Abstract
Differential and absolute ground rent as extraordinary profit that remains permanent due to private ownership of non-reproducible conditions of production (Marx 2000) may be disputed by different classes and fractions of classes. The history of Venezuela can be analyzed as the history of this dispute over oil rent, mediated by the State. In this article, we will first study the amount of oil rent and the different ways by which it is appropriated, and second, its impact on capital accumulation of the industrial and non-oil sector as a whole. Last, we will analyze the particularities of oil rent distribution under the Chavist government compared to this distribution under former governments and its impact on the working class's standard of living.
Highlights
Venezuela’s economic history has shown strong industrial growth since the mid-20th century and from 1960 to 1970, generally related to the Industrialization by Import Substitution model
The growth of income per worker generated by the manufacturing sector was at a similar level to the USA in the late 1960s
In the case of Venezuela, these interpretations cannot explain the reason for which, if the oil revenue windfall is the cause of the malfunction of capital accumulation in the industrial sector, the oil boom was followed by a strong expansion of capital accumulation during the 1960s and 1970s, in the industrial sector, with an increase in fixed capital stock, from 1974 to 1979 and 500% growth during the boom in oil prices
Summary
The measurement of oil rent and its distribution over time is the fundamental step required for the rest of our analysis. The fragmentation of the working process and the expansion of exports led by the industrialization in East Asia based on lower wages resulted in an industrial crisis and an increasing relative overpopulation for capital in Venezuela (and Latin America) In this context, the rent distributed by the state this past decade has allowed the reproduction of increasingly obsolete capital (which, as shown by our measurements, received the largest amount of oil rent) and the containment of a politically active fraction of the working class (the relative overpopulation) that have had a higher standard of living as a result of expanded social policies, but without changing its nature. Regime, there has been no qualitative change but an important quantitative change in oil rate distribution
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