chávez, Fedecámaras, Boliburguesía, Social programs, Populism

Steve Ellner taught economic history and political science at the Universidad de Oriente in

Venezuela from 1977 to 2003. Among his books are Venezuela’s Movimiento al Socialismo: From

Guerrilla Defeat to Electoral Politics (1988), Organized Labor in Venezuela, 1958–1991: Behavior and

Concerns in a Democratic Setting (1993), and Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Polarization, and

the Chávez Phenomenon (2008). He has published on the op-ed pages of the New York Times and the

Los Angeles Times and is a regular contributor to NACLA: Report on the Americas and In These Times.

798796LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X18798796Latin American PerspectivesEllner / CLASS STRATEGIES IN CHAVISTA VENEZUELA

research-article2018

168 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

On various occasions, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez explained his

government’s radicalization in the face of the opposition’s insurgency by quot-

ing Marx’s statement “The revolution sometimes needs the whip of counter-

revolution to push it forward.” Nevertheless, the hostile actions of Chávez’s

adversaries sometimes had the opposite effect—pressuring his government

and that of his successor Nicolás Maduro into modifying programs and posi-

tions and even making concessions. In these cases, the government’s aim was

to neutralize some sectors of the population and win over others in order to

block the opposition’s attempts to achieve regime change. More specifically, the

government’s response to the challenges posed by the “disloyal” opposition

consisted of pragmatic policies favoring members of the business sector as well

as populist measures benefiting the nonprivileged.1 An example of the former

was the government’s preferential treatment of businesspeople who had

refused to join the two-month general strike of 2002–2003 initiated by the anti-

government business organization Federación de Cámaras de Industria y

Comercio (Federation of Chambers of Industry and Commerce—Fedecámaras)

to force Chávez out of office. An example of the latter was the maintenance of

highly subsidized prices for basic commodities along with a highly overvalued

currency put into effect following the general strike, a system that favored the

popular sectors but eventually undermined national production.

The government’s pragmatic strategy toward the private sector and populist

strategy toward nonelite sectors, adopted in response to attempts at destabili-

zation and regime change, set in place patterns that were difficult to modify at

a future date. Populist measures, for instance, created expectations among the

general populace, which considered the resultant benefits a basic right.

Members of the middle class who received preferential dollars to travel abroad

as tourists, which in time became a virtual handout, reacted in a similar fash-

ion. Consequently, the prioritization of populist programs could not readily be

discarded in favor of efforts to stimulate productivity and industrial develop-

ment, even when the discourse of Chávez and then Maduro began to empha-

size those goals.

At no time during the extended Chavista rule did the opposition abandon

its hostile stance toward the government, which in turn was reluctant to aban-

don its pragmatic and populist policies. Beginning in 2006, the political setting

changed as the traditional business sector began to accept the government’s

legitimacy and the opposition parties abandoned their rejection of the electoral

process. With the appearance of political stability and government hegemony,

the context in which class policies were first adopted appeared to have become

irrelevant. Nevertheless, the opposition hardly ceased being “disloyal” in that

it continued to question government legitimacy in ways that sometimes led to

violence, while disinvestment from the private sector continued to generate

economic and political instability. In 2014 and again in 2017, the opposition

promoted nationwide civil disobedience and street violence (known as the

guarimba) that lasted four months with the aim of achieving regime change.

Political analysts have largely failed to grasp the cause-effect relationship

between the threats posed by a “disloyal” opposition and the implementation

of pragmatic and conciliatory policies toward members of the business sector.

There are several reasons for this oversight. In the first place, critics depicted