Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza: 'Relations of production and international relations must be reassessed' - MPPRE

Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza: ‘Relations of production and international relations must be reassessed’

Minister of People’s Power for Foreign Affairs Jorge Arreaza asserted on Monday that international relations must be reassessed in the face of the economic, communications and health damages caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the world.

“The pain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to humankind cannot be in vain.  Relations of production, human and international relations must be reassessed.  The conscience and courage of the people must give birth to a comprehensive post-capitalist system of equality and peace,” he posted on his Twitter account @jaarreaza.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected most parts of the world. So far, more than 18 million people have been infected and nearly 700,000 have died.

Coronavirus and the failure of capitalism

Intellectuals and politicians have highlighted in recent months that the pandemic is not a cause of the economic crisis, but a consequence of a model that exhausted its possibilities of creating welfare.

The poor response of health systems in the countries most affected by coronavirus is evidence of how poorly prepared current capitalism was to face this contingency, and shows the failure of a model that will have to embrace new paradigms and a more egalitarian distribution of wealth.

Reassessing economic development

Faced with these circumstances, the Latin American and Caribbean countries have proposed, through regional organizations such as ALBA and CELAC, the need of propelling a new economy based on solidarity, cooperation and complementarity.

President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuelan highlighted this in a letter sent to the UN in late May.

“This task is perceived as a Latin American-Caribbean issue, as an issue concerning the people of the south, to redesign the development of a new vital, productive economic model and reassess all the neoliberal, technocratic ways, thesis, and theories. How many technocratic theories are there in the world to fix the world and that ultimately do not fix anything? Those who design them have not even produced a grain of coffee,” he said.