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Catalyzing worker co-ops & the solidarity economy

Bolivarian socialism

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January 16, 2024

Worker Control in a Capitalist Environment: Voices from Indorca (Part II)

Summary

Industrias del Orinoco, C.A. (Indorca) is a factory without bosses in the industrial city of Puerto Ordaz in Bolívar state, the home of Venezuela’s basic industries. Indorca workers carried out a heroic three-year struggle to gain control of the factory after the former owner brought it to a halt. Since 2015, when Venezuela’s Ministry of Labor extended a mandate giving the workers control over Indorca, the enterprise has been democratically managed by the women and men who produce here day in and day out.

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January 1, 2024

A Factory without Bosses

Summary

Industrias del Orinoco, C.A. (Indorca) is a factory without bosses in the industrial city of Puerto Ordaz in Bolívar state, the home of Venezuela’s basic industries. Indorca’s workers carried out a heroic three-year struggle to gain control of the factory after the former owner brought it to a halt. Since 2015, when Venezuela’s Ministry of Labor extended a mandate giving the workers control over Indorca, the enterprise has been democratically managed by the women and men who produce here day in and day out.

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May 25, 2023

Venezuela's Commune Experiment

Summary

Venezuela's communes are an attempt to address some of the shortcomings of cooperatives and state-owned socialist factories by addressing not just economic production but other social relationships like parenting and gender relations at the grassroots level.

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April 17, 2023

The Advance of the Commune in Venezuela

Summary

10 years after the death of Comandante Hugo Chávez Frías, “commune or nothing” remains the battle cry of the Venezuelan people advancing in the Bolivarian revolution

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February 9, 2023

'News from Nowhere' – Building Communal Life in Venezuela

Summary

What makes communes and their advances so important? To explain their significance, one has to appeal to something that is not immediately visible: social relations and especially relations of production.

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October 6, 2022

Cecosesola of Venezuela Wins Right Livelihood Award!

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Summary

Venezuelan cooperative network Cecosesola has won the 2022 Right Livelihood Award.

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January 10, 2022

Lessons from Venezuela's Social Economy

Summary

Michael Lebowitz shares his perspective on the social economic models in Venezuela and Yugoslavia. Lebowitz highlights the importance of self-actualization through protagonism and how the most successful of these models focused on solidarity over self-interest.