Let us not let pride or self-interest blind us to the true nature of justice

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, May 11, 2003 By: Hector Dauphin-Gloire

Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 11:56:45 -0400 From: Hector Dauphin-Gloire montonero22@hotmail.com To: editor@vheadline.com Subject: PDVSA, Legal Rights and Moral Right

Dear Editor: The recent exchange between Mr. Daniel Burnett and Mr. Gustavo Coronel was illuminating. I respect both men's point of view, and while I agree with Mr. Burnett much more than with Mr. Coronel, I feel like there are some underlying issues which neither letter fully addressed.

Mr. Burnett argues that the managers of PDVSA had no right to shut down an industry of national importance and to try and dictate the policy of their industry; that decisions about the future of PDVSA need to be made by the shareholders of the company (in this case by the State) and not by the workers and managers. Presumably, Mr. Coronel disagrees.

I have to say that in this case ... while I have no sympathy for the political, social, and economic model that Mr. Coronel believes in ... his statements are correct. I believe deeply in a socialism based on cooperative economics and worker self-management, and NOT in centralized economic power in the hands of the State.

Saying that workers in an industry should defer to the shareholders of the company is mirroring exactly what the apologists of the most right-wing forms of neoliberal capitalism argue.

For anyone who believes in equality, the idea that a man must defer in the workplace -- the place where most of us spend the greatest part of our waking hours -- to any arbitrary authority is unjust; and to any sincere believer in freedom, the idea that a person lacks control over their working life is equally hard to swallow.

This kind of control, where a person is not free, in collaboration with his fellow workers, to make decisions about his own workplace and working life, leads to alienation and turns each working hour into one more hour of drudgery.

Work is an important sphere of human life, and it should be a sphere, like others, that each person exerts control over ... either by himself or in collaboration with others. There is always a need for managers, to be sure, but these managers should come from among the workers themselves, so that there is no class separation between the one who takes orders and the one who carries them out.

The key point ... and this is one that has chronically been ignored by Leftists since the beginning of their infatuation with Marxism ... is that arbitrary authority in the workplace is EQUALLY intolerable whether it comes from a state bureaucrat or from a private capitalist.

Both capitalism and Marxism take away a man's individual or collective control over his own working life, the one giving it to the State, the other to a class of people (the capitalist class) who are separate from those that they employ, and whose primary source of income derives from their control over economic resources, and not from wages or salaries.

In truth, there is little advantage to one over the other ... being forced to take orders from the State is no better than being forced to take orders from a private individual. And until we have an economic order based on true freedom and equality, an economy of workers' cooperatives, small individual holdings, and a few State or private companies run in as democratic a fashion as possible, this state of affairs will continue.

Anyone who has ever felt used or ignored in one of their jobs ... and this is probably true of most people the world over at some point in their lives ... knows what I am speaking about.

So, in conclusion, when Mr. Burnett asks the questions: "Should PDVSA workers and managers, not the shareholders, have the right to decide about the future direction of their company?" and "Should they have the right to start a general strike to bring down the government?" my answers (in contrast to the "No" that Mr. Burnett expects) are "Yes" and "Maybe."

I believe in cooperative workers' control of economic resources, NOT in control by "shareholders" whether public or private, and so I would be a rank hypocrite if I denied that belief simply because in this case, PDVSA workers and managers are striking on behalf of a cause with which I disagree. I think that in general, workers and managers should be free to strike if they want -- certainly about economic questions that directly impact their company, and possibly about political questions as well.

Whether PDVSA had the right to strike to protest the appointment of a new leftist management, in my mind, is perfectly clear; they did. Whether they had the right to strike because they wanted to bring down the Chavez regime in my mind is less clear.

In the first case, they were merely trying to exert control over their own work environment, something which I cannot disagree with.

In the second case, they were trying to exert control over the future political course of the nation; a small but politically influential minority (the oil company workers and managers) were using their privileged political position to force a change of government.

That's not necessarily always a bad thing ... if the government is noxious enough, then it needs to go, whether a minority or the majority forces it out ... but neither is it necessarily a good thing.

Striking over political questions is quite a different thing than striking over economic questions; it can't be justified reflexively, it needs to be justified on a case-by-case basis.

Specifically, the answer is going to depend on whether or not Chavez was a corrupt tyrant who needed to be removed by any means necessary.

And that brings me to my final point.

The legal right of the oil company to go on strike is unquestionable; but that certainly does not morally excuse, in my mind, the despicable actions of those who participated in this winter's general strike or who tried their hardest to bring down one of the few governments in the world that is truly dedicated to social justice, to uplifting the poor, and to revolutionary reform.

We all have the legal right to do many things that are morally wrong. In the country where I live, I have the legal right to commit adultery, to spit at a homeless man on the street, or to write racist propaganda; nothing prevents me from doing any of those things but my sure knowledge that they are morally despicable.

The managers of PDVSA surely knew that they occupied a privileged position in their society due to their economic leverage; they surely also knew that the support for the government they hated was coming from the poorest and most suffering people in Venezuela.

Rather than throwing their lot in with those who were in dire circumstances and needed a leader to help them advance, these men chose to defend their own interests, and for the sake of maintaining their own rights and privileges ... and those of the oligarchy that controlled a hugely disproportionate share of Venezuela's tremendous wealth ... chose to bring down a government intent on redistributing that wealth.

I am not singling out any individual for blame here. Mr. Coronel, though I disagree with his viewpoint intensely, has made it sufficiently clear that he is a man of integrity who is undertaking considerable sacrifices to oppose what he sees as a corrupt tyranny.

While I believe he is wrong, I respect his intentions and integrity.

My opposition is not to the millions of Venezuelans, most of them middle class or below, who are opposed to the revolution out of sincere concerns for their country, concerns which I disagree with but respect nonetheless.

It is certainly not directed at men like Mohammed Merhi, who is currently, if I remember right, still engaged in a hunger strike unto death to protest the Chavez government ... I don't oppose men like that, although I do disagree with their politics, in fact I fear their moral force, because if there is one thing that no State can successfully resist, it is men who are prepared to give their lives for what they believe is justice.

Britain learned that lesson with Gandhi, the United States learned it with the Viet Cong, and I hope to God that the Chavez government isn't forced to learn it again today.

I hope that the Chavez government can successfully persuade Merhi that it isn't the monster he imagines, that it and he are both lovers of justice; because against people with an inner courage of spirit, anything besides respectful persuasion is doomed to fail.

Again, I'm neither talking about Coronel nor about Merhi; rather, I'm talking about the union and business leadership, as well as their allies in the media, who acted out of self-interest.

The truest statement ever of morality comes from St. Augustine, who, in the 4th century said "One precept is left to you. Love, and do as you wish; if you accept, accept through love; if you protest, protest through love; if you correct, correct through love; if you tolerate, tolerate through love. Let the root of love be within, for of that root can nothing spring but good."

What defines moral good is not what one does, but rather the actuating factors behind why one does it. Behind any mass movement there is good and bad. The movement against slavery in the US included the good (Quakers acted out of love and a hatred of injustice) as well as the bad (fanatical racists who wanted no black people in the country, slave or free).

The Falange in Spain included the bad (landowners intent on preserving their feudal privileges) as well as the good (sincere and honest young men and women shocked by the atrocities of Stalinist Russia, who believed that the only possible bulwark against the horrors of Stalinism, was Fascism).

The same action might be praiseworthy in one circumstance, because it flows from love of justice, and indefensible in another, because it flows from self-interest.

A general strike to protest a government that is genuinely ruling in its own interest and not that of the people as a whole (the classic definition of tyranny) is something good; a general strike to preserve the loss of economic privileges possessed by a particular class is in itself an example of tyranny, something not to be praised but excoriated. It is for this reason that one cannot compare the coup d'etat in Ecuador in January 2000 with that of Venezuela in April 2002.

I say again, to all those who oppose the Chavez government, ask yourself why ... is it because you would be worse off under a Chavista government ... or is it because the most destitute of Venezuela would be worse off?

And are you sure they would be worse off ... after the sorry record of capitalist governments all across Latin America at improving their situation? after the undeniable fact that the left-leaning governments in Cuba, Nicaragua, Chile and Mexico, in spite of their many flaws, were in fact able to provide some basic nutrition, health care, education and basic sense of belonging to their poorest members? after their fierce loyalty and support of President Chavez, in spite of everything?

after the cooperative gardens, health clinics, and other examples of cooperative social living and social reform that the Chavez government has begun to carry out- though with difficulty, in the face of the massive and bitter opposition?

If your answer to this question is a sincere "Yes," then, while I disagree with you, I respect your opinion. But if it is a "No", then let's all again remember what St. Augustine had to say, and let us not let pride or self-interest blind us to the true nature of justice.

Hector Dauphin-Gloire montonero22@hotmail.com