Latin America Shifts to the Center-Left --as US takes sharp Right turn

[rodeodance]

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1204-09.htm

Published on Saturday, December 4, 2004 by the Interhemispheric Resource Center

Latin America Shifts to the Center-Left

by Laura Carlsen

On his first trip abroad since re-election, George W. Bush was greeted by thousands of Chileans, protesting his trade and military policies and telling him to go home.

The protests at last week’s APEC meeting were not just a manifestation of the historic anti-American response to an imperial president. The anti-Bush demonstrations in Santiago highlighted a new political trend in Latin America--where many countries are moving to the center-left, just as the United States takes a sharp turn to the right.

With all eyes focused on the presidential elections in the United States , key elections in Latin American countries went almost unnoticed over the past weeks. The results in Uruguay, Venezuela, Chile, Nicaragua, and to some extent Brazil, showed a shift toward the center-left or a consolidation of left-leaning leadership. .....

[aquart]

1. George will just have to invade South America.

What a shame that Negroponte is busy.

[imenja]

2. US losing economic ground in Latin America too

During the 20th century, the US invaded Latin American nations dozens of times, some 35 times in the first decades of the century alone. It also sponsored coups by making alliances with the military and Latin American capitalists. But at that time, the US was the overwhelming economic power in Latin America. China is currently gaining ground quickly. The Bush administration has been unwilling to advance much aid to anywhere but Colombia. They've turned their back on Argentina. Under Lula, Brazil has increased it's power in the region by advancing aid to Argentina and Venezuela. Now China has begun to grant foreign loans and to initiate significant trading relationships. This bears some similarity with the late 19th and early part of the 20th centuries when the US came to displace Britain as the primary economic--and thus political--influence in the region.

Basically my point is that the US is in a far more difficult position to exert the kind of power in Latin America that is has for the entire twentieth century. It's invasions and covert operations were always done in concert with local elites. The fact that more and more Latin American governments are publicly speaking out against Bush, that Chile and Mexico wouldn't support the US on a second Iraq resolution (authorizing war) suggest the US political power in the region is on the decline. For most of the century, Latin American nations followed the American lead in directing foreign policy. Mexico was for quite some time the only country to maintain diplomatic relations with Castro. Clearly, that is no longer the case.

[Judi Lynn]

4. Wonderful post, imenja. Isn't it wry Bush sent Powell to Brazil

just to warn Luis Inacio Lula da Silva to stay away from Hugo Chavez?

How crude, how obvious can one stupid pResidential halfwit and his lacky be?

I'm sure Lula da Silva will be anxious to trash all the significant, important work already underway with Venezuela.

[FlyByNight]

3. I wonder how many more tens of thousands...

will have to die now? Hasn't Latin America suffered enough? Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, etc.

An ugly history, thanks to US involvement.

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. Yep. Saw that coming.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

6. *smug grin*

I love this place. :evilgrin:

[AmericanLiberal]

7. My journey from the economic right

IMO, all this traces back to the financial crashes of the late 1990's. The fall of the Soviet Union was the high point for the momentum behind the resurgence of classical economics that began in the mid-1960s. The most utter possible vindication of classical economics (or so it seemed) was bound to follow with it the orgy of neoliberal policies dictated from Washington that were set up in the mid-1990s.

At that time, I was definitely an economic conservative. I barely noticed the Mexican peso crisis of 1994. I sincerely expected that NAFTA would show concrete benefits in terms of real wages and GDP for the nations involved. Then suddenly in 1997 came the Asian financial crisis. I didn't understand it. Hadn't these countries been the so-called models held up to by the Washington-consensus establishment just months earlier? Throughout 1997 and 1998 I continued to believe the IMF prescriptions and the journalists from TIME or the Wall Street Journal who said that the crisis was caused by not ENOUGH neoliberalism, not enough transparency, etc. But something wasn't right because the IMF prescriptions were failing to work. And then when Malaysia imposed capital controls that seemed to work a bit better.

In 1998 and 1999 the crisis spread to Russia and Latin America. It was clear that the fall of the USSR had been a terrible disaster for Russia in many ways. By that time it was clear that something was wrong, terribly wrong. After riots in Argentina in 2002 and a depression that has cost many lives in rising crime, drug abuse, and outright starvation, with an IMF out of touch with reality, that organization and its penchant for inflation-targeting at all costs hit rock bottom.

But the real bombshell did not come until 2003. The UN released a report on world GDP growth comparing across decades. The 1990's was the decade of privatization, "liberalization" of trade regimes, but economic growth in the 1990's was worse than for any preceding decade. Dozens of countries actually shrank, whereas only a few did in the 1980's. It found that developing countries did best in the 1960's and 1970's, especially in Latin America. But those were the dark days of import substitution? Separately, a report was published in The Economist which showed that NAFTA had brought no tangible gains in the U.S. or Mexico in GDP growth or real wages. By then it was clear that rigid classical economics was an ideological myth.

Hence since 1996 when I was a radical neoclassicist in economics, I have now shifted to the economic center. For Latin America, greater government involvement seems to be important. I feel Latin America has learned the same lesson as I have personally.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. grin.

Can't say that I completely followed the details of your transformation, but I can tell you this about latin America. The poor and the rich are intricately related. Literally. The rich in most latin American countries don't separate themselves from the poor the way we do. They have extended families that spread from the campesino in the fields to the wealthiest in the cities. You don't see the kind of transient movement you see in the states either. The countries are much smaller. So if you shit on your neighbor, the smell will follow you wherever you go. Unlike here, where ambitious, crooked people can run & hide from their mistakes.

So, the concept of socialistic programs is not as frightening as it is in the States. Think of a latin American country like one big private school. It's not completely true, but it's close enough.