Santiago
Just as in production great and irreconcilable conflicts exist between the private sector and the state sector, in which there are various degrees of workers' participation and control; strong conflicting pulls have also appeared in the field of distribution, where the fundamental antagonism is growing clearer day by day.
On the one hand, there are the capitalists, the various levels of private traders. This sector is fighting for the return of all distribution to private hands, for complete "freedom" of commerce.
On the opposite side is the mass of consumers who every day are fighting more consciously for centralizing distribution under popular control.
In the center, in the slack between these two opposing forces, are the government and the reformists, trying to maintain an equilibrium that is becoming more and more untenable.
As for the immediate causes of the scarcity that exists, we can cite:
1) The imperialist boycott. This began even before Allende took power and since he took office it has assumed serious dimensions. The case of Kennecott Copper (which took legal action to have exports from the nation- 464
alized mines seized) and the stopping of shipments of machinery and spare parts are notorious examples.
2) Low agricultural production. The principal cause of this is that in carrying out the agrarian reform the government allowed the landowners to remove their machinery, livestock, seed, ete., from the confiscated area. Added to this is the fact that the big ranchers who still hold their land have no interest in pushing production. Finally, the bureaucracy involved with the agrarian reform is not exactly a stimulus to developing the revolutionary potential of the peasantry.
3) Sabotage by the industrialists. Many cases of this have been exposed by the workers: The bosses don't want to modernize equipment. They don't want to repair machinery. They don't want to buy raw materials or even vital machine parts.
4) Speculation. This has become the most profitable sector of the Chilean economy. Seeing the possibility for doubling their investment overnight, the big capitalists are pouring their funds into this field, and this includes the money the landowners have gotten thanks to the "democratic" agrarian reform.
5) The increased buying power of
The right is taking advantage of this and waging a big campaign to discredit the government through the press, radio, and television. During the election campaign, it inundated the lines with leaflets.
All this has succeeded in shifting nart of the middle case to the right part of the middle class to the right.
The government, which through the Distribuidora Nacional [DINAC— the National Distribution Agency] and other bodies, controls less than half of wholesale trade, has made efforts to rationalize distribution without encroaching on the businessmen. The Communist party argues that any interference with them would mean "losing the support of the middle class."
The government has created the JAP [Juntas de Abastecimiento y Control de Precios - Supply and Price Control Boards], which in theory are supposed to be made up of the local people and merchants in city neighborhoods. The JAP have the task of receiving the goods sent out to each sector by the national distribution agencies and distributing them among the merchants in the area.
The power of these bodies fluctuates depending upon how much pressure is brought to bear on the government and upon the militancy of the population.
Once the JAP were permitted wide power. But, following this, their role was restricted, with many of their functions being handed over to the police at the same time that military officers were being brought into the top posts in the distribution system.
At their height, besides receiving the goods and taking them to the merchants, the JAP maintained supervision over the prices and weighing of products sold over the counter. To a lesser extent, they saw to it that sales were not made to two members of the same family in a row. Once things reached this level, the consumers saw that they were "unpaid employees of the storekeepers," realizing that the merchants were unnecessary.
The shantytowns in the slum belt around Santiago and other cities were in the vanguard of this, as in other aspects. There were many reasons why this happened:
• Their proletarian or semiproletarian composition.
• The combativity and organization that have been traditional in them tion that have been traditional in them since their inception as a result of the fact that the land they are built on had to be taken by force, which required prior organization and facing many clashes with the police. Many of them, such as the "Nueva La Habana" [New Havana] encampment, have kept their block organizations to this day.
• Many of them are led by members of the MIR [Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria - Movement of the Revolutionary Left] or left Socialists.
• Many of them lack any licensed merchants.
For this last reason, direct distribution was "legally" authorized in these settlements. And this practice gradually spread to other areas where there were merchants.
The restrictions placed on the JAP by the government have been counterproductive in some areas, especially in the shantytowns. Instead of stopping the push toward direct distribution, they have led to its being taken over by other bodies, which may be called by various names -neighborhood councils, cooperative associations, etc. This has been facilitated by the existence of many lower officials belonging to the left wing of the SP, the left wing of MAPU [Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitaria - Movement for United Popular Action], or other currents, who have yielded to the pressure of the masses. The most notable case was that of the Almacenes Populares de Agencias Graham [a chain of stores].
For some time, the left wing- the SP left, the left wing of MAPU, the April 23, 1973
MIR, the Partido Socialista Revolucionario (Revolutionary Socialist party, the Chilean section of the Fourth International] -has been demanding rationing under some kind of popular control. This has been called by various names: "the family market basket," "ration cards," "certificate of residence," etc.
Until recently the CP tenaciously opposed rationing. At present, seeing that the popular efforts for direct distribution are increasing and causing it to lose some of its grass roots support, it is yielding somewhat on this question.
In the field of distribution, and in others, the contradiction between the masses and the system grows more acute every day. Every day it is more difficult for the UP government to maintain an equilibrium. Every day new scarcities occur, and this does new not augur well for the balancers.