Geopolitics of the Amazon: Patrimonial-Hacendado Power and Capitalist Accumulation

by Álvaro García Linera

In a recent book-length essay, Geopolitics of the Amazon: Patrimonial-Hacendado Power and Capitalist Accumulation, published in September 2012, García Linera discusses a controversial issue of central importance to the development process in Latin America, and explains how Bolivia is attempting to address the intersection between economic development and environmental protection.
The issues he addresses are of great importance not only in Bolivia but throughout Latin America, and in fact in most of the countries of the imperialist periphery. They are especially important to understand in the “First World,” where there is an increasing campaign in parts of the left to turn against the progressive and anticapitalist governments in Latin America on the ground of their alleged “extractivism.”
García Linera examines the classic Marxist criteria on the forms of appropriation of nature by humanity. “Extractivism,” he shows, is not synonymous with underdevelopment. Rather, it is necessary to use the resources gained from primary or export activity controlled by the state to generate the surpluses that can satisfy the minimal conditions of life of Bolivians and to guarantee an intercultural and scientific education that generates a critical mass capable of assuming and leading the emerging processes of industrialization and economic development.
A major theme of the book is to refute the allegations in the opposition media that the TIPNIS highway between Cochabamba and Beni is intended for the export of Brazilian products to the Pacific via Bolivian territory. The book clearly demonstrates that the route is intended as part of the national unification of the country.
Geopolitics of the Amazon has attracted wide attention throughout Latin America. In a recent review, the eminent Brazilian sociologist Emir Sader says “it refutes each and every one of the allegations of the opposition in his country and their international spokespersons.” He describes it as “an essential book, without which it is not possible to understand the present phase of the Bolivian process and the root of the conflicts affecting it.”
The book has sparked fierce debate in Bolivia itself, including a lengthy response by Raúl Prada Alcoreza, a former comrade of García Linera in the Comuna collective.
There is an extensive literature on these issues now being produced in Latin America. Another example is a book, El desarrollo en cuestión: reflexiones desde América Latina. It includes articles by some of the authors cited in the debate between García Linera and Prada.

Unknown Binding

First published September 1, 2012

About the author

Álvaro Marcelo García Linera (born 19 October 1962), is a Bolivian politician who has been Vice President of Bolivia since 2006.
He was born in Cochabamba and graduated from San Agustín High School. Then, he studied mathematics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City but did not obtain a degree. After failing his studies at UNAM, he returned to his native Bolivia and attempted to put some of his long-held socialist ideology to practice and joined the Katarist "Ayllus Rojos", a series of experimental, Marxist-inspired native communities in northwestern Bolivia. When this attempt at grass-roots politics failed, García opted for a more radical approach. Alongside Felipe Quispe, he organized and worked in the insurgent Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army. After being caught destroying electrical distribution towers in rural La Paz, he was arrested and charged with insurrection and terrorism. In 1991, along with his brother Raul, he was convicted for theft of $441,000 destined to pay salaries of teachers of a local university (12), to this date, even thought he was found guilty, he continues to pressure the government to return the money that was confiscated from that crime. UMSS, the university affected is also trying to get their money back and get legal action against the Garcia Lineras and their gang.

While imprisoned, he studied sociology but did not obtain a degree failing again. After his release he taught at a university illegally since Bolivian universities require their faculty to have a professional degree. He also was a political analyst, and news commentator. He made people think he is an academic, but he does not hold any academic degree, known for his support of indigenous and left-wing political movements in South America (in spite of his upper-middle class upbringing and the fact that he is of Spanish descent). He wrote a monograph about the different political and social organizations that were a part of the political rise of the MAS and other indigenous factions, Sociología de los Movimientos Sociales en Bolivia (Sociology of Social Movements in Bolivia), which was published in 2005.

Reviews

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Linera is going to tell you the big shame of our days: how the owners are not completely controlled by the politicians like himself and sometimes think there is such thing as private property.