A Conservation Manifesto for the Venezuelan Revolution.

A SOCIALIST SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL CONTRACT

Twenty First Century Socialism sustains that the resources of the country must be available for all the inhabitants of the country (I avoid the word citizen in this essay for the exclusivist character that the word has in English). The Bolivarian process signature is the search of including more and more people on the benefits of the resources of the country. In particular those people with less representation, that often are more numerous. When a small group takes possession of a resource (whether it be, land, oil, water sources, etc) and excludes the majority from its enjoinment, the Revolution steps in and makes sure the least privileged groups also have access to the resources of the country on a just manner. We can talk about a Socialist Spatial Contract (SSC) where all the resources contained on the country are made available for all its inhabitants

Now, if we were to ask: what is the largest group of the population with least representation? A superficial analysis would suggest that the least represented people are those of the lower economic classes, with lower education level, and lower income. While it is true that this is a very substantial part of the population in Venezuela, it is also true that it is not the largest demographically. The largest demographic sector of the population is without doubt the future generations of Venezuelans. Any system that plans in staying towards the future must consider the needs of the future generations, and not only as a figure of speech. The Feeding sovereignty, industrial and technological accomplishments of the government will be of no use if we do not guarantee those levels of sovereignty to the same levels for the future generations. This element is extremely important because adding the rights of the future generations to the enjoyment of the resources of the country is the only hope for the long term, both for the people and for the environment. Clearly if we depleted all the resources to provide for the current generations we would exclude the future generations of their rightful use of those resources. Such exclusion would incompatible with the principles of the Bolivarian process.

To clear cut the forests, would exclude the future generations of the benefits that forest has to offer and it would be as abusive and as exclusivist as it is when a small group of people prevents the poor majority access to the fertile lands, or the oil revenues. This would account for an incomplete socialist model that will end up on the exclusion of the majority of Venezuelan, the Venezuelans of the future. Arguably this system of spatial socialism would be better than capitalism but it would not account for the truly egalitarian and just system we need for the future. This brief analysis shows that the only model really socialist is a Spatio-Temporal Socialist Contract (STSC) where the rights of the current people, as well as the rights of the future generations, are protected. This analysis also prompts to the concept that the only use of the environment that is legitimate in a truly socialist model is that, that does not involve any permanent damage to the environment and its diversity. It is be possible that the Venezuela might not be yet at this level of maturity but this is the certainly the path that a true socialist system must follow.