“Chávez was one of us”, say the poor from the barrios in Caracas, the people throughout Latin America, and Bronx residents together with probably two million poor people in the US, who now have free heating thanks to the Chávez government. Sean Penn said on Chávez: “Today the people of the United States lost a friend it never knew it had. And poor people around the world lost a champion.” These are sad days.

In the 21st century the economy has come to provide the ground zero of our sense of self. But what does this experience of a life dominated by economic relations feel or even look like?

Historical Materialism 2012
Ninth Annual Conference (8-11 November, SOAS, London)


Weighs Like a Nightmare
Sunday 12.00-13.45  Room G50

2012 Venezuelan Elections and the Future of the Bolivarian Process

Chair: Jeffery Webber

Dario Azzellini – The Presidential Elections in Venzuela

Stephanie Pearce – Hugo Chávez’s Presidency and Anti-Imperialist Struggle in Latin America & the Caribbean

Sara Motta – The Women of the Bolivarian Revolution: Creating Voice and Strategic Silence

In this edition Chavez celebrates victory but where does Venezuela go from here? Currency woes trigger unrest in Iran but is the regime threatened? And two billion over 60s by 2050, is the world ready?
Chavez Victory - Socialist Revolution Rolling On?

Guest: Dario Azzellini, Political Scientist, University of Linz, Austria

Videos of the conference with Dario Azzellini about communal socialism in Venezuela hold at the Consulate of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela of Chicago, on March the 24th 2011.

This event was the occasion to watch Comuna under construction (94 min., 2011), a film about local self government in Venezuela by Dario Azzellini & Oliver Ressler, followed by a discussion in English/Spanish in presence of the co-director Dario Azzellini and by the book presentation of El negocio de la guerra about Private Military Contractors an paramilitaries around the globe.

While the global Occupy movement is widely seen as unprecedented, its language and organizing practices are shaped and inspired by diverse historical precedents in the United States and around the world. Sitrin and Azzellini introduce the reader to the theory and practices of the movement and explore linkages and connections toward the dream of a common language of struggle, justice, democracy and liberation.

“Ours to Master and to Own - Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present” edited by Immanuel Ness and Dario Azzellini

This excellent series of essays is essential reading for anti-capitalist activists and all those who know that we do not need our bosses.

16.3.-18.3.2012, New York City, USA