by Nazareth Balbás via RT

Social networks have become the ally of the family economy of Venezuelans against rising prices. Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp work groups work as exchange sites for necessities: no money, no speculation.

The first surprise is the offer: varied, uneven, abundant. Second, the number of groups in the world. The third thing is that escapes public or private control.

Barter has become the new alternative for Venezuelans suffering the ravages of the economic war. The system, which has existed since time immemorial, gaining strength in the South American country with unique features is strongly mediated by social networks.

Falling oil prices since last year has resulted in shortages of foreign exchange for the mono-exporting country. This along with the long campaign of boycott and sabotage from the USA, and the determined resistance of the deposed oligarchy articulated through the upper middle class, has led to hyperinflation and economic disaster.

The most visible consequence has been the decline in inventories on the shelves, not just products but the basic basket of items for personal care.

While employers demand more dollars for imports, the government has focused its efforts on priority centralized purchasing and designing a distribution system with the help of communities. In the meantime, queues persist and Venezuelans “give back” to the situation.    continues further down

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US-Led Economic War,  Not Socialism, Is Tearing Venezuela Apart:  ..In 1998, Venezuela had only 12 public universities, today it has 32. Cuban doctors were brought to Venezuela to provide free health care in community clinics. The government provides cooking and heating gas to low-income neighborhoods, and has launched a literacy campaign for uneducated adults….

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One of the initiatives is the creation of closed Facebook groups and Instagram accounts where goods are requested and offered in exchange for other products. In parallel, citizens are organized to form networks through WhatsApp not only to barter items but to share information about where food, medicine or toiletries are sold at subsidized prices.

For example..An image with five deodorants and a box of birth control pills accompanies the note: “will exchange for milk, sugar, flour, bread, pasta and rice.” The offer is in the Facebook group “Truekes in CCS.”

To join the group, which already has 31,387 members, you must submit an application and wait for admission by the administrator. The rules are clear: only product by product exchanges. No purchases or “bachaqueo*” offers which is the name given to the resale of items regulated speculative prices, which can reach up to 1000% of their actual cost.

*bachaqueo means ‘tricky unfair speculative dealing’

“In some groups, such as Instagram, they are severe with those who want to use those spaces blatantly to commit bachaqueo: selling packages of staples at insane prices.  “says Manuel Palma, a parent with two young children who has resorted to bartering as a system for scarce products.

“Barter is a valid option because sometimes it is the only way to get what you need when you have a little cash but cannot find the product,” he adds. Therefore he checks the digital catalogs -mainly- searching  diapers and food, and checks what he can barter in exchange for them.

However, sometimes there are risks. “In Facebook, to avoid scams, people have created very tight groups. Once you are  added they dictate a book of rules, always under the strict supervision of those who manage the groups, “he says.

For William Castillo, analyst and political and current president of the National Telecommunications Commission (Conatel), this phenomenon occurs but remains marginalized “because the Revolution has not yet developed a deep and liberating reflection on the issue of consumption. We are a consumerist socialism that is only now rediscovering the notion of production. ”

Barter works well outside the state and outside of private capital: the exchange is agreed, it is carried out in a public place and no money or tax is involved. It is a spontaneous and collective response,  in the face of an extraordinary situation..       continues below

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‘Corporate owned US media insist that ‘socialism means poverty.’ But in the case of Venezuela and other states not totally governed by the free market, this cliche simply doesn’t ring true. The main cause of the crisis is not low oil prices, but an all out economic war, stopping 90% of investment and cutting bank credit, with the aim of fomenting chaos, seizing control of oil reserves and the returning the white oligarchy who enslaved the people for generations’.

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But Venezuela is not the only country in which barter is being revived. During the economic crisis in Spain, the mechanism was presented as an alternative, and it is already longstanding in the Netherlands, UK, Denmark and Sweden. In Argentina, inflation has revived the system of exchange of goods without there being money.

“Barter turns upside down the notion of merchandise and its exchange value. The value of a thing is not the price as proposed capitalism but the perception of the usefulness (value in use) of the acquirer, “adds Castillo.

But not everyone trusts or uses social networks. The option for them are the IM groups like Whatsapp. An administrator adds members and there is all kinds of information is shared on the trading of products or sites of sale of consumer goods regulated by the state prices.

The option is becoming increasingly popular in residential complexes, neighbors are organized to offer: “I make my barter plan… on Whatsapp we have a group and everyone offers what they have and say what things they need in exchange, “says Siodelys Arredondo, a woman of 30 years.

“I have exchanged flour, toothpaste, diapers rice. The group is composed of people of my residential block. Zero money, just barter. Here any trouble can be resolved, “she insists.

Family and work groups are also favorite places for barter. Catherine Bazó, a young woman with two children, confesses that she has never bartered products on social networks “but with co-workers: food, soap, sanitary towels. In offices it’s very common. ”

This is NOT bachaqueo
Why this growing trend? It Removes the need for money, avoids queues and is an option against so-called “bachaqueo”.

In Venezuela, since last September 1st, the minimum wage increased to 22,576.60 bolivars, with 300%H inflation. The “bachaqueros” may demand up to 1000% more than the official price for products of the basic basket they are scarce.

Many Venezuelans choose to purchase products at regulated prices when they get the chance, although they may not need them, to barter them later for those they need but aren’t freely available.

Men buy sanitary napkins, women without children buy diapers or milk formula cans for babies. These items can be exchanged for pasta, rice or soap.

The barter strategy will destroy the business of the exploiting”bachaqueros” and strikes less at the family economy in a country which, according to estimates by the World Monetary Fund (IMF) – could close this year with 700% inflation. As Palma says, he barters “to retain a valid option.”

main text by Nazareth Balbás with thanks.. rough translation by Mike Gilli  

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Any discussion on Venezuela is likely to end in fisticuffs. On one side we have the US and neoliberal forces conspiring together with a repressed middle class and the old ruling class in every conceivable way to destroy a state socialist revolution, which may be corrupt, inept and brutal but guarantees basic health, education, housing, food and a vision of social revolution to the great majority of people..

Background on The US ‘Destabilization’

Washington, which almost instinctively has been opposed to Chavismo from day one, has consistently interfered in Venezuela’s internal affairs in the hope of crushing the Bolivarian process.

From a Bush administration-backed[14] and CIA-aided[15] coup in 2002, in which then-President Chavez was nearly removed from power by force, to refusals to recognize Chavista electoral victories, threats of sanctions, and covert funding for opposition candidates, the United States had been determined to do everything possible to ensure that it would fail.

The United States has viciously opposed anything that threatens the dominance of the unfettered neoliberal capitalist vision that it has sought to defend, and then spread, throughout the world.

As William Camacaro and COHA Senior Research Fellow Fred Mills wrote early last year in Counterpunch, “A great deal hangs in the balance with regard to the feasibility of advancing a democratic socialist project while under the continuous attack of a U.S.-backed opposition, elements of which are bent on restoring the neoliberal regime.”[16]

The U.S. mainstream media, overwhelmingly owned by large corporations and loyal to their interests, naturally reflects and promulgates the ideological contours of this worldview.

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