Co-operatives and Banks in Bolivarian Venezuela

Hugo Chavez´s successful election, return to power after a coup, and re-election have generated a strong addition of hope for those attending to the details of social justice and the problems of the capitalist wage and industrial system.  The antagonistic position of the socioeconomically privileged and their followers has also obscured many interesting features of Chavez´s government´s accomplishments.  Venezuelanalysis.com has been a great find in my own searches. 

The New Cooperative Movement In Venezuela’s Bolivarian Process

By CAMILA PIÑEIRO HARNECKER, December 17th 2005

I arrived in Caracas in July 2005 with a few contacts at different cooperatives, anxious about how I would sort through the more than 70,000 cooperatives that the Superintendencia Nacional de Cooperativas (National Superintendence of Cooperatives- SUNACOOP) had referred to in its recent press statements. Indeed, I found cooperatives everywhere. Between one night and the next morning, I stumbled on four cooperatives in some rather unexpected places: a group of artisans in the neighborhood near my hotel, a group of tour guides who entertained children in a nearby park, the cleaning crew of an office building where I went to conduct an interview, even the taxi drivers in front of the hotel where I was staying had left their private employer to form a cooperative.

read the rest here: http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1531

Venezuelan National Assembly Passes Law Making Banking a “Public Service”

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/5880

By JUAN REARDON - VENEZUELANALYSIS.COM

Barinas, 20^th of December, 2010 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela's National Assembly on Friday approved new legislation that defines banking as an industry “of public service,” requiring banks in Venezuela to contribute more to social programs, housing construction efforts, and other social needs while making government intervention easier when banks fail to comply with national priorities.
The Law of Banking Sector Institutions, as it is formally known, is one of a dozen pro-Revolution laws being passed by the current National Assembly before the incoming assembly – and its growing anti-Chavez minority – begins legislating early next year.