Bolivia in the Age of Gas by Bret Gustafson

Abstract

Reviewed by: Bolivia in the Age of Gas by Bret Gustafson Luis Sierra Gustafson, Bret. Bolivia in the Age of Gas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020. Bolivia in the Age of Gas examines fossil fuel capitalism in twenty-first-century Bolivia. Sociocultural anthropologist Bret Gustafson analyzes how the fossil fuel industry centered in North America and Western Europe, has historically shaped, bent, and twisted the mechanism of the Bolivian state. Bolivia in the Age of Gas demonstrates how Standard Oil and the United States in the 1930s stood to benefit from the Chaco War, 1932–35, between Bolivia and Paraguay. American political and economic interests dovetailed nicely with any conflict between the two nations and would result in favorable terms for American firms to extract and commercialize fossil fuels for consumption in the Global North and among Bolivia's wealthier, more industrial neighbors. Gustafson explores the growth of what he calls the "gaseous state" from a historical perspective, placing the latest developments in gas extraction in the longue durée economic framework of oil and mineral extraction. Bolivia in the Age of Gas details how, just like silver, tin, and copper mining and oil extraction, natural gas extraction [End Page 232] also generates state violence and repression, coercive labor regimes, limited economic and social gains for most of the population, and a subjugation of local, regional, and national political sovereignty to the interests of national and transnational capital flows. In this context, Gustafson traces how the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS; Movement toward Socialism) political party envisioned a political program that slowly but surely transformed from a radical revision of the relations of the state to the people—the proceso de cambio (process of change)—toward a reactionary state that made tactical alliances with lowland elites, largely ignoring the structural economic problems that maintained Bolivia's vastly unequal society. Like other Bolivian historical reform movements, the MAS project stalled out and faced severe backlash. In the Bolivian lowlands, regionalism and autonomy became metonymic political discourses that embodied the racialized notions of the traditional political class within Bolivia. The autonomist movement of the eastern Bolivian lowland provinces employed political violence to shape their demands on the state and seek greater autonomy from the national government to retain control of the gas rents. Andean migrants to the eastern lowlands were seen as invaders who brought their disorderly politics, culture, and indigeneity. Indigenous peoples of the lowlands were ignored, disempowered, and targets of violence. Natural gas found in Guarani lands brought many fissures and tensions out into the open: political projects are co-opted, leaders are bought off or killed, the local power relations and structural conditions remain with the local indigenous and poor population aiming to capture a minuscule portion of the excess generated through state rents, employment, services, and financing in gas extractions. As the MAS government became more conservative and focused on maintaining political power and control of the state, it came to a détente with Big Gas and with Bolivian lowland elites. Bolivia in the Age of Gas asks readers to think through the contradiction of establishing a liberatory politics via the rents drawn from fossil fuel extraction. For the MAS government—or any government for that matter—to challenge the status quo, Gustafson argues that such liberatory political projects had to serve the interest of the multinational corporations and globalization, and at the same time chart a path independent of high fossil fuel prices through high fossil fuel prices—a clear contradiction in terms. Bolivia in the Age of Gas should readily serve a broad range of scholars, demonstrating how the gaseous state is a conduit through which global capitalism [End Page 233] continues to subjugate Bolivia—and places like it—to this day. Scholars of the Global South, especially those interested in the effects of the extractive economy in highly unequal societies, would benefit greatly from Bolivia in the Age of Gas as it illustrates how resource nationalism cannot escape the pressure of global capital. Scholars of business history, economic history, and institutional history could find much utility in Gustafson's approach and ideas. Bolivia in the Age of Gas insightfully and nimbly paints a complex...