The mass media present contemporary Venezuela as a world of massive shortages and government mismanagement, while some on the left are questioning their solidarity with a political process that today -- with the loss of the historical leader Hugo Chávez and rock-bottom oil prices -- seems to have run out of steam. In this talk Chris Gilbert and Cira Pascual Marquina, professors of Political Science at the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela and producers of the marxist television program "Escuela de Cuadros", will put the current Venezuelan crisis in context, explaining its long-term roots in a dependent capitalist economy. In fact, the problems that Venezuela faces are shared by other countries in the region and in the Global South more generally. The solution to these problems, far from requiring foreign intervention, would necessarily involve Venezuela and the Latin American region striking its own course and further distancing itself from the dictates of global capitalism.
Chris Gilbert and Cira Pascual Marquina are professors of Political Science at the Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela and producers of the marxist television program Escuela de Cuadros in the Venezuelan state channel Vive TV. They contribute frequently to the sites Rebelion.org and Counterpunch.org, and have recently published two compilations, ¿Para qué sirve El Capital? and ¿Por qué socialismo? Reactivando un debate.
