Read this entire article in the latest edition of Foreign Affairs. But if you don’t, then you should at least see the following, which is relevant. It is written by Jorge Castaneda, once Mexico’s foreign minister, regarding to two different lefts in Latin America.
A TALE OF TWO LEFTS
Just over a decade ago, Latin America seemed poised to begin a virtuous cycle of economic progress and improved democratic governance, overseen by a growing number of centrist technocratic governments. In Mexico, President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, buttressed by the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, was ready for his handpicked successor to win the next presidential election. Former Finance Minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso was about to beat out the radical labor leader Luiz In????cio Lula da Silva for the presidency of Brazil. Argentine President Carlos Menem had pegged the peso to the dollar and put his populist Peronist legacy behind him. And at the invitation of President Bill Clinton, Latin American leaders were preparing to gather in Miami for the Summit of the Americas, signaling an almost unprecedented convergence between the southern and northern halves of the Western Hemisphere.
What a difference ten years can make. Although the region has just enjoyed its best two years of economic growth in a long time and real threats to democratic rule are few and far between, the landscape today is transformed. Latin America is swerving left, and distinct backlashes are under way against the predominant trends of the last 15 years: free-market reforms, agreement with the United States on a number of issues, and the consolidation of representative democracy. This reaction is more politics than policy, and more nuanced than it may appear. But it is real.
Starting with Hugo Ch????vez’s victory in Venezuela eight years ago and poised to culminate in the possible election of Andr????s Manuel L????pez Obrador in Mexico’s July 2 presidential contest, a wave of leaders, parties, and movements generically labeled “leftist” have swept into power in one Latin American country after another. After Ch????vez, it was Lula and the Workers’ Party in Brazil, then N????stor Kirchner in Argentina and Tabar???? V????zquez in Uruguay, and then, earlier this year, Evo Morales in Bolivia. If the long shot Ollanta Humala wins the April presidential election in Peru and L????pez Obrador wins in Mexico, it will seem as if a veritable left-wing tsunami has hit the region. Colombia and Central America are the only exceptions, but even in Nicaragua, the possibility of a win by Sandinista leader Daniel Ortega cannot be dismissed.
The rest of the world has begun to take note of this left-wing resurgence, with concern and often more than a little hysteria. But understanding the reasons behind these developments requires recognizing that there is not one Latin American left today; there are two. One is modern, open-minded, reformist, and internationalist, and it springs, paradoxically, from the hard-core left of the past. The other, born of the great tradition of Latin American populism, is nationalist, strident, and close-minded. The first is well aware of its past mistakes (as well as those of its erstwhile role models in Cuba and the Soviet Union) and has changed accordingly. The second, unfortunately, has not.
And this, a news article from Bloomberg regarding President Bachelet’s State of the Nation address that she gave to Chile a few days ago.
May 22 (Bloomberg) — Chilean President Michelle Bachelet said the government this year will spend interest derived from its copper revenue without tapping the rest of its windfall.
Chile, the world’s biggest copper producer, will spend the funds on police, health care and scholarships, Bachelet said in her first state of the nation address yesterday. The government, which is keeping its windfall revenue abroad to try to curb gains in the peso that are hurting exporters, probably has earned about $150 million in interest from the revenue, said Leonardo Suarez, head of research at brokerage Larrain Vial SA.
Bachelet’s comments may ease concern that she will succumb to pressure from lawmakers to ramp up spending amid the surge in international copper prices, Suarez said.
Bachelet, 54, said that the government will be ééprudent” and stick to its policy of saving its windfall from the metal to spend in years when prices drop. Record prices have increased political pressure to spend the funds, Suarez said. A poll last month showed that almost three-quarters of Chileans want to spend the money now. Bachelet said that the current prices for copper, which have more than doubled in a year, won’t last.
ééThe history of Latin America has too many booms that are badly managed that ended in crisis,” Bachelet told congress in Valparaiso. ééOur continent has abundant oil, tin, wheat, coffee. But none of these riches has guaranteed the development of the nations that possess them.”
Oil, tin, wheat, and coffee, she says. Almost all of Latin America remains dirt poor because for centuries all of these countries with all of these resources have been governed by people who throw it all away. The trend continues, and is being amplified, by people like Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia who — despite the rhetoric — are using their countries’ natural resources to buy political favor instead of actually building a transporation, education, and healthcare infrastructure. This is the kind of left that embodies the traditional Latin American nationalist populism that Castaneda talks about.
But there is another left in Latin America that embraces competitive markets, signs free trade pacts, governs democratically, and actually uses the country’s resources to benefit the people. In this, Chile almost stands alone, but it is a shining example of what Latin America can be. Bachelet is resisting the politician urge to spend-spend-spend, saving up copper revenues for much rainier days and only spending the interest on things that improve everyone’s lives. It is a kind of fiscal fortitude that the U.S. electorate has wet dreams about. She and her center-left Concertacion alliance embody the new, humanist left in Latin America, which cares most about improving their country to improve the lives of people.
Saving copper money isn’t the only thing she’s doing. Huge highways, one right alongside the Mapocho River that cuts straight through Santiago, are being completed and making work times much more efficient. Investments in education and healthcare, along with innovative legislation to make hospitals and schools compete to obtain government money for patients and students, is leading to improved and expanded services for everyone. Small-business and salaries are surging, with the upperclass suburb La Dehesa being flooded with construction of cookie-cutter houses for the rising middle class. The left is actually changing Chile for the better, turning it into a land of prosperity and openness.
It is this left that the United States must embrace and promote in order to fight the anti-democratic leftists like Chavez. I would venture to say that Chile is the only truly, fully consolidated democracy in the region with no chance of turning back. That kind of achievement is hard won, and will be harder yet to reach in the rest of the continent. But it can be done. Venezuela and Bolivia can be prosperous democracies one day as well. They just need a new left.