Karl Polanyi (1944) argued that a great transformation occurred in society when the formerly distinct realms of the social and the economic were wed. The problem, at least to Polanyi is that the social has been subordinated to the economic. The height of this subordination in Latin America (and much of the rest of the world) arguably occurred during the 1980s and 1990s under the broad heading of neoliberal reform. Neoliberalism even pushed an agenda of dismantling the social in order to liberate the economic. The result, at least to the majority of people living under such policies, was increased income inequality, hunger, poverty, illiteracy, disease, and a litany of other social ills.
Reactions against neoliberalism have been in protest of the prioritization of the economic to the social. Few in the anti-globalization movement are arguing for the elimination of the economic, rather they are advocating for the prioritization of the social over the economic. The Venezuelan project of 21st century socialism potentially represents such a re-prioritization. I will explore this hypothesis by examining the ideological, via an analysis of the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution, the material, via a variety of various social indicators, and lastly the increasing participatory nature, via heightened democratic participation, of 21st century socialism and demonstrate that the economic is increasingly being subverted to the social in Venezuela.