?I T:g.

E N

M;rGrcAr, SurTE
NATURE, MONEY, AND

MODERNITY IN VENEZUELA

?lurnanlo 9oroni(

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHIC,AGO PRESS

CHICAGO & I.ONDON
 Para Andrea y Mariana,
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 6o637 con Julie,
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
O 1997 by The Univeniry of Chicago en la memoria de Lya Imber de Coronil
All righs reserved. Published 1997
Printed in the United States of America

0605040302oroo99 23+5
ISBN: o-zz6-r r60r-8 (cloth)
ISBN: o-zz6-r r6oz-6 (paper)

Libmry of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Coronil, Femando
The magical state : nahrre, money, and modemity in Venezuela /
Femando Coronil.
P cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN o-zz6-r 16or-8 (alk. paper).-ISBN o-226-rt6oz-6 (alk.
paper)
r. Venezuela-Politics and govemment-2oth century. z. Petroleum
industry and trade-Venezuela-History. I. Tide.
JL:8:r.C6Z rssT
3o6.2'og87-dc2r 97-8ooo
CIP

@ Th. p.p.. rred in this publication meets the minimum requirements

of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 239.48-1984.
 INrnoDUCTroN:
Tur Mncrcnl Srnrr
AND OCCTDENTAI.,ISM
We never had to build many theaters in this country. Why should we? The
normative structure of power was always our best stage . . . 'W'here did we
get our public instirutions and our notion of "state" from? From a hat,
f.om, .or.rtirr. trick of prestidigit"tlo,rl.lTiitti ilie d.velopment of the
oil industry a cosmogony was created in Venezuela. The state acquired a
providential hue. From a slow evolution, es slow as everything that is re-
lated to agriculture, the state underwent a "miraculous" and spectacular
development. It would be suicidal for a presidential candidate in Venezuela
not to promise us paradise because the state has nothing to do with reality.
The state is a magnanimous sorcerer. . . qil is fantastic and induces fan-
..l tasies. The announcement that Venezuela was an oil country created the
illusion of a miracle; it created, in practice, a culture of miracles . . . Oil
wealth had the power of a myth. Betancourt, Leoni, and Cddera did not
go very far in this "Venezuelan dream" because our fiscal income did not
allow it; we were rich, but not that rich. But then came the other P6rez,
Carlos Andr6s P6rez, and we found the phrase that defined us. W'e were
EI
1988 presidential
campaign' (Archivo building the Great Venezuela. Carlos Andr6s P6rez was not a president.
during the
Carlos Andr6s P6rez He was a magician, a magician who was capable of propelling us toward a
Ivonne Barreto')
i,"*.trj. nntto: hallucination that made the exhibitionism of P6rezJim6nez seem pale in
comparison. PlrezJimlnez decreed the dream of Progress. The country
did not progress; it got fat. [The rule] of P6rezJim6nez was a d6but, that
of Carlos Andr6s P6rez was a flamboyant revival.

Josi lgnacio Cabrujas

fitting thatJos6 Ignacio C.!IUs, an acclaimed writer of plays and

television dramas who was intimately familiar with local forms
-believe in Venezuela, became one of the country's most per-
political commentators. Invited by the Presidential Comrnission
Reform (COPRE) to express his views on Venezuelan politics,l
attention to what was there for everyone to see yet had eluded

I. Lusinchi decreed the creation ofthe Presidential Commission for State Refom
r7 December 1984 in order to promote the democratization ofthe state. For a discus-
that places it in the context ofvarious attempts to reform the Venezuelan state,
and L6pez Maya r99o: 57- r 16. 1
2 INTRODUCTION THE MAGICAL STATE AND OCCIDENTALISM
social the deification of the state in contemporary political liG in of progress, " and the first presidency of Carlos Andr6s
P6rez 9974-79),
which for him represents this myth,s hallucinatory
"revival." While p6rez
- RtEJcting on collectively lived illusions, Cabrujas relates the state's dictator andptrez a democratic leader CabLuj3q
providential appearance to its worldly materiality and higtrlights the cultural both , 9qg-
ted the
than
and political effects of its extraordinary financial wealth. As if wishing to other presidents and ruled
acknowledge and yet also to disavow the state's exalted self-representation, political
he notes that in Venezuela t[g_state ir r'Eg]elggryr" endowed Dgpitg their diffeqgnces, these vlsions of the.
nation's_past-focus on.the
withlhe power to replace realiry with fabulous fictions propped up by oil EEg p-9 t-t- r g1 s_ lgr-odS_lg,'- p e riod One of the most effective prestidigitarion
wealth. "Oil is fantastic and induces fantasies," Cabrujas says. Its power to tricks performed in Venezuela has been the relegation
of G6mezt rule to the
awaken fantasies enables state leaders to fashion political life into a dazzhng backward' " age ofVenezuelat p
spectacle ofnational progress through "tricks ofprestidigitation." Strte rep- later
resentatives, the visible embodiments of the invisible powers of oil m-ney,
I
appear on the state's stage as powerfirl magicians who pull social realiry from
and their
I pubLic institutions to cosmogonies, out of a hat.

An ofiicial version of Venezuelan p9litl9al-c9smogo,ly has come to de-

_ ,
fine the public vision of the nation's past. According to this vision, the birth
of the nationt moderniry began when GeneralJuan Vicente G6rnez died in
r93 j, thus ending his rwenry-seven years of dictatorship. G6mez's death
freed Venezuela from the grip ofhis personalistic rule and allowed the nation
to begin a democratizing process that was interrupted only by General P6rez
Jim6nez's dictatorship from 1948 to r958. After 1958, this process led to the
consolidation of a democratic system that has proven to be the longest-lasting
in South America. In terms of ttris account, while General G6mez kept the
country locked in the backward past, General P6rezJim6nez created a dark
interregnum that briefly interrupted the democratizing process set in motion
by G6mez's death.
Going against the grain, C3brujas echoes only partially this ofiicial story.
i Instead offocusing exclusively oi-democratic regimes, he singles out rlvo mo-
' ments in the state's self-fashioning as the agent of modern progress: the dicta-
i torial rule ofP6rezJim6nez, which he describes as the "debut" of the "myth

z. Philip +brqns argues that social analysis ten& to reproduce the gol$k9_ele.153nc_g_qft!re-s,11te as

7 a unified and self-willed force (r988). t

state's fiscal abundance, which derives from oil revenues rather than from taxation ofits citizens,
enaLling the state to embody powers that seem to come from iself (For a comment on Abrams's
views, see chapter r.) By examining the intenubjective effects ofpower relations, {glSrt concep- |: Cabrujas recognizes' however,
that G6mez marks the beginning ofthe
rapid economic transfor_
tion of charisma, particularly in iu more sociological and anthropological vesions (Shfu tq6S; mation that led to the identificadon.of
! the-state with ,rr. goi,...-r.r,. ,.In
Venezuela the state is the
Tambiah 1984) illug-ri:rates the deification of the state. The Manrist-conception of sta.te.fetishism lgovemment," Cabrujas says. This rd..trfi."tioo
economy' According to
took;i; narurally as the,.growth,,of the
encompsses both the phenomenology ofpolitical power and its underlying social dynamics. For an cabrujas, ever since the rure of G6mez",up
pins' Venezuela "grew to the rule ofluis Herrera cam_
insightfirl discussion of Mas's norion of fetishism, see Pietz (1993); for an attempt to apply the economically u if following ;;;
cycre,,, without being responsible for
concept offetishism to the state, see rVells (r98 r). tts own growth (r9g7:
r9). "
 .
I

4 INTRODUCTION THE MAGICAL STATE AND oCCIDENTALISM

5
as much as in history for remembering that they are produced, like memory
itself, by performances.
iu In this book I the e of the Venezuelan state as a tran-
of the nation. I that the
state
an
as of
oil nation, Venezuela was seen as
rnto
rwo--b-o-dies, a oolitical bodv
made up of its citizens and a r_ra,EuI4LU?4f made up of its rich subsoil. By
w.,,
. i_olygir disprrl:9 g,Ig"c_!g1l!l'. ".-
t-lgnl qryq bodlSl,_-Lbe state-appeared.as.a single-agent.eq{ovze{ "witb_tb.
ment collective 'it
ruagrcal Power to-remake the nation. I argue that the arduous establishment casts its spell

of state in intimate relation with the of

over
selzes rts
and alike.
a
a

or state
sorcerer ," the state l{-*"i1
petroleum. Throughout the nineteenth century the fragile Venezuelan state, recePtlve to its
illusions-a magical state
. rffy rrr.rrlt.d by regional caudillos, was unable to impose its control
over the fragmented national territory. It was onlv when it was transformed
@ters I examine the statet
three
rnto the nation and the oil in the early General Marcos
the
resources that to of im-
posing its dominion over an
Jac!lc.9q, rnstrtutrons, and of rule in the course of
,{ contests of oil over
control over oil money enabled it to itselfas it expanded
the of its rule-controlling production in the mineral sector (oil, gas,
petrochemicals, bauxite, iron, steel, alumina, aluminum, and related indus-
trial inputs), regulating and promoting private economic activiry (fixing
interest rates, establishing tariffs, granting licenses, authorizing subsidies,
determining prices and wages, and so forth), and establishing central control
in a number of other sectors, from education (for example, defining the con-
tent of school curricula and the structure of final examinations) to transport
only 9f i1s mgdem history but of
and comrnunications (distributing newsprint and leasing wavelength fre-
quencies to radio and television stations)
the Venezuelan state came to
but of the nation's natural
wealth. The state has exercised _this -r4o4qpqly dramaturgically, securing 4
=:-'
compliance through the spectacular display of its imperious presence-it
seeks to conouer rather than oersuade. In this resDect. like the Spanish im-
perial state analyzed byJos6 Antonio l\rlLravall (1986), tlr,e-Venezuelanstate
has been fantasies of colle,ctive
world modem centers and backward
As the that alnnesla about nature
of the baroque, the state in Venezuela "captivates minds" through highly the role the
as
of an
 -x ' Cnevh\n .I vq lue qs o
-tt.e &r.$+lt^
6 INTRODUCTION
eul6 ,I ry {^ql tnr,^otuea

THE MAGICAL STATE AND oCCIDENTALISM

"silencine of the past" (Tiouillot sg6) that reinscribes the violence 7

a made at the of the and resources speciilization which consolidate the role
to natl0ns when
i
In order to analyze the significance of petroleum for Venezuelan state nations seek to
formation and to account for its monetary value, I develop an approach to plans directed at econorues,
the analysis of societies which depend on the export of one or a few rely on foreign exchange obtained
a of ln
of natural resources, the Marxist theory of value, and an their comparative advantage, these nature-exporting nations are
analysis of the evolution of oil prices recast in their old colonial role as sources of primary products, a
from the and direction of now rewritten in terms of the neoliberal rationaliry of globalizing capi_
'talism.
concems most and toward For them, neocolonialism follows
and of nature implicated in value dependence of most third-world nations on a few primary export
often subjects them to similar cycles of boom and bust,
0 I
I
irg
as much as the of I
ln
the domains
of
asso- the export commodity is sugar, as in the Cuba and Puerto Rico of
d
q
culture, , and within a unified field. "dance of the rnillions" after world war I; beef and grains, as in the
a I seek to examine the historical consti- of the belle 6poque; guano ftird droppings), as in the prosPerous
tutlon as part of an of the mid-nineteenth century; or oil, as in most oil-exporting natlons
rnstltutrons and to see that forms them as
could easily be extended to other primary producers in Latin
as history's protagonists
as
Asia, and Africa). booms tend to
analysts set apart oil exporters and
countries by virtue of their exceptional financial wealth. Needless to say, studied
these oil exporters share structural features that distinguish them from other
peripheral nations. These comrnon features are derived not iust from these
oil ' financial wealth but also from the ofthe state in their
i
.rc.* What I find striking, however, the extent to which
countrles us discem the common of most
natrons virtue of position as primary exporters that rnto specialized primary product
the Dutch disease should be renamed the third-world
these or neo_
disease.6
rents may vary on such factors as the kind of commodiry
exported, the pattems of global production and demand, and the competi- its historical
us to recast Westem historical devel-
tion from altemative products. These rents may arise from different pro-
and to uestion the notion that is the
ductive structures and from different types of linkages berween local and 'West. of a self-
global economies in accordance with the already classic distinction berween nature us to include in our historical
not a more set
foreign-controlled enclaves and domestically controlled export sectors (Car- actors but a more
doso and Faletto 1979). Yet these rents help establish similar patterns of in- It us to replace what

For discussions ofthe

4. In a related vein, an analyst argues that "culturally, Venezuela belongs to Latin America; strucrur- Dutch disease, see Corden and Neary (r9gz); Buiter and purvis
(r9g3); and
(rq8+).
ally, its economy and pattems ol stability and instability are more similar to those of such other
7. Following Hegel, thinken
relatively populous oil exporten as Algeria, Iran, and Nigeria" (Karl r995:34). as varied as Habemas (r988), tylor (r989), and Giddens (r987) view
as an European phenomenon.
5. I discuss the category of ground rent in detail in chapter r. For a critique ofthis view from a Latin American penpec_
see Dussel (rsq:).
 \
bs0 n.tuYt l

@ C'g'\ul''"n
6l*o
S INTRODUCTION THE MAGICAL STATE AND OCCIDENTALISM 9

as the "ossified" dialectic of and labor by a dialectic ofcapital. labqr,

Rv construing venezuelat
"modern democracy" in opposition to G5mez's
and land
rr-Gr
land, means not the of nature Iirr-i,tu. dictatorshiP," it developed as dictatorshiP's antithesis: {g!no-slacy
but the agents with it, the state as over a two of thesame oil coin. Despite the differ-
t also
three elements helps us see the
,id dr.,rrorrhip became
.;-* b.*.." Gdm.r's dictatorial
gides
rule and the liberal regimes constituted
Io( I discuss how this corunon
'.
,nrinr, it, they took form as s11991ql4-rl-od-natio'n'
actor on and I ;r* took shape during the G6mez regime and its immediate aftermath by
I .*rmrri.g the self-fashioning ofVenezuela into an oil nation through demo-
.rr,i. ,r*ggles against G6mez's "backward" rule (focusing on debates that
I'.otlir..
in 1936) and the formulation of oil policies (up to rq+:)' The
the social and referents of chapter concludes with a critique of the evacuation of
materialiry in theories
I
Eurocentric conc tions with .bort democracy through a critical cornmentary on the works of Claude
Lefort and Slavoj Ziiek.
lrg,I examine how the contest berween dictatorial and democratic
r regim.i-was played our berween rL4J 3$jgt9 through a discussion of sev-
than as its universal standard n turn, its role eral cou;rs--d'6-tat (in 1945, 1948, t952, and 1958). My analysis shows how in
1n of the modern permits us to approach rhe context of the limited diversification of the domestic economy' the state
the so-called as the site rather than as the b:gryJE-&rt1s-ofinqeS,se_political c-ompetition and the center-ofeconomic-
'Western
where traditional cultures are ,t*ffo.J"rt as under G6rnez the independendy wealthy state had been the
In second , I explore Venezuela's transformation into an oil pii.,ratiz.d tool of a personalistic ruler, it could subsequently become the par-
nation during the dictatorship of General Juan Vicente G6mez. During tisan tool of a democratic party. T_e-q-e11Sl-otl b.qWe.q the natural origin of
G6mezt rule, pp!tl-q4.p9ya_qr-_-c?1ne to- be based on the state's control over the nations finite aq!-the-privatedestiny of its social ap-
thlgxploitltig! of the-nationt.subsoil. By -rki.rg potiii-rt ;A;.;;;. P.gP'*Jl9i :h:q : d _!l=::,.:l*b :ry_._:l _de m_o c ra cy a n d dic tato rship
fro-4
-
activities dependent on the independently wealthy state, this centralizing r945 to r958.
*
foundation created conditions that simultaneously supported the movement fliroJgh the detailed examination of the practical orchestration and
toward political democracy and limited its development. From G6mez on- public representation of these coups d'6tat, I explore how the state was
wards the state became the center of political and economic power. Official consrructed as the central site of political power in Venezuela. In ctgtel:' 3
accounts have buried from view the extent to which the democratic state I discuss how this role was conceptualized during the process that led to
rests on foundations built during the G6mez regime and must negotiate the the consolidation of the military dictatorship of General Marcos P6tezJi-
underlying tension between the public origin of the statet financial resources m€nez. I extend this discussion .in chaPter 4 by examining General P6rez k
and the private character of their appropriation. This chapter shows that if Jim6nez's image of progress. I first preGl?general overview
of the contra-
national imaeinings are partly sustained, as Anderson argues, by means of dictory consequences of his economic policies, since they both promoted
communication such as print-capitalism, they also depend on the very ma- economic diversification and constrained its further development; and I il-
t.g4iry of the nation as a life-sustaining habitat-on differing modalitieiif lusrrate this process by means of a detailed analysis of the development of the
configuring the metabolism berween sociery and nature. steel industry. His contradictory policies, I argue, helped tum local capital
I ggggjt:q during the G6mez regime, as the wealth of the nation came against the regime and form ths elliance with the middle-class parties which
S
l
to be equated with its natur.t E!y_:ld as loci{_ Crgup! identifie4lpir led to the coup in 1958. In chapter 5, I discuss the orchestration ofthe coup
prrl,_:ybl:-"ry91111wiqh ghe na-tr.-919 fnteresl in the oil indup_t-1y,;_t!e state d'6tat of 4 Jaruary 1958, widely considered the foundational moment of
rlzag_c_ogpqge'.d as the legitimate agent.of an "imagined communiry" (Ander- Venezuela's democracy, South America's most stable and long-lasting demo-
l
son 1983) formed by its collective ownership of the nation's natural body. cratic regime.
 \
1O INTRODUCTION
These three chapters place the construction of Venezuelan democracy
in the context of recent discussions of worldwide processes of democratiza-
t-ion in which it figures as an exemplary case. I argue that the "political"
characteristics often invoked to explain the stability and success of Vene-
zuela's democracy-the alleged democratic vocation, negotiating skills, and
leaming capaciry of Venezuelan leaders-must themselves be accounted for.
My discussion of the foundational discourses of Venezuelan democracy in
part r and of the dynamics of class and state formation in part z seek to
provide an explanation of the conditions that have enabled and limited
Venezuelat democracy.
In part 3 I discuss the consolidation of the petrostate during the oil boom
period of Carlos Andr6s PS..3r first presidency (rg7+-79).
'W'hile
the qua-
drupling of oil prices at the end o{ ry73 led to visions of econornic and
political decline in the metropolitan centers, in Venezuela, as in other oil-
producing nations, it created the illusion that instantaneous modernization
lay at hand, that torrents of oil money would change the flow of history and
launch the country into the future. P6rez proposed transforming the oil
bonanza into a vast project to develop Venezuela at an unparalleled scale and
speed, to achieve, in effect, a leap into autonomy. While Sim6n Bolivar led
the nation to political independence by defeating Spain in the battle of Car-
abobo in t8zr, P€rez proposed to win the decisive battle for the nation's
econornic independence.
I discuss President P6rez's project of national transformation and his plan
to "sow the oil" in three chapters. In chryler_6, I examine the attempt by the
d
P6rez administration to develop the automobile industry by producing "fully
Venezuelan vehicles" (completing the local manufacture ofvehicles) and the
political struggle, known as the "motors war," that ensued when the govern-
ment negotiated with transnational automobile colporations and domestic
capitalists the local production of vehicle engines. The bargaining process
over apparently technical issues itselfbecame the vehicle for the contestation
of existing development goals and the realignment of political forces within
the ruling political rlliance. The delays in policy decisions, apparently caused
by a conflict berween the strategy for promoting exports and that for de-
veloping local production to replace imports, concealed an underlying re-
orientation of the global strategy of automotive transnational corporations as
well as a chronic local conflict, intensified by the oil boom, berween value
production and rent appropriation. Domestic debates over policy reflected
the tension berween the actual social dominance of rent circulation over the
production of value and the political need to disguise this dominant business
lr
THE MAGICAL STATE AND OCCIDENTALISM 11
to present the state and the bourgeoisie as champions ofproduc-
or,.ctice and
autonomY'
,ion r.rd entrePreneurial
While the chapter on the motors wars analyzes the failure to implement
the policy of local
automobile production, the next chapter examines the q
a state-Promoted company jointly owned by
short life of FANAIRACTO,
(J.S. transnational corporation, and a local conglomerate. Since
the state, a
slogan "to sow the oil" had metaphorically expressed the state's
ry36, the
policy of using oil resources to finance modem industrial and agricultural
production. The establishment of a tractor factory was regarded as a means
to promote both industry and agriculture and therefore it stood as one ofthe
highest expressions of this goal. FANAIRACTO began with great fanfare
and expense, yet it was quietly abandoned as soon as it was built and left to
die. In this chapter I discuss FANAIRACTOT bizarre history and account
for its demise in terms of intrastate_rivalries and of its shareholders' contra-
dictory orientations toward productive investments.
In contrast to these rwo srudies in the field of production, chaptg 8 t
explores the murder of Ram6n Carmona, a lawyer who was machine-
gunned to death one afternoon on a street in Caracas. Public discussion of
this murder during the 1978 electoral campaign revealed a vast n-etlygrk
gl_fo;mal, informal, andJllegal transactions involving several business deals
among a great range of actors extending from poor immigrants to the presi-
'W'hile
dent and his mistress. my discussion of the motors wars and of the
death of FANAIRACTO investigates how productive efforts were under-
mined by the dominance of rent circulation over the production of value,
my analysis of the Carmona case explores the inner logic of the system of
rent circulation after the 1973 oil boom, when the flow of rivers of petro-
dollars throughout the body politic changed its shape, redefining normative
I standards and projecting the illicit face of state activity onto the public arena
I
as normal and desirable.
Tb gsg$r:e-e-c rs,show how-the -te qsio n b e wve en .o ilmo n ey c irc u -
h ap-te
lation and yAluq-p-rad:r-clion.undedyjng*Venezuelan rentier capitalismlv--as
concretely lived*1hr9gSh---111:Ipre.q99d in-the-quotidian--a.ctions-of different
r€4Egi. rrr..ii*triiorioi'tor...rts of oil money not only undermined
productive activity and stimulated the spread of financial speculation and
corruption but also facfitated the at the highest
levels of government. In turn, the extraordinary powers of the president
encouraged a vertical sryle ofpolicy making which often led to arbitrary and
contradictory a-iiions and undermiired democratic practices.
In pTta I discuss recent developments in Venezuela and make some
r \

12 INTRODUCTION THE MAGICAL STATE AND OCCIDENTALISM 13

Table z duction to one of his many books (1978). I have decided to heed Borges's
State spending, tgoo-1979 (in millions ofbolivars) advice, keeping this introduction not much longer than his own, although I
Cunent r979 Amual perhaps play a Borges trick on the reader by continuing my introductory
President Years prices Pnces average rernarks into the following chapter. I have structured this book as a series of
Cipriano Castro 1900- 1908 433 2,247 250 fragments which can be read as separate units or as parts of a larger whole,
Juan V G6mez 1909-35 3,770 t2,885 477 itself only a fragment of a labyrinthine history. Two related issues, however,
Ele*arL6pez C. 7936-41 805 8,833 1,606 require brief comrnent at this point: first, this book's relation to the critique
Medina A.
Isaias 1941-45 1,798 6,905 1,534
R6mulo Betancourt 7945-48 2,249 7,429 3,715
of Eurocentrism and, second, its focus on the workinry_ollp_ower at the
R6mulo Gallegos 7948 1,644 4,605 4,605 "corrffiiiiling heights" of the state. The first concems my effort to view
M. P6rezJim6nez 1948-58 24,4t0 68,926 7,658 modemiry from the bottom; the second, my decision to look at Venezuelan
Wolfgang Larrazibal 1958 6,260 17,389 17,389
history from the top.
R6mulo Betancourt 1959-64 32,384 84,307 16,861
Raril Leoni 1964-69 40,133 90,166 18,033
While it may be evident that the view of Venezuelan history presented
Rafael Caldera 7969-74 59,920 720,270 24,042 here draws on contemporary postcolonial critiques, it is perhaps less clear
Carlos A. P6rez 197 4-79 227,840 286,362 57,272 that it does so by linking recent work produced with respect to Northem
sOURCE: Fundaci6n Polar 1988: 4Jj European colonialism in Asia and Africa to a long Caribbean and Latin
American tradition of critical reflection conceming colonialism and modem
general observations conceming the historical arc covered by this book. In imperialism.s the influence of Edward
t chapter 9, I briefly show how the ofinternational critique of has focused on
(inZEding internationalized domestic capital) has led to a s[lIlfr91g.gbe_s-tate n_on. Wgstem sqcieties that were subjected to Northern
le,plglxntatlgr,L 9!
to_ the market as the dominant locus of profit-making activities and as the European colonial domination. This criticism has perhaps been most pro-
-+
Iegitimizing source of the categories in terms ofwhich public life is defined. ductively developed by scholars linked to the Subaltq_m_S_gq+gi gr_ougof In-
lo Ctlg!:l_,-o throws light upon this shift by hightighting the social logic of dia, which has to recast Indian historiography ue of
the historical transformation analyzed in this book, focusing on the rwin rts eon but
processes of glo_-b_iJlzagion and abstraction that have accompanied the tran- Their extraordinary collec-
substantiation of petroleum into money. I argue that if the circulation of a on scholars working in
petrodollars throughout the local economy had subordinated productive other areas of the world (Cooper 1994; Mallon 1994). From a Latin Ameri-
I
structures to the logic of rent capture, now the circulation ofpetrodollars and can informed a much
debt money in international financial circuits has come to dominate the local ona separation berween Eu-
economy and to determine the conditions under which it must operate, and the coToliifi6aa is noticeable , even when reco their
obliging the local state to act on behalf of an open market. The growing historical constitution.
l
alqg11qlioq of the source ofstate power, from the particular materiality ofoil -
as substance to the geniral exchang'eabiliry of money as the universal equiva- 8. These references include such central figures asJos6 Marti, Femando Ortiz, Fernando Henrique
lent, has entailed not only a sbl&_in the forms of political ,power and their Cardoso, C. L. R.James, Frantz Fanon, and Sruart Hall. I would like to acknowledge the influence
aswell of nonacademic authon in the fields of literature (for instance Jos6 Lezama Lima, Pablo
felighized representations, but also a weakening of the national state with
Neruda, Alejo Carpentier, Gabriel Garcia Mlrquez, Augusto Roa Bastos); visual arts (the Mencan
respect to the expanding hegemony of intemational money. Circumscribing muralists, Cuban painter Manuel Mendive, and the Venezuelan painten Apolinar, Emerio Dario
the need for reform to the domestic, the_ "intemal adjustment" {emanded Lunar, Miguel Von Dangel, andJacobo Borges); and last but not least, popular music, particularly
now by neoliberal wisdom promisgg to make the nation modem by ryren_ch- Caribbean music, which, through Ortiz, I see as a life-afiirming fom of transculturation.

rt the world conjured up by Ihe magrcal petrostate and 9. While Subaltem Studies scholars have productively used this
colonial world, its use risks the imperial
bringrng it to the transparent world of the, rational free market. s?Elfri-t6r a ProPoses
Jorge Luif Borges once wamed against long introductions in an intro- European history functions globally as the key to interpret third-world history by invoking Marx's
 infl nnl 'tu^Scuhrrhu^
{ CLIFrbe- &ftlr'tqfqfivl

14 INTRODUCTION THE MAGICAL STATE AND OCCIDENTALISM 15

In my view, the analysis of the Westt representation of other societies- of hierarchical

the main focus in Edward Said's Orientalkm (r97)-entails the need to the West and its these conc central
counter these constructs as elements in the'West's self-fashioning as the self- and local ofoperations: seoaratine the
a serles
-r,-s'
made embodiment of modemiry. U disaggregating their relational his-
Iink and further torles; resentatl0ns;
'West
This move y, ln reproduction of
rnvolves our attentlon of asymmetrical Power relations.
1o

which focuses on the stereorypical representation of the Orie{rt, toward that This analysis of state formation in Venezuela hopes to contribute to the
Since
x ,

its Americas,
conquest
a of focus from Orient to from Other to Self been constituted
Rather, our relational nature that continue, in in the present. ana-
sentations of human c out lnto the open their 1n of the Venezuelan state bV plf.i"g r.g,ond a.r.
relations of' power to o their ting the desire to privilege a bounded sin-
ln inequaliry to sever their This task, oscillating berween a critical
internal and arate attributes of bounded entities what are in fact
to as

localism and a critical is premised on the possibiliry of attending

frK
outcomes
reverse of
o-9949$absl, -at l '----<rnot
thus
While any soclery
the
x at the local level without either subsuming it within, or
separating it from, the encompassing social totality within which it necessar-
itereorypical representations of cultural ofits own ily unfolds. This unfolding totaliry as my analysis shows, is not strictlv "so-
cial" but is also "natural"-it involves the exchanse berween sociew and
of non-'Western societies as lil r. ., o r o * G-rrr.-,o. oJl,,
"r
of the West's as an the effort to overcome the separation bewveen what are often regarded as
not ecause as a form of it material and cultural factors developing ve
expresses'Western power but because it establishes a specific bond bewveen of of
knowledge and power in the West of
Occiilentifsm is thus the expression of a constitutive rel4ionship be- I have 1t also be evident that this book
rween'Western entations of difference and worldwide Westem explores Venezuelan history by looking at its making at the highest centers
requlres 1t of pohtical power. A history of this sort shares the pL.!"1-.-T!_g{!o"p_491r"
even if it seeks to place "the top" within a complex ensemble of
h5!o_r-_r-.r,
ll
famous analogy berween evolutionary biology and socid development (his notion thatjust as the relations and to view it from its margins. One obvious limitation is the re-
human anatomy is the key to the anatomy ofthe ape, the abstract categories ofbourgeois society are
thekeytounderstandancientsocieties) (r9gz:3-$.Thiskeyappliestocontemporarysocietiesonly
stricted access that most analysts have to what is often a highly secretive, and
if we do not resist the imperial denial of coevalness that makes them appear to stand in evolutionary powerful, social arena. The most serious risk, however, is that of becoming
relation to each other rather than side to side (contra Fabian r983). The argument that "a third-world trapped at the top by the rigors of work and the osmotic complicities of
llil historian is condemed to knowing Europe as the honre of the modem" (Chakrabarty tggz:rg)
power, with the result that the subordinated sectors are excluded from view
reveels but also confirms Europe's ideological role as the indispensable key to the inner realiry ofthe
third world. While Chakrabarty analyzes the effectiviry of this ideological division between Europe or remain shadowy figures in the background. When this happens, analysis
it
r and its Othen, one wonders whether the acceptance of this division at the same time risks reinscrib-
' ing a notion of Europe as civilized ("human anatomy") and of the third world as savage ("the Io. I develop this argument about Occidentalism through an elaboration ofSaidi critique thatbuilds
anatomy ofthe ape"). Elsewhere I have built on Ortiz's concept oftransculruration both to prob- on critical evaluation ofthree Occidentalist modalities ofrepresentation. For an important contri-
a
lematize the separation berween fint and third worlds and to question the notion ofEurope as the bution to the analysis of the mutual fomation of Europe and its colonies, see Cooper and Stoler
home oftheory (r995). (rs8s).

I
 -I

I6 INTRODUCTION THE MAGICAL STATE AND OCCIDENTALISM 17

unwittingly tends to reinscribe the arrogant view from above and reproduce
its self-proclaimed universality and fundamental disregard for the lives and
forms of knowledge of subaltern subjects.
Focusing on the view from the commanding heights of the state, I have
tried to offer a perspective of the top from within but also from without.
Producing this book while also carrying out work among popular sectors in
Venezuela, moving back and forth berween Venezuela and the (Jnited States, into their relational historical forms, a subaltern perspective
and keeping an international and a Venezuelan audience in mind has en-
provides a basis
for a general critique of power in its multiply fetishized
couraged me constantly to shift perspectives, to trace links between local and
forms.
global forms of power, and to see the state as dominant and as dependent,
the
even as su these AS

of the ofstate
f keep in mind that the
u asa a relative that refers social actors
zuela is
I have tried
ect for itself a

share a common condition of my oPlmon, there and on the subordination, ex-

tlmes and es on as subaltern actors, tructlon
as there are times or ln If narratives of modemitY are constmcted on the basis of
lr N. at actor be subaltern in relation to another, exclusions and denials, I have sought to Pay attention
to the hidden oPera-
a And, of course, there are contexts in tions that select and naturalize historical memory, to the filter that creates
these categories may simply not be relevant. Subaltemity defines not national and global memories and their respective forms of amnesia.
the ofa ect but a ected state rr Yet 'Whileanthropologyhasshiedawayfromstudyingthestate,paradoxi-

+r" conc
has
of the subaltern
into limiting
a double vlslon one
cally, it p..i'i-r.a ,rr. ib app.o"ch some of the tasks that I have faced in this
book. Its usual units of study are subaltem or subordinated peoples-the
a corunon diverse forms of and, at another, 'west,s others, and within the west, its marginal communities or subcultures.
within
of su ects formed so- I began this work at the (Jniversiry of chicago as an effort to push anthro-
optrc opens up a space pology beyond its previously established legitimate limits' Conventional
among subordinated subjects (including the analyst who takes a subaltem *odl.., in political anthropology was that the anthropologist "has a 'profes-
perspective), the second acknowledges the differentiating and unshareable sional license' to study the interstitial, suPplementary, and parallel structures
effects of specific modalities of subjection.l2 in complex societies-the peripheral gray areas surrounding Lenin s strategic
Taking a subaltem perspective, I examine in this book the formation heights ofsovereign power" (Vincent rg78tt76)' l proposed to accept this
license while questioning its limits, and to center direcdy on the study of
rr. Building on Guha's classificatory grid of subaltem and dominant subjects, Sg$_k focuses on the strategic heights of sovereign power' In focusing on the oPaque zones
of
the
Guha's Ieast powerful subaltem subject in order to develop her argument about the subaltem subject's
state andlorporate decisions at the heart ofprocesses that have shaped
subjection political actor, in her words, its inability "to speak." In my discussion ofher argument, that
modem world, I have sought to preserve the unifying perspective has
as a

I concentrate on Guha's midlevel subaltem subjecs in order to develop a relational conception of

subaltemity which I use to analyze state transfomations in Venezuela as its populist leaders tumed distinguished anthropology as well as the decentering impetus that animates
into advocates ofan IMF austeriry program in t989 (1994). this work.
rz. This elaboration ofmy previous undentanding ofsubaltemiry (1994) owes much to discussions t The decenrered perspective developed in this book seeks to establish a
with members of the Grupo de la Playa of the Latin American Subaltem Studies Group in Puerto berween the universal and
fuco (March r996), and especially toJosefina Saldafra's insistence on the radical alteriry ofsubaltem I position from whichio transcend the opposition
subjects and Alberto Moreiras's suggestion that we use a "double register" in our approach to the i ih. ..gio.r1 that underwrites'Western moderniry. "Decentering," like Mig-
subaltem. nolo's"pluritopical"(I995)andShohatandStam's"polycentric"(lSS+)'
 I
18 INTRODUCTION
works as a sign that expresses the desire for modes of apprehending, and
constructing, difference within equaliry. By taking this perspective, I hope
zIs
not simply to broaden the geopolitical referents of moderniry but to tran-
scend its conceptual horizon. As D-149e!-proposes,
?revniere
The "realization" of modemiry no longer lies in the passage from its abstract
to its "real," European embodiment. It lies today, rather, in a process that will
transcend modemiry as such, a trans-moderniry in which both moderniry and THr Nnrunu
its negated alteriry (the victims) co-realize themselves in a process of mutual
creative fertilization. (r9y : 76.) OF THE NNTTON:
In his book Oil: TheJute of the Earth, Juan Pablo P6rez AlJonzo, the
leading architect and a subsequent critic ofVenezuelat oil policies, stated that Srntr Frrtsulsiw AND
"oil is the most important of the fuels indispensable for modem life" (196r :
8l). His life work was informed by an acute sense of oil's centraliry in the NnTIoNAr,Is,nlr
making of the modem world both as a vanishing source of energy and as a
substance that enters into the object world of moderniry-from the clothes
we wear and the vehicles that transport us to the homes we inhabit. Oil has
helped mold a higl,ly stratified and ecologically unsound world shaped in the
image of disconnected peoples and things that have in common their sepa-
ration from each other and from the history that engendered them. If mo-
demiry is a process characterized by the incessant, obsessive, and irreversible
transformation of a world splintered into distinct entities, then the effects
of oil production and consumption reflect the spirit of moderniry.13 Susan
Buck-M_orss has argued that "a construction of history that looks backward,
rather than forward, at the destruction that has taken place, provides a dia-
lectical contrast to the futurist myth of historical progress (which can only
be sustained by forgetting what has happened)" (rgSS,gS). If a subaltem
vision of the past-what'Walter BggigSnin called "the traditions of the op-
pressed" $969:253-64)-is by the hope of a future without
sustained
subalterniry this book's construction of Venezuelan history seeks to look
forward toward a form ofprogress shaped by that hope.

r3. I owe this conceptualization of modemiry toJim Huey.