Venezuela and the hackers' revolution.

• Author: Sugar, David
• Position: Salvaging Democracy

The Third International Forum on Free Knowledge was recently held in Maracaibo, Venezuela, bringing together many people interested in the development of free software worldwide. One reason Venezuela chose to host this event is that, in January 2006, their new free software law came into effect, which mandates that all government agencies migrate to free software over a two-year period. I was invited to speak about the use of free software in telecommunications. Many of the events and presentations at the event were, much like mine, of a rather technical nature. From the many technical people present I was able to draw my own understanding of how Venezuela's economic revolution was being implemented.

The People's Ministry of Economics

Venezuela is blessed with not one but two economic ministries. First there is the old Ministry of Economics, which deals with the traditional capitalist economy. For the most part, existing industries and businesses are left alone--and left to the old Ministry of Economics. They have a different idea of how to transform society here, however, and this brings us to the second ministry.

The Ministerio Para La Economia Popular or, roughly, the People's Economic Ministry (MINEP), is tasked with transforming Venezuela into a socialist society. Here we find all manner of bright and intelligent left-thinking people who have come from around the world to work for MINEP. [1] The People's Ministry is in some ways like the socialist version of a Small Business Administration.

Rather than teaching people who wish to start small businesses to become indentured to a capitalist owner, MINEP trains and educates ordinary Venezuelans on how to run a worker co-operative. This is done, not by political indoctrination, but by providing co-ops the tools, financing, and practical training they will need in operating a socialist enterprise.

Many of these worker co-ops are composed of very small startups that typically have less than 10 people. MINEP also offers co-ops computing systems for their business needs. These systems use entirely free software, starting with the Debian GNU/Linux operating system, along with Open Office for general business use. Co-ops that go through the MINEP program are given the ability to host web sites, and these usually feature the products a co-op wishes to offer.

The MINEP co-op training program was piloted in 2004 with some 3,000 worker managed co-ops being formed. Even before the end of 2005, they had already formed over 45,000 such co-ops nationwide, and they expect to train over 700,000 Venezuelans in how to form and be part of a socialist economy by the end of 2005. This suggests that up to 40% of those that go through the MINEP program eventually do form a socialist enterprise.

Capitalism directly benefits, at most, 100,000 Venezuelans today. Many of the rest are reduced to wage slavery or otherwise indentured through it. There are already more people...