Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to develop a theory of the social profit as a category of economic planning in Venezuelan state enterprises. This device orients productive and commercial activity towards absorption of rentier surpluses, but it is also performative in that it seeks to organise labor and consent.

Paper long abstract:

This paper seeks to develop a theory of the ‘social profit’ as a category of economic planning in Venezuelan state enterprises. Designed as a metric for resource allocation and internal cost accounting, the device strives to unite social objectives, such as the provision of goods and services to impoverished communities, with long-term sustainability and returns that can defray costs of operation. As a form of planning that engages the market and attempts to valorise an initial capital stock, the social profit orients the productive and commercial activity of state enterprises toward the absorption of rentier surpluses. But the tool is also ‘performative’ in that it serves to organize political consent and obviate tensions associated with the exploitation of labor power. Exploring efforts to create an endogenous food system capable of protecting the Venezuelan population in times of low oil prices, I evaluate the potential of this category for enacting post-neoliberal development and freeing the public sector from its reliance on oil rent. I conclude that despite the aim of constructing a stable internal market by recycling surpluses from the state oil company, the social profit does not fully negate the tensions associated with pricing, supply and demand, or realization of value embedded in commodities, and that struggles over the terms of labor continually surface in these enterprises.

Keywords: [social profit; markets; value; the state; development; industrialization; social enterprises; economic planning]