It is not necessary to write much to make history. When I was a computer student in the good old 70s, we read an article entitled "Virtual Memory", written by Peter J. Denning, a researcher at Princeton University, in September 1970, in the magazine Computing Surveys of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM)(1), which initiated a whole generation of large computers, with a technology that Denning called Virtual Memory.
Before the end of that decade, computers using the technology conceived by Denning, which significantly expanded the memory space for programs and data, without the investment of a higher cost associated with this important part of the machine, which at that time was the most expensive part of a computer, were already being marketed worldwide by the largest transnational companies in the industry. Peter J. Denning made history with this publication, which today is a historical reference for the evolution of information technology worldwide.
In a very different discipline, another article that changed history and the way corporations thought about how they positioned themselves in ever-changing markets was written by Theodore Levitt, entitled "Myopia in Marketing" (2), which boiled down to a single question that strategically redirected all business activities: What business are you in?
An example that explains the concept is given by Levitt himself in his article: "Railroads did not stop growing because the need for passenger and freight transportation declined. That grew. The railroads are in trouble today not because that need was filled by others (cars, trucks, airplanes, and even telephones), but because it was not filled by the railroads themselves. They let others take their customers away from them because they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business, rather than in the transportation business. The reason they defined their industry incorrectly was that they were railroad oriented, instead of transportation-oriented; they were product oriented instead of customer oriented.....” Interesting, isn't it?
En ambas disciplinas, las ideas redefinieron el mundo, produciendo el avance y bienestar de la humanidad. Y generalmente es así. Las ideas están allí para quien quiera tomarlas y hacer algo productivo con ellas. En el primer caso las adoptaron las grandes corporaciones de tecnología y en el otro prácticamente todo el mundo de los negocios.
Almost three years ago I applied Levitt's same concept to the Venezuelan opposition (see What business are you in, in https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/p/what-business-are-you-in.html) and unfortunately we still see that the opposing politicians think they are in the "railroad business" when the real business is the satisfaction of customers to be better transported, that is, we should be the center of their attention. They are still trying to sell us a devalued product - themselves and their failed policies - when what we are desperately looking for are solutions to the country's crisis.
I was reminded of the above by a question sent to me by a follower friend about what she thought of the candidacy of María Corina Machado (MCM). And the question seemed pertinent to me, considering that I had already pronounced myself against the primaries from the very moment this idea came up from the official opposition parties, because I had the perception -now fully proven due to the moves of those parties to get MCM out of the way- that it was a mechanism specially designed to make bed for the regime by giving it an "opposition" candidate who would willingly accept the result of a fraudulent CNE, as Rosales did once before in 2006 and Capriles twice in 2012 and 2013. And what a coincidence, now both of them are the regime's cards to repeat the trick!
The clear animosity of the parties towards MCM when all indicators point to it as the best bet for Venezuelans to get out of the regime through elections, when the regime does not reach more than 10% of the electorate's preferences, clearly indicates that there is no partisan opposition in Venezuela, proving that they are not in the business of solving the problem of Venezuelans -getting out of the regime- but that of themselves coexisting with it. But we already knew that...
Hence, the fundamental question I wish to analyze here is not whether the supposed opposition parties are in the right business to get us out of this dunghill, but whether Venezuelans themselves are. And why do I say so? Because even when knowing that the parties are playing against us to get out of the regime, the followers of those political parties, fully aware of the satrapy of their leadership, still insist on supporting those options, knowing full well that more than 80% of Venezuelans reject them. So, do we or do we not want to leave the regime? The logical question would be: what business are you in, Venezuela?
The confirmation of this reality is corroborated by the appearance of political groups in the country that have organized their own campaign commands in favor of MCM. There are already "adecos with Maria Corina", or militants of "PJ with Maria Corina", or "UNT with Maria Corina", who appear behind the lines of their own parties, being fully aware that they will never obtain a better quality of life with the continuity of the regime in power, and even less being supported by their own parties.
This clandestine rebellion is spreading more and more to the extent that the heads of the "opposition" parties are already openly conspiring against the possibility of MCM winning the presidential candidacy of the opposition in the primaries, when they should be doing the opposite, acclaiming her at once as the spearhead to defeat continuity, if they are truly opponents. Venezuelans should be fully aware of this reality, leaving alone those parties that insist on continuing to accompany the regime.
Because we must be absolutely clear about something: it is not that MCM is the particular option we like the most for "x" or "y" reason. MCM is the only opposition candidate that became an electoral phenomenon, exactly as it happened with Hugo Chavez in 1998, by being the electoral option that best embodied the Venezuelans' contempt for the political status quo of the country. At this moment, MCM represents contempt for the regime and its opposition. And nobody saw that coming, especially those who believed that she would be passed over, because she had never represented more than 5% of the political preference of Venezuelans. That was born to the people itself.
We are witnessing then the prize of a unique lottery. Now we have to ask ourselves what she will do with that political fortune that came out of there as a result of a conjuncture of the country, and that now constitutes the best option we all have to get out of this criminal regime. And her immediate and future success will require the best help she can get from the best Venezuelans so that she does not squander it. MCM should not be mistaken as Juan Guaidó was mistaken at the time, believing that this support is hers and he failed. It belongs to all of us to get out of the regime.
Regardless of the fact that I disagree with many of her proposals, especially those that revolve around privatizing PDVSA and dismissing the call for a constituent process to support her government, with the rest of the Public Powers against her and the Armed Forces infested by foreign forces, the ONLY objective that all Venezuelans must have clear is to get through the current situation to get out of the regime. And after that we will be able to discuss, with a possible government presided by her and in a democratic environment, any opposition we wish to make to her policies. But by then we will already have democratic freedoms restored.
Any Venezuelan is obliged to support that effort from any trench where he/she can collaborate. If we understand that we are not in the business of an election, but in the business of displacing the regime that governs us, we will be able to say that all of us in Venezuela are in the same business. And if that happens, it will significantly increase our probability of succeeding, over those who have traditionally betrayed us, turning, not MCM into President of the Republic, but every Venezuelan into a responsible protagonist of the political change for the recovery of democracy and freedom.
Caracas, September 5, 2023
Blog:
TIC’s & Derechos Humanos, https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
(1) Virtual Memory, Peter J. Denning, Revista de la Association of Computing Machinery, Computing Surveys, Pág. 153-189, Volumen 2, Número 3, Septiembre 1970, https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/356571.356573
(2) ¿En qué negocio
está usted? Marketing Myopia, Harvard Business Review, HBR Julio-Agosto de 1960, http://pedronni.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/4/2/2642906/en_qu%C3%A9_negocio_est%C3%A1_usted.pdf
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