Capitalism-Division versus Socialism-Integration: Some notes about thechanges in the riverside of the vibrant Arauca

Abstract

This article intends to scrutinize the recent Venezuelan experience of socio-political transformation promoted by President Hugo Chávez, embodied in the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela of 1999. The categories to be examined in the Venezuelan Constitution are based on four basic principles for establishing a division between capitalism and socialism, defined as ownership, market and State relations, the distributionof wealth and the sense that takesfreedom. In an effort to overcome the isomorphic equivalence between legality and legitimacy of policy, the analysis of the Constitution shall be made bearing in mind the material conditions of existence. Thus, we illustrate the contrastbetween the "socialism of the 21stcentury" by the hand of "revolutionary protagonist democracy" and the construction of a "nationalist welfare regime”based on the nationalization of production, with emerging social organizations framed into thepopularand alternative economy. This framework, characterized by a subsidiary State, is marked by the presence of "bolibourgeoisie" and weak linkages with the struggles of the working class whichcaused an impact on the defeat of the referendum of 2007 and the reconstruction of the right.