Using the language of Marxism and its ultimatist postulates James Petras is, in effect, showing how the present crisis provides opportunities to role back the Bolivarist movement in South America and any other nationalist-populist tendencies through ” the class struggle and the struggle for state power”. He may make it sound good, but it is basically the same game which we have seen the Marxists play in trying to destabilise Zimbabwe, Iran, Russia and China. Of course, South American states, like all others will be hard hit by the collapse of the Dollar/pound system, precisely because it is a global system. However, the real test for Chavez, Lula and co. is still to come: can they combine with Russia, China and others to block Washington and London’s destructive resolution of the crisis? Can they make a multipolar, alternative global agenda a reality and thus lay the basis for a new era of peace and prosperity?
James Petras
Global Research
October 28, 2008
Latin America is entering a period of profound economic recession, financial crises, collapsing stock market quotations, prices, deep devaluation of its currencies, growing unemployment, declining revenues and the prospect of a prolonged socio-economic recession. The economic breakdown, which is still unfolding, affects the entire political spectrum, extending from the far-right Uribe regime in Colombia to the social-liberal Chilean and Brazilian governments of Bachelet and Lula da Silva to the ‘center-left’ regimes of Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador and even to the leftist government of Hugo Chavez.
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