Grassroots Democracy in Venezuela

Yes, there are alternatives to the embarrassing farce that passes for American elections and the resulting corporate-owned legislatures, and those alternatives are not even European.

In South America, towns and states are experimenting with groups of local citizens developing municipal and regional budgets.

Gabriel Hetland in The Nation:

Though far from perfect, Torres’s PB is an impressive example of popular power, with decision-making authority resting with community delegates rather than bureaucrats or party leaders. Following an assembly in the mountainous parish of Manuel Murillo, I asked a teacher whether he thought PB really made sense. “Why not just leave the budget to the mayor?” I asked. Attentive to my nationality, he responded, “Why not? I’m equal to the president of the United States. If he can make decisions, why can’t I?” A man standing nearby chimed in, “In the past, government officials would stay in their air-conditioned offices all day and make decisions there. They never even set foot in our communities. So who do you think can make a better decision about what we need, an official in his office who has never come to our community, or someone who is from the community?” I heard similar sentiments in community after community, showing that in addition to producing roads, health centers and schools, PB has generated an impressive level of support for the simple yet subversive idea that ordinary people should have decision-making authority over issues affecting their lives.

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Participants in PB made it clear that the process is open to all. As one delegate told me, “It doesn’t matter what party or color you have.” And the degree of openness in Torres is a far cry from the past, when the traditional parties, Acción Democrática (AD) and COPEI, thoroughly controlled the neighborhood associations (precursors to the communal councils). Myriam Gimenez, a neighborhood association cum communal council activist, recounts, “When AD ruled, everything went to the Adeccos. When COPEI ruled, everything went to the Copeyanos.”

Participatory budgeting has produced many concrete gains over the years. The pages of Poder Popular and Comuna, a newspaper and magazine produced by the municipality’s Office of the Press, are filled with reports of the hundreds of houses, thousands of square feet of asphalt and many more projects that have resulted from PB, sometimes in conjunction with other sources of funding. During my months of traveling throughout Torres, I was told many stories of communities stretching resources beyond what they had been given. This is a testament to the dedication of citizens and local government officials rather than a reflection of the municipality’s resources. Torres is, in fact, quite poor and highly dependent upon the central government for transfers. Julio Chávez’s government did, however, municipalize the local tax collection service, which had been privatized by a previous administration. This allowed his government to take in four times the taxes collected before.

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Many lessons can be taken from Torres, but two stand out. It is first and foremost a reminder of what democracy—real democracy, that is, not the dysfunctional democracy that exists in the United States—is truly about: giving ordinary people control over the decisions that affect their lives. And second, it helps challenge simplistic assumptions about Venezuela, from starry-eyed leftist activists as well as from State Department officials and mainstream journalists.

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Torres’s PB shows that democratic deepening — in which ordinary citizens of all political persuasions are able to participate in decision-making in ways that go far beyond voting in elections — is happening in Venezuela today. It appears, however, that a bit of Brechtian crookedness may be needed to get there.

Imagine if you and your neighbors had direct control over how tax dollars were spent in your neighborhood: would the result be more or less corrupt/efficient/fair than it is now?