social welfare measures, which has garnered mass support. A policy of “independence” was made possible, and financed as it were, by the commodity boom and the jump in oil prices. The “dialectic” of the US-Venezuelan conflict evolved in the context of U.S. economic weakness and over-extended warfare in the Middle East on the one hand - and economic prosperity in Venezuela, which allowed it to gain regional and even international allies, on the other.



Brazil's "Relative Autonomy" with Competitive Capitalism: The autonomous-competitive tendency in Latin America is embodied by Brazil. Aided by the expansive agro-mineral export boom, Brazil projected itself on the world trade and investment scene, while deepening its economic expansion among its smaller and weaker neighbors like Paraguay, Bolivia, Uruguay and Ecuador. Brazil, like the other BRICthe nationalist Chávez government and they remain staunch backers of bilateral free trade agreements with the U.S. Chile, Argentina and others: The other countries in the region, including Chile and Argentina, continue to oscillate and improvise their policies in relation to and among these three blocs. But what should be absolutely clear is that all the countries, whether radical nationalist or imperial collaborators operate within a capitalist economy and class system in which market relations and the capitalist classes are still the central players. Socialism and the Latin American State in the Current Conjuncture

of the Class Struggle Control of the state is an essential condition for establishing socialism. But it is evident that a more critical factor is the composition of the social forces that have managed to