End of Cycle or Continuity of Bolivia’s Democratic-Cultural Revolution?

Abstract

Despite running for a fourth term as president and winning in the first round in October 2019’s presidential elections, Evo Morales was violently overthrown in a civilian, police, and military coup. This event provided rationales for the leftist detractors of the MAS government to float the end-of-cycle theory with regard to Bolivia. Various perspectives were involved in this debate: the approach of the postextractivist/postdevelopmentalist left, the critique of the autonomist left, the approach of the doctrinaire/revolutionary left, and the perspective of the progressive left, which is sympathetic to the Morales government. Because of a lack of understanding of the reconfiguration under way of international dependency relations under neoliberalism, the end-of-cycle theory distorts reality, specifically with regard to Bolivian politics.

A pesar de postularse para un cuarto mandato como presidente y ganar en la primera vuelta de las elecciones presidenciales de octubre de 2019, Evo Morales fue derrocado violentamente en un golpe de estado civil, policial y militar. Este evento sirvió de base para que los detractores izquierdistas del gobierno del MAS plantearan la teoría del fin de ciclo con respecto a Bolivia. En este debate se involucraron varias perspectivas: el enfoque de la izquierda posextractivista/posdesarrollista, la crítica de la izquierda autonomista, el enfoque de la izquierda doctrinaria/revolucionaria y la perspectiva de la izquierda progresista, que de hecho simpatiza con el gobierno de Morales. Debido a la falta de comprensión en torno a la reconfiguración en curso de las relaciones de dependencia internacional bajo el neoliberalismo, la teoría del fin de ciclo distorsiona la realidad, particularmente en lo que respecta a la política boliviana.

Keywords

Evo Morales End of cycle Left Neoliberalism Revolution

At the end of the twentieth century, popular and social movements emerged in South America that moved from popular protest to political organization in order to advance social change, processes that gave rise to progressive governments referred to as the “pink tide” (Ellner, 2019). Nevertheless, the change in the international context served as a pretext for leftist detractors of progressive governments to float the end-of-cycle theory. Basically, the argument consisted of the notion that progressive governments formed part of a “commodities consensus” in which they benefited from the increase in raw materials prices, which allowed them to implement social policies and in the process gain popular support. According to this thesis, as the external context drastically changed, progressive hegemony declined and the problems associated with inequality and the focus on extractivism resurfaced (Svampa, 2019: 96–97).

However, the end-of-cycle theory is not convincing in the case of Bolivia, since the country continued to display the best performance in economic and social terms in South America in spite of the reduction in commodity prices after 2014. In fact, despite running for a fourth term and winning in the first round in the October 2019 presidential elections, Evo Morales was overthrown by a civilian, police, and military coup engineered by the Bolivian oligarchy in what amounted to a counterrevolution. In this essay, I examine the various left perspectives involved in this debate. Based on the inconsistencies in the epistemological/methodological bases of these different approaches and the lack of appreciation of the reconfiguration of capitalism in its neoliberal phase, I assert that the end-of-cycle theory distorts reality in fundamental ways.

The Perspective of the Postextractivist/Postdevelopmentalist Left

For the postextractivist/postdevelopmentalist left, the expansion of extractivism is the root cause that explains the end of the progressive cycle in Bolivia and its fateful outcome with the fall of the allegedly authoritarian regime of Evo Morales in October 2019 (Svampa, 2019a: 99–100; 2019b; Gudynas, 2019). With the supercycle, the rise in commodity prices increased export revenue for the Bolivian state, which was allocated to expanding extractivist areas and in turn reinforced the traditional vicious circle of the Bolivian economy, which was always highly dependent on the foreign exchange from the export of raw materials. This revenue was allocated to public mega-works in strategic sectors in order to expand access to Bolivia’s natural resources: transportation, electricity, hydrocarbons, and mining (Gandarillas González, 2014: 115–116). An example of the enormous infrastructure projects designed to exploit extractivist areas in Bolivia was the controversial plan to build a highway through the Isodoro Sécure Indigenous National Park Territory (TIPNIS) in 2010–2011, which the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement toward Socialistm—MAS) administration justified as essential to boost the country’s development. The indigenous communities of the Bolivian Amazon opposed this extractivist project in the same way that the Guaraní opposed oil drilling in the Bolivian Chaco region (López Flores, 2017).

According to the postextractivist/postdevelopmentalist left, the MAS administration was more extractivist than the neoliberal governments that preceded it. MAS government projects hardly benefited the majority of the Bolivian people, but they did further the interests of transnational companies, the oligarchy of the agro-industrial crescent, and national industrial, commercial, and financial capital in the framework of the rentier model. “Far from encouraging any scenario of transition and exit from extractivism, the MAS government promoted the massive export of commodities by multiplying extractivist mega-projects in mining, hydrocarbons, and the soybean agro-industry” (Svampa, 2015). That is to say that the MAS administration did not move beyond a development paradigm based on the indiscriminate and irrational use of natural resources to foster the accumulation of capital. In so doing, the progressive government in Bolivia entered into a fatal contradiction between means and ends, since, according to these writers, economic growth had no natural limits (Gudynas, 2016: 44; Acosta, 2015). In this regard the limits of extractivism in Bolivia were demonstrated, since despite improvements on the social front involving a redistribution of wealth, greater exploitation of natural resources generated conflicts between the MAS government and indigenous and peasant communities in defense of their lands and natural resources (Gandarillas González, 2014: 124).

These same writers argue that, in the face of growing social protest, the MAS administration reacted with greater repression, prosecution, and criminalization of social protest. In doing so, the Morales government betrayed the basic tenets of the new Constitution of the Plurinational State of Bolivia: the pursuit of buen vivir,¹ defense of Mother Earth, and recognition of indigenous peoples’ autonomy. The final result was the erosion of democracy and the acceleration of political attrition that had as a fateful outcome the fall of the authoritarian MAS regime. Furthermore, the postextractivist left rejects the argument that a coup d’état took place, a notion that was allegedly used by the Morales government to deceive the international community and hide its extractivist/capitalist tendency. According to this line of reasoning, there was no coup d’état; Morales and Vice President Álvaro García Linera sought to perpetuate themselves in power, committing “electoral fraud in October 2019 that sparked indignation in Bolivian society and a popular mobilization against the autocracy and pseudo-left . . . government that betrayed its own process” (Villanueva Imaña, 2019).

In its analysis of the progressive government in Bolivia and the debate over the end of cycle in this country, the postextractivist left failed to take into account the reconfigurations taking place in capitalism in its neoliberal phase and the set of international dependency relations that intensify extractivism and limit the options available not only to the government of Bolivia but to those of the entire Latin America periphery (Belloni and Wainer, 2014). Another error is that it confused theoretical premises, which can be formulated speculatively, with empirical possibilities that seriously limit efforts to transcend extractivism. This becomes evident when one considers the enormous obstacles to implementing a postextractivist project to attain buen vivir, at least in the short term. Where could the financial and technological resources be obtained to drive industrialization of raw materials if not through extractivism? How could Bolivia obtain access to state-of-the-art technology if not by establishing investment agreements with the transnational companies? If it is not through the resources obtained from extractivism, where could the necessary funds be obtained to cover the most urgent demands of Bolivian society, such as food, clothing, public services, and transportation? These are fundamental problems faced by any initiative to launch postextractivist projects designed to achieve buen vivir.

Similarly, the postextractivist left failed to deal with the fact that in the 14 years of MAS administrations the transformation of the colonial structures entrenched in Bolivian society for more than 500 years was not a realistic possibility. This became evident with the resurgence of racist and coup-mongering expressions in the civic committees of Santa Cruz manifested in the November 2019 coup d’état.

Lastly, the postextractivist left remains locked into the speculative theoretical analysis completely removed from political praxis. Without taking into consideration the dimensions of realpolitik, it is impossible to understand the internal correlation of forces and the set of interests of the various social sectors that MAS confronted in order to advance in transcending neoliberalism and achieving the cultural, social and political transformation of the Andean country, what I call a “democratic-cultural revolution.” In this regard, the critique by the postdevelopmentalist left remains a mere abstraction.

The Perspective of the Autonomist Left

In the case of the autonomist left, the overthrow of Evo Morales signified the end of a harsh monopoly wielded by the MAS in the economic, political, and social spheres (Tapia Mealla, 2019). While the indigenous peasant movements maintained their autonomy and defended the common well-being of the population, the MAS was instrumental in creating a new state bureaucracy based on an alliance with the old economic power bloc controlled by agro-industrial and mining capital.

For the autonomist left, a party of peasant unions attained power in Bolivia as a result of the actions of social movements but then dismantled, split, and repressed them (Salazar Lohman, 2016). Instead of promoting social participation and enhancing the direct community and representative participatory democracy of the peasant communities and indigenous peoples, the MAS government intensified extractivism and violently repressed indigenous leaders who opposed ecocidal projects. It was also a misogynist and anticommunal government that dismantled the community networks and their organizations (Salazar Lohman, 2019; Gutiérrez Aguilar, 2019). The same government systematically infringed upon the constitutional order and opted for electoral fraud to remain in power. From this perspective, the MAS regime collapsed through implosion by intensifying its anti-indigenous, anticommunity, antidemocratic, and clientelistic nature and by reproducing the vicious cycle of power that generates state fetishism (Prada Alcoreza, 2018).

The autonomist left views the state per se as an alienated structure that reproduces social relations of capitalist exploitation. Consequently, it is impossible to achieve social transformation by taking political power, because the function of the state is to discipline and subordinate the population, to neutralize its capacity for insubordination and in this way facilitate the accumulation of capital (Gutiérrez Aguilar, 2019). Thus, whether it is a neoliberal or a progressive government, the defects of power inherent in the state will be reproduced: corruption, enrichment, authoritarianism, repression, etc. That is why the answer is not a counterpower but an antipower that goes beyond and against capital and the state.

For this reason, employment of the narrative of a coup d’état in 2018 was a deceitful tactic in which the deposed government tried to obtain international support and hide its conservative turn. According to the autonomists, the claim that a coup d’état had taken place was designed to cover up the extractivist pact between the elites and Bolivian progressivism in order to control people and facilitate their exploitation (Gutiérrez Aguilar, 2019).

However, the autonomist left committed a critical error by performing a methodological inversion—undertaking a reading of Marx based on the class struggle while discarding the importance of the objective laws that account for the development of capitalism (Modonesi, 2005: 100). But it is no coincidence that Marx began the study of capitalism with commodities as the basic category that runs through every area of capitalist society, because the product of human labor takes precisely the form of a commodity. It is thus crucial to consider the structures of control/domination at both the national and the global level so that the anticapitalist and antisystemic struggles can be effective in the achievement of their objectives and goals.

Nevertheless, the autonomists reify struggle, antagonism, and resistance over and above the domination and control exerted by capitalist relations of exploitation. For this reason, the autonomist left rejects any form of political transformation through the institutional state method: emancipation will be achieved through the self-organization of communities to retake control over the process of labor, real labor, and use-value. Thus, autonomist leftists envision a communal power that runs counter to and rejects the vertical and authoritarian institutions of capitalism. Herein lies the limitation of this approach in explaining the broader and more complex social processes of change such as what has taken place in Bolivia.

The overemphasis on struggles and confrontations at the expense of objective structural factors prevents the autonomist left from appreciating the reconfigurations displayed by capitalism in its current neoliberal phase and the international context that conditions government performance in Bolivia. No matter how revolutionary the progressive government of Bolivia may be, it is virtually impossible for the nation to escape the effects produced by the new international division of labor, which assigns some periphery regions the role of supplier of raw materials at the same time that it promotes deindustrialization. The autonomist left’s reification ignores that what occurred in Bolivia in 2019 was a coup d’état while claiming that it amounted to the overthrow of an anti-indigenous government that attempted to remain in power through electoral fraud and repression. For some who adhere to the autonomist perspective the “de facto” regime of Jeanine Añéz was a genuinely democratic transitional government and the civic committees of the Bolivian right are the true manifestation of the direct and participatory democracy of the Bolivian people (Prada Alcoreza, 2019).

In reality, the sequence of events was quite different: the Santa Cruz civic committees violently entered the Palacio Quemado demanding the resignation of the legitimate president, Evo Morales, while the police and army mutinied and allowed the followers of the Bolivian oligarchy to kidnap the leaders of MAS. Later, constitutional order was broken when the armed forces demanded Evo Morales’s resignation.² But, if the MAS government was an ecocidal, anticommunal, repressor regime, transgressor of the law, why then did the MAS candidate, Luis Arce Catacora, have broad popular support, enough to win the presidential election in the first round in 2019 with 55.11 percent of the vote? On this point, the autonomists have no response. Their hope to build an indigenous democracy through self-organization that would go against and beyond the state and capital has little possibility of being realized. Their reification of of struggle, resistance, and antagonism results in an inability to explain what has really taken place on the ground in Bolivia.

The Perspective of the Doctrinaire Revolutionary Left

Drawing on their interpretation of Marxist political economy, the doctrinaire revolutionary left members reject the end-of-cycle theory because in reality the MAS government was not a socialist regime to begin with. In essence, it promoted the accumulation of capitalist profit, defrauding an entire population that pinned its hopes on the Morales government and granted it broad support at the ballot box (Arze Vargas, 2019; CEDLA, 2019: 2). According to these leftists, Bolivia’s increased economic growth in the previous two decades was due not to greater vitality in the internal market but to the increase in external demand for raw materials. The new economic model promoted by MAS prioritized extractive activity in hydrocarbons, mining, electricity and agro-industry to the detriment of agricultural and manufacturing production for the internal market. While favoring the extractive sectors, which are highly capital-intensive, national production was neglected and the import of intermediate consumer goods and capital was promoted in order to cover internal demand (CEDLA, 2019: 13–14).

Although unemployment declined, this was due more to workers entering the informal sector, in some cases following the bankruptcy of national companies (CEDLA, 2019: 6). Moreover, in spite of the 53 percent rise in the minimum wage, real wages grew only by 1.8 percent during the 10 years of MAS administration (2006–2016) (Arze Vargas, 2016: 11). According to the doctrinaire revolutionary left, during MAS’s early years, labor income decreased from 30 percent to 25 percent while capitalist profits increased from 51.8 percent to 55 percent, and taxes obtained by the state rose from 17.4 percent to 24.5 percent (Arze Vargas, 2013: 94). Indeed, the rise in production by domestic enterprises can be accounted for by the low wages and the use of classic methods to extract absolute surplus value: an increase in the intensity of work along with an extended workday. If we add to this that a significant portion of Bolivia’s working population moved to the informal sector or migrated in order to send remittances, then a superexploitation of the labor force was produced that was even more brutal than during the years of neoliberalism (Arze Vargas, 2016: 14; CEDLA, 2019: 6–7).

Nationalization was a myth because the state did not regain control and operation of strategic sectors but rather remained in the hands of the transnationals. In the case of hydrocarbons, the change consisted of a tax reform allowing the MAS government to capture a greater portion of export surpluses through a direct tax on hydrocarbons, which enabled it to finance its “populist” policies. Meanwhile, the profits of the transnationals never stopped rising, since they benefited from tax stimuluses or oil price increases (Arze Vargas and Gómez, 2013). In this sector, nationalization was hardly anticapitalist—quite the contrary. In mining, nationalization was even more limited because it consisted only of the application of modest taxes on production. The MAS administration did promote mining cooperatives, but these enterprises only reproduced forms of extractivism and labor exploitation.

Lastly, the industrialization projects advanced by MAS were alleged to be an illusion. According to the revolutionary left, these projects were geared not toward achieving a genuine industrialization but rather toward diversifying the export basket and in the process preserving the primary export model. For the doctrinaire revolutionary left, true industrialization refers to a transformation in the form of production, in other words, “the production of machines by machines as the most complete and typically capitalist way of increasing labor productivity” (Arze Vargas, 2016: 24). That is to say, the MAS government did not conceive of industrialization in terms of a transformation of the prevailing production relations in Bolivia, as occurred in the industrialization process of the developed countries by increasing the productive capacity of labor through superseding precapitalist relations of production (Arze Vargas, 2016: 81).

In short, for the doctrinaire revolutionary left the great historical contradiction of the socioeconomic project of MAS is that it attempted to build the bases of buen vivir without changing the primary export model, and even more contradictory was that it intended to achieve socialism without promoting radical changes to overcome dependent capitalism. In any event, the democratic-cultural revolution in Bolivia was a political revolution that modified the political structure but did not transform the social relations of capitalist production or abolish private ownership of the means of production. Herein lies the limitation of this process of change in Bolivia (Stolowicz, 2016: 1122–1123; Gómez Leyton, 2017: 46).

Instead, there was a continuation of the neoliberal policies based on an external opening in order to obtain revenue that would finance the fiscal budget. Thus, the intensification of the contradictions of dependent capitalism is what explains the collapse of the Evo Morales regime and not the fallacious argument of a coup d’état (Arze Vargas, 2019; CEDLA, 2019: 2).

One fundamental mistake made by the revolutionary left is that it does not take into consideration the role played by the internal class struggle in Bolivia among the various popular forces in defending their respective sectoral interests—miners, trade unionists, peasants, indigenous peoples, professionals, workers, et al.—and the pressure brought to bear by the national oligarchy and transnational capital to maintain and intensify dependent capitalism in Bolivia. In addition, the goals of industrialization as conceived of by the revolutionary left — specifically the transformation in the social relations of largely precapitalist production— cannot under normal circumstances be resolved during a period as short as 14 years, which was the duration of the MAS government.

The Perspective of the Progressive Left

The progressive left that supported Morales posits that Bolivia was able to break with neoliberal orthodoxy by implementing a new development model and regaining control of strategic sectors of the economy through decrees nationalizing its natural resources. In the first eight years of Morales’s presidency fiscal revenue from hydrocarbon exports increased almost sevenfold, rising from US$731 million to US$4.95 billion (Arauz et al., 2019: 1).

Although it is true that the rise in commodity prices benefited all of Latin America, the MAS government’s success came from saving part of these resources and funneling the rest to public investment infrastructure, financing projects for the industrialization of raw materials, carrying out a more equitable redistribution of wealth, and funding social programs for marginalized groups. This fostered the internal market surge that in turn produced high levels of economic growth even after the spike in commodity prices had ended (CEPAL, 2019b).

An unorthodox economic policy that broke with International Monetary Fund (IMF) dictates complemented the strategy. The MAS administration strongly criticized the autonomy of the Banco Central de Bolivia (BCB) and placed it at the service of national development. The BCB implemented a flexible policy of monetary expansion to reduce interest rates and finance private sector productive projects with advantageous conditions. This economic policy did not generate inflation because the monetary authorities regained control of the financial system through a combination of disincentives and regulations to reduce the proportion of dollars from 34 percent in 2008 to 1 percent in 2012 and reinforce the Bolivian peso. The former minister of economy and finance and current president of Bolivia, Luis Alberto Arce Catacora, called this strategy the Bolivianization of the economy (Arce Catacora, 2020: 366–368).

Although it is true that the new development model implemented by MAS was still based on extractivism and the capitalist economy, the fact that management/control of the development model rested with the state represented a fundamental change with regard to the handling of the economic and social policy compared with the one conducted under neoliberalism, in which policies were dictated by the interests of those who benefited from the external market (Arce Catacora, 2020: 207–213).

The change in the development model and outstanding management in economic policy brought positive results on economic and social fronts, which were recognized by international organizations such as the Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean—ECLAC), the World Bank, and the IMF. In the 14 years of MAS government, Bolivia registered an average economic growth rate of 4.9 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), far higher than that in the rest of the region (CEPAL, 2019a: 1). These high growth rates allowed Bolivia to significantly reduce moderate poverty from 60 percent in 2006 to 35 percent in 2018 and extreme poverty from 37.7 percent in 2006 to 15.2 percent in 2018 (Arce Catacora, 2020: 387). The economic upturn enabled Bolivia to reduce unemployment, registering an urban unemployment rate of 4.27 percent in 2019 and raise the minimum wage above the rate of inflation, set at 2,122 bolivianos (US$305) in 2019 (CEPAL, 2019b).

Added to these achievements was progress in reducing inequality. The Gini index was 0.60 in 2005 and by 2012 had dropped to 0.47. Progress in increasing life expectancy and reducing infant and maternal mortality was also significant: in 2003 the infant mortality rate was 54 per1,000 live births and by 2015 it was 39. Maternal mortality dropped from 295 in 2006 to 190 in 2012. On December 20, 2008, Bolivia declared itself to be an “illiteracy-free territory,” acknowledged by UNESCO. More specifically, 96 percent of Bolivians over 15 years of age now know how to read and write (Arce Catacora, 2020: 385–397).

The principal macroeconomic variables also registered stable performance throughout the entire MAS administration. Inflation recorded an annual percentage variation of only 1.5 percent. The exchange rate held steady at 6.9 bolivianos per dollar, interest rates remained low, between 5 and 6.7 percent, and international reserves amounted to US$8 billion at the end of August 2019, equivalent to more than three times the level of foreign reserves conventionally considered adequate by IMF standards (Arce Catacora, 2020: 344–352).

Similarly, the agrarian reform carried out by the MAS included the redistribution of underutilized land in order to increase production. In fact, the expansion of agricultural production kept inflation rates low and fostered economic growth despite contraction in the hydrocarbon and mining sector due to the decline in international prices (CEPAL, 2019a; Arce Catacora, 2020: 282–283).

The achievements of the MAS government occurred not only in the economic sector. Bolivia has witnessed the greatest social and egalitarian revolution ever seen in the country. Indigenous peoples, who are the demographic majority, attained positions of popular representation (Hernández Navarro, 2012; García Linera, 2013: 8–9). At the same time, there was a transformation of the state that included a renovation of liberal representative democracy as well as the introduction of various mechanisms for deliberation and the encouragement of grassroots participatory democracy practiced by indigenous and peasant communities. The outcome was a post-neoliberal form of envisioning politics (Aceves López and Reyes Rodríguez, 2011).

The Bolivian right reacted by designing a strategy to overthrow Evo Morales. This occurred through a civilian, military, and political coup led by the civic leaders of eastern Bolivia, where the dominant political class is composed of agro-export latifundistas who never accepted the idea of an indigenous president of their nation (Borón, 2019).

But beyond emphasizing the coup-mongering tactics employed by the Bolivian right, many of those who support MAS conducted an exercise in self-criticism. One mistake was the launching of the candidacy of Morales and García Linera for a fourth term after 51 percent of the population had said “No” in the February 2016 referendum. By not abiding by the result of the vote, the party provided the right with a justification for its coup objectives. In this regard, the movement for change had problems renewing its leadership and became “Evo-dependent” (Aceves López, 2016).

Another self-criticism was that the leaders of important social movements had been corporatized, and MAS had become an electoral apparatus and job bank and in the process almost completely absorbed the social movements to the point of corporatizing and immobilizing them (Itzamná, 2019). A related problem was MAS’s tendency to reproduce the vertical and bureaucratic form of organization of the traditional political parties. Many social movement activists were displeased with MAS’s leadership because of the vertical designation of candidates. It was necessary to restore the collective participation of grassroots assemblies in choosing candidates and reestablish the organic link between the political party and social movements (Itzamná, 2019).

Nonetheless, I should make a brief clarification about the conflictive and pragmatic relationship that existed between the social movements and the MAS government. Social movements have played a fundamental role in advancing the current process of change whose goal is to put an end to neoliberalism in Bolivia. Their importance also lies in their capacity to rebuild the social fabric and defend their territory and autonomy in the face of extractivist projects. Although at times adopting intransigent positions, the social movements have displayed a negotiating ability with the MAS administration because of the pressure they have exerted through demonstrations, strikes, blockades, etc. For this reason, the social movements have gained political concessions and material support that benefit their communities, such as the building of highways, access to credit, education, and health care (Cuiza, 2018).

As part of this strategy, the social movements nominated members of their organization to participate as legislators and public officials in the MAS government in order to reinforce organizational identity at the regional level but within the general limits established by the state. This pragmatic approach was evident in the support given by the Pacto de Unidad³ (Unity Pact) to the government of Luis Arce Catacora against possible coup attempts by the Bolivian right in late 2021. In return, among other demands, the social movements are pressuring for an equitable distribution of control over the Indigenous Fund, financed by the surpluses obtained in the exploitation of the country’s hydrocarbon resources (Condori, 2021).

Lastly, another obstacle faced by the MAS government, paradoxically the result of its success in economic management and social policies, was the rise of a new popular and indigenous middle class and the expansion of the traditional middle class, which improved its living standards through the more equitable redistribution of wealth. However, the traditional middle class is conservative and consumerist. In this regard, according to the critique of many MAS supporters, the government should have been more concerned with subjectivity, that is, the ideological struggle of building a cultural counterhegemony to counteract consumerist neoliberal mentality (Valenzuela Feijóo, 2020: 29–30).

Nevertheless, for these same MAS supporters, the coup d’état did not signify an end to the cycle of progressivism in Bolivia. The economic and social achievements made during the progressive phase explain the popular support obtained by MAS, allowing it to win in the October 2020 elections. As the current president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Luis Arce Catacora, pointed out at the time, “You cannot destroy a process that generated such economic and social prosperity for the Bolivian people through a coup d’état” (Hernández Navarro, 2020: 10).

Dependency and the Limits of Progressivism in Bolivia

One of the aspects omitted by the leftist detractors of progressivism is the complex challenges facing any government in Bolivia as a result of its status as a dependent nation. Dependency has played a central role in conditioning the political life of the South American periphery, including Bolivia. The Cuban revolutionary experience (1953–1959) pervaded the political vision of the popular movement and the left and contributed to the rise to power of progressive governments in the 1960s and 1970s, but these efforts were violently repressed by bloody military dictatorships that were installed in South America (Santalla Vargas, 2009). In the case of Bolivia, the military dictatorships (1964–1980) were characterized by a lenient policy on the exploitation of natural resources that favored U.S. and British economic interests. These governments squandered the revenue obtained from high oil prices and from greatly elevated levels of foreign debt in order to import high-, medium-, and low-technology goods from the developed countries (the United States, Germany, and Japan), reinforcing the dependent nature of the Bolivian economy.

The primary-exporter nature of Bolivia was reinforced during the peak years of neoliberalism (1980–2000) , as raw material exports went mainly to the United States, Argentina, and the United Kingdom while its imports came mainly from the United States and MERCOSUR members Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. At the same time, transnational companies modified their production strategy on a global scale by fragmenting the various phases of the production process and relocating them to other countries or regions outside the industrial centers to create global chains with the goal of reducing production costs and increasing profits (Kreimerman, 2017: 6). During these years, Brazil and Argentina became strategic platforms through which domestic capital and the transnationals export capital and control the markets and raw material supply of their neighbors, including Bolivia (Zibechi, 2012). Both Brazil and Argentina have a high demand for Bolivian energy resources (crude oil, natural gas and electricity), but both countries also provide consumer goods and capital assets to Bolivia.

Lastly, foreign pressure exerted by the United States is a key element that complicates the international context faced by Bolivia’s progressive government. Even though during Morales’s presidency, the United States reduced commercial exchange with Bolivia, it is still highly dependent on the hydrocarbons and minerals of the Andean nation, which are strategic to U.S. national interests (Borón, 2012; Bruckman, 2012: 36–38). In the age of globalization, it is extremely difficult for a single country to isolate itself or delink from the world economy or to structurally modify the new international division of labor. Owing to this situation, the MAS administration implemented, in a pragmatic way, a post-neoliberal development model.

Conclusion

In spite of the coup d’état that overthrew Bolivia’s legitimate president Evo Morales, the process of change that began in 2006 did not end in 2019 but rather continued with the victory obtained by Luis Arce Catacora in the October 2020 elections. These events demonstrate that the removal of leftist leaders from power, whether democratically at the ballot box or through soft or hard coups, has not meant the end of the progressive cycle.

Bolivian events need to be placed in the context of the long-term process of structural change based on the reconfigurations of capitalism on a global scale and the systemic crises generated by neoliberalism. The limits faced by the process of change in Bolivia are largely external because of the reprimarization imposed by the new international division of labor, but endogenous factors also exist because of the internal class struggle and the ambitions of a Bolivian oligarchy that seeks to regain political power. These difficulties are well understood by the social movements and popular organizations in Bolivia, which have developed the capacity for negotiation and political pressure to obtain concessions and material support from the MAS government.

MAS’s detractors on the left fall into “voluntarism” by demanding immediate and radical solutions to overcome the structural problems affecting Bolivia without considering the reprimarization imposed by the new international division of labor and the pressure exerted by the Bolivian oligarchy to reinstate neoliberalism. The end-of-cycle hypothesis that many of these critics embrace distorts reality, as shown by more recent events in Bolivia and elsewhere throughout the region. Capitalism in its neoliberal stage requires that progressives reconcile ideological principles with political pragmatism. Taking into consideration this reality stemming from transformations at the global level, it can be said that the MAS government’s detractors on the left contribute to strengthening the asymmetry between domination and resistance (Santos, 2019: 12). This is especially unfortunate because, while capitalist domination is largely unified and coordinated, resistance from the left is fragmented, thus limiting the possibilities for implementing a post-developmentalist project based on buen vivir.

Footnotes

Notes

Jorge Hugo González Paredes is a professor and researcher in the School of Economics at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico. Victoria Furio is a translator and conference interpreter living in Yonkers, NY.

References

Aceves López

Liza

2016 Aprender a perder. Puebla: BUAP/ Educación y Cultura.

Aceves López

Liza

Reyes Rodríguez

Nydia

2011 “Bolivia: crisis neoliberal y reconfiguración de los política,” pp. 131–166 in Ibarra

Carlos Figueroa

Díaz

Blanca Laura Cordero

(eds.), ¿Posneoliberalismo en América Latina? Los límites de la hegemonía neoliberal en la región? Mexico City: ICSyH- BUAP/ Juan Pablos Editores.

Acosta

Alberto

2015 “¿Fin de ciclo de los gobiernos progresistas en América Latina?” Memoria, no. 256, 38–43.

Arauz

Andrés

Bunker

Andrew

Johnston

Jake

Weisbrot

Mark

2019 La transformación económica de Bolivia: Políticas macroeconómicas, cambios institucionales y resultados. Washington, DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Arce Catacora

Luis Alberto

2020 Un modelo económico justo y exitoso. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Arze Vargas

Carlos

2013 “La política económica del MAS: ¿Hacia el Vivir Bien o a la consolidación del capitalismo.” Revista Willka 6: 70–100.

Arze Vargas

Carlos

2016 Una década de gobierno: ¿Construyendo el Vivir Bien o un capitalismo salvaje? La Paz: CEDLA.

Arze Vargas

Carlos

2019 “De la impostura ‘socialista e indígena’a la huidad de Evo.” November 11. https://cedla.org/reflexiones-sobre-la-crisis/de-la-impostura-socialista-e-indigena-a-la-huida-de-evo/ (accessed July 14, 2020).

Arze Vargas

Carlos

Gómez

Javier

2013 “Bolivia: ¿el ‘proceso de cambio’ nos conduce al vivir bien?” pp. 45–173 in Lander

Edgardo

Arze

Carlos

Gómez

Javier

Ospina

Pablo

(eds.), Promesas en su laberinto: Cambios y continuidades en los gobiernos progresistas de América Latina. La Paz: IEE/CEDLA/CIM.

10.

Belloni

Paula

Wainer

Andrés

2014 “La bifurcación de la periferia a partir de la internacionalización del capital: el rol de América Latina en la economía mundial.” Paper presented at the international conference of FLACSO-ISA.

11.

Borón

Atilio

2012 América Latina en la geopolítica del imperialismo. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Luxemburg.

12.

Borón

Atilio

2019 “El golpe en Bolivia: cinco lecciones.” November 10. http://atilioboron.com.ar (accessed February 20, 2020).

13.

Bruckman

Mónica

2012 Recursos naturales y la geopolítica de la integración sudamericana. Lima: Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales Perúmundo/Fondo Editorial José Carlos Mariátegui.

14.

CEDLA (Center for Latin American Research and Documentation) 2019 “La herencia del MAS: Rentismo, subsidios y pobreza ultidimensional.” December 19. https://cedla.org/publicaciones/obess/alerta-laboral-86-rentismo-subsidios-y-pobreza-multidimensional/ (accessed October 18, 2021).

15.

CEPAL (Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe) 2019a Balance preliminar de las economías de América Latina y el Caribe. Santiago de Chile: CEPAL.

16.

CEPAL (Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe) 2019b Estudio económico de América Latina y el Caribe. Santiago de Chile: CEPAL.

17.

CIDH (Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos) 2019 Informe sobre la situación de los derechos humanos en Bolivia después de las elecciones del 20 de Octubre de 2019, Washington, DC: CIDH.

18.

COMTRADE (Commodity Trade Statistics Dababase) 2020 “United Nations commodity trade statistics dababase.” July 30. https://comtrade.un.org (accessed October 20, 2021).

19.

Condori

Edwin

2021 “La CIDOB dice que está firme con el ‘proceso de cambio’ y pide el Fondo Indígena,” October 3, https://www.la-razon.com/nacional/2021/10/03/la-cidob-dice-que-esta-firme-con-el-proceso-de-cambio-y-pide-el-fondo-indigena/ (accessed November 21, 2021).

20.

Cuiza

Paulo

2018 “Gobierno, FAM y Pacto de Unidad acuerdan ‘distribución equitativa’ de recursos del Fondo de Desarrollo Indígena.” July 26. https://www.la-razon.com/nacional/2018/07/26/gobierno-fam-y-pacto-de-unidad-acuerdan-distribucion-equitativa-de-recursos-del-fondo-de-desarrollo-indigena-2/ (accessed November 21, 2021).

21.

Díaz

Mauricio

2021 “El Pacto de Unidad decide formar comisión para ‘erradicar pititas’ de las entidades públicas.” La Razón, October 27. https://www.la-razon.com/nacional/2021/10/27/el-pacto-de-unidad-decide-formar-comision-para-erradicar-pititas-de-las-entidades-publicas/ (accessed November 21, 2021).

22.

Ellner

Steve

2019 “Venezuela and the setbacks of the Latin American left: what does it all mean?” Interview by Alan Freeman, April 20. https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/venezuela-and-the-setbacks-of-the-latin-american-left-what-does-it-all-mean (accessed December 25, 2021).

23.

Gandarillas González

Marco Antonio

2014 “Bolivia: la década dorada del extractivismo,” pp. 103–132 in Nava

Pablo Villegas

González

Marco Antonio Gandarillas

(eds.), Extractivismo: Nuevos contextos de dominación y resistencias. Cochabamba: CEDIB.

24.

García Linera

Álvaro

2013 Geopolítica de la Amazonía: Poder hacendal- patrimonial y acumulación capitalista. La Paz: Vicepresidencia del Estado Plurinacional.

25.

Gudynas

Eduardo

2016 “Los progresismos sudamericanos: ideas y prácticas, avances y límites,” pp. 27–61 in Gudynas

Eduardo

Svampa

Maristella

Acosta

Alberto

(eds.), Rescatar La Esperanza: Más allá del neoliberalismo y el progresismo. Barcelona: Entre Pueblos.

26.

Gudynas

Eduardo

2019 “Crise boliviana evidencia contradições políticas dos últimos anos: Entrevista especial com Eduardo Gudynas.” Instituto Humanitas Unisinos. November 20. http://gudynas.com/publicaciones/entrevistas/(accessed December 20, 2021).

27.

Gutiérrez Aguilar

Raquel

2019 “Bolivia: organizando el sentido para navegar la tremenda complejidad.” November 19. http://zur.org.uy/content/bolivia-organizando-el-sentido-para-navegar-la-tremenda-complejidad (accessed October 12, 2021).

28.

Gómez Leyton

Juan Carlos

2017 “Bolivia: un estado, una nación y una democracia: ¿Poscolonial o anticolonial?” pp. 11–26 in Leyton

Juan Carlos Gómez

(ed.), Bolivia hoy: ¿Una democracia poscolonial o anticolonial? Santiago de Chile: Ediciones Escaparate/CLACSO.

29.

Hernández Navarro

Luis

2012 “Entrevista a Álvaro García Linera, vicepresidente de Bolivia: ‘El pueblo boliviano vive la mayor revolución social.’” La Jornada, February 7.

30.

Hernández Navarro

Luis

2020 “Entrevista a Luis Arce: ‘Un golpe de estado no puede destruir un proceso que da prosperidad a un pueblo.’” La Jornada, November 2.

31.

Itzamná

Ollantay

2019 “Movimientos sociales en Bolivia, ¿Del poder a la resistencia?” November 30. www.rebelion.org (accessed May 7, 2020).

32.

Kreimerman

Roberto

. 2017 “Contexto económico en América Latina: perspectivas y tendencias para la transformación social- ecológica.” Fundación Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 1–30. December. http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/mexiko/13945.pdf (accessed June 10, 2019).

33.

López Flores

Pavel Camilo

2017 “Defensa de territorios indígenas en las tierras bajas de Bolivia: derechos colectivos, neoextractivismo y autonomia.” e-cuaderno CES 28: 118–140.

34.

Modonesi

Massimo

2005 “Teoría y praxis: la experiencia del obrerismo italiano.” Revista Bajo el Volcán 9: 95–108.

35.

Prada Alcoreza

Raúl

2018 “El mundo paralelo del MAS.”. January 1. http://www.rebelion.org (accessed September 10, 2020).

36.

Prada Alcoreza

Raúl

2019 “Sobre la crisis múltiple del Estado-nación en Bolivia.” November 16. https://www.servindi.org (accessed September 12, 2020).

37.

Salazar Lohman

Huáscar

2016 “Lo que es neoliberalismo no pudo, el MAS lo está logrando.” September 28. https://rebelion.org/lo-que-el-neoliberalismo-no-pudo-el-mas-lo-esta-logrando/ (accessed October 11, 2021).

38.

Salazar Lohman

Huáscar

2019 “Bolivia: Las dos mitades de la historia del desastre que desató la violencia.” November 26. https://www.ramonacultural.com/contenido-r/bolivia-las-dos-mitades-de-la-historia-del-desastre-que-desato-la-violencia/ (accessed October 11, 2021).

39.

Santalla Vargas

Elizabeth

2009 “Bolivia,” pp. 153–170 in Ambos

Kai

Malarino

Ezequiel

Elsner

Gisela

(eds.), Justicia de transición: informes desde América Latina. Montevideo: Fundación Konrad-Adenauer.

40.

Santos

Boaventura de Sousa

2019 “Evo Morales: el indio fuera de lugar.” December 7. http://periodistasunidos.com.mx (accessed April 10, 2020).

41.

Stolowicz

Beatriz

. 2016 El misterio del posneoliberalismo. Vol. 2. La estrategia para América Latina. Bogotá: ILSA/Espacio crítico Ediciones.

42.

Svampa

Maristella

2015 “Termina la era de las promesas andinas.” August 25. https://www.sinpermiso.info/textos/boliviaecuador-termina-la-era-de-las-promesas-andinas (accessed November 26, 2019).

43.

Svampa

Maristella

2019a “Democracias defraudadas: Evo Morales: inclusión y personalismo” November 14. https://www.clarin.com/revista-enie/ideas/evo-morales-inclusion-personalismo_0_xuVSOjnS.html (accessed December 18, 2021).

44.

Svampa

Maristella

2019b Las fronteras del neoextractivismo en América Latina: Conflictos socioambientales, giro ecoterritorial y nuevas dependencias. Bielefeld: CALAS.

45.

Tapia Mealla

Luis

2019 “Crisis política en Bolivia: la coyuntura de disolución de la dominación masista.” November 19. http://www.cides.edu.bo/index.php/interaccion/noticias-f/264-crisis-politica-en-bolivia-la-coyuntura-de-disolucion-de-la-dominacion-masista (accessed July 16, 2020).

46.

Valenzuela Feijóo

José

. 2020 “Bolivia: ¿una tragedia sempiterna?” pp. 17–28 in Catacora

Luis Alberto Arce

(ed.), Un modelo económico justo y exitoso: La economía boliviana, 2006–2019. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

47.

Villanueva Imaña

Arturo

2019 “El invento de golpe de Estado como coartada.” December 12. https://www.bolpress.com/2019/12/02/el-invento-del-golpe-de-estado-como-coartada/ (accessed December 20, 2021).

48.

Zibechi

Raúl

2012 Brasil potencia: Entre la integración regional y un nuevo imperialismo. Bogotá: Ediciones Desde Abajo.