Noam Chomsky, Venezuela, Korea and Vietnam
Noam Chomsky got down and dirty with Venezuela back in 2015. Some of his criticisms are relevant today , although Chomsky really went over the top when he compared Venezuela and its problems with the so-called South Korean “economic miracle”. I blogged about this unfair comparison, and it’s implicit support for South Korea having sold its soul to the devil. I tried to bring my criticism to Chomsky’s attention. Part of the persona of Noam Chomsky is the belief that he tries to read all his mail and answer. I know he’s a busy guy and he was a busy guy three years ago but I still wonder what he thinks about the South Korean “economic miracle.” I still wonder, given this comparison that he made, what he would advise the government of Venezuela to do right now in the real world.
I’m going to try to bring this thing to his attention again, Chomsky that is, and for that matter the government of Venezuela.
Buthttp://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article33587 (currently a dead link - edit)
Update - the link to Chomsky's interview is dead. We have evidence though that Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro was upset about something Noam Chomsky had to say in October of 2015.
Chomsky compares Venezuela to South Korea and Venezuela's president Nicholas Maduro wants to talk with Chomsky. They ought to share watching this ten minute video. Did Chomsky know that renting 300,000 mercenaries to the United States to rape and murder Vietnamese was a big factor in South Korea's "miracle"?
A couple of weeks ago(2015) Noam Chomsky gave an interview to perfil.com that has, I think, cut many Venezuelans to the quick.
Now, personally this is one of the toughest writing assignments I’ve ever given myself. Chomsky is an icon of the left. I count myself on the left too. So many ill willed rightists attack him that anyone who draws a line between Chomsky and himself might be accused of being a rightist who is really attacking the left. On top of that much of the left adores the memory of Hugo Chavez andidealizes Venezuela that I want to choke rather than agree with any of Chomsky ' s attack on the status quo of Venezuela. Yet, through personal connection I’ve fallen in love with Venezuela and care too personally and deeply to not tell the truth.
Venezuela's situation is a mess. I've written about it here. Chomsky says the problem is corruption. Well, true- the corruption in Venezuela is monumental.
Having the world's largest oil reserves and having had year after year of high oil prices just like Chomsky says, the country has made no progress towards the goals of food sovereignty and industrial development.
Chomsky says that the legacy of Chavez is disaster. Hugo Chavez, the same man who waived Chomsky ' s book during a speech to the General Assembly and urged one and all to read this man's writing. That same Chomsky now calls the legacy of the same now dead President a disaster.
Chavez's hand picked successor Nicholas Maduro, clearly hurt, invited Chomsky to Venezuela to talk, look around and find out that he's wrong.
I wish I could advise President Maduro to shave his mustache, disguise himself as a cross country trucker and travel from Caracas to the Colombian border like I did a year ago. But he should take Chomsky with him, maybe disguised as his helper. They should take three weeks, not three days like I did, and they should park the truck in a score of town and village squares, strike up conversations, accept invitations to dinners and knock on the locked doors of Venezuela’s free medical clinics. They should visit some hospitals and chat with patients and staff.. Of course this is a fantasy. It could never happen. Too bad.
And Chomsky should shut up about comparing Venezuela to South Korea. You see it’s true that South Korea was once dirt poor and now it’s a prosperous industrial powerhouse while Venezuela was once never an industrial powerhouse but was rich in a distorted lopsided sort of way and is now poor in a lopsided and distorted way.
South Korea is rich due to a decades long brutal Stalinesque forced march to primitive accumulation. As important though is the fact that South Korea rented out 300,000 mercenaries to fight America’s war in Vietnam. Also South Korea has a nationalized banking system. Venezuela does not. South Korea followed policies opposite of the IMF and World Bank usual prescription. Protectionism, not Free Trade. FIVE YEAR PLANS, not deregulation. Magnates threatened with jail, not overseas shopping sprees.
President Maduro should probably sit down with Colonel Jose Martin Raga, Nicmer Evans, and Chavista former leaders who never rode the gravy train.
Maybe also should invite losing Presidential candidate Henry Falcon, Francisco Rodriguez of Torino Capital and some reasonable oppositionists. (This paragraph is an update.)
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