Chapter 4: Negotiating alternatives to capitalism and development: Buen vivir and the
4.3 Alternatives to development: from post-development to Buen vivir
4.3.4 Buen vivir and post-extractivism
The cases of Bolivia and Ecuador show that the project of Buen vivir is very difficult to achieve in a context of extractivism. Indeed, since extractivism is the economic engine of coloniality, it is embedded in all Latin American countries with different degrees and particularities.
Scholars identify a conservative or market extractivism in Colombia and Chile (some include Peru, see 8.3.2), where the private sector plays a determinant role in the political economy of extraction, and a neo-extractivism or progressive neo-extractivism of the so-called post-neoliberal governments (for example, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil), countries that have nationalised their extractive industries or have reinforced their state extractive companies, and have nationalised or renegotiated the rents generated by foreign extractive companies, but at the same time have deepened the economic dependence on this sector (Gudynas, 2009; De Echave, 2011; Pajares et al, 2011; Azpur et al, 2011).
In the regimes that pursue progressive extractivism, rent distribution is important, but always located in the context of the continuity of the primary-exporter model (Azpur et al, 2011). Progressive governments have implemented programs against poverty which are broader and persistent, achieving good results in almost all cases, with important poverty reduction. But the problem is that in all cases extractive strategies have intensified (Gudynas, 2011), as well as social conflicts.
In general, for Gudynas (2011), the problems triggered by neo-extractivist models shows the weaknesses of the strategy of just taking one step (state presence in the economy) and waiting until this policy generates economic benefits and political conditions toward a second step. For him, it is necessary to address the two issues: market regulation and state recuperation on the one hand; social and environmental protection and economic reforms to diversify the productive chains, on the other hand. These measures entail a transition from the so-called predator extractivism to a reasonable extractivism, and the transition would end with the final arrival of a
93 necessary extractivism. The predator extractivism is highly harmful because it entails the exploitation of huge geographic areas and high social and environmental impact generated by opencast mining, pollution from oil exploitation in fragile ecological areas, abuses of agrochemicals and so forth. In the reasonable extractivism, extractive industries would fulfil the social and environmental norms, using the best technology available to reduce environmental impacts and the state would properly monitor and enforce environmental norms. In addition, there would be an adequate taxation on earnings that would be invested in industrialisation projects. Finally, the necessary extractivism would entail that only really necessary extractive activities would remain, and insofar they fulfil strong social and environmental conditions. In addition, these activities would be directly connected to productive national and regional chains to feed consumption networks focused on life quality (Gudynas, 2011).
Thus, post-extractivist strategies do not promote the prohibition of all forms of extractivism, but the exploration of paths that allow resizing some sectors in order not to depend economically on them, and to maintain only those which are really necessary and under acceptable operation conditions. These measures cannot be implemented abruptly but through a transition. For Gudynas (2011) the transition or gradual change is a necessity because it needs a growing social basis for support and many social actors would resist the changes. In addition, nowadays there is no a complete idea of the boundaries of this project: it will be forged by stages of adjustments and learning. Finally, it is important to create articulations at regional and global levels. In fact, to implement post-extractivist policies it would be necessary to coordinate prices and social and environmental requirements among Latin American countries in order to avoid the possibility that extractive industries isolate the countries that firstly implement post-extractivist policies (Gudynas, 2011).
Post-extractivism addresses the political economic factor missing in the new political and institutional reforms of Bolivia and Ecuador. In fact, if Buen vivir is going to be implemented beyond rhetorical manipulation, it must necessarily address the political economy. In that context, it is possible to construct useful articulations between the project of Buen vivir and the post-extrativist agenda.
Indeed, Buen vivir’s practical proposals encompass different policy proposals connected to the idea of overcoming the extractivist dependency, such as the promotion of associative enterprises with adequate financing and technology for communitarian management (Féliz, 2011); the preservation and construction of exchange networks and non-merchandised distribution of food directed to the defence and promotion of popular and communitarian markets (Seoane and Taddei, 2010); the socialisation of the strategic means of production under the control of the people through participative management (since the changing of management of natural resources from corporations to the state is not enough because national enterprises often operate with the same capitalist logic) (Houtart, 2011); the extension of the reserves that protect biodiversity as well as the promotion of peasant organic agriculture (Houtart, 2011); the promotion of bio- knowledge, eco-tourism, communitarian services and agro-ecological products in order to create a popular and solidaristic economy as the main tool to incorporate the redistribution in the process of generating aggregate value (Ramírez, 2010), amongst others.
94 In that scenario, post-extractivism could be conceived as the technical and macro- economic element in the political agenda of Buen vivir. The problem is to implement this agenda within state and global structures profoundly embedded in the political economy of extraction and the coloniality of knowledge and being. A key mechanism that might help to overcome this problem is the interculturalidad.