Comments on: Latin America’s New Socialism

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By: Peter B

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BruceMcF Says:
February 2nd, 2006 at 12:11 am
â€œsure, the projected employment gains did not occur, but it would have been even worse without NAFTA â€” NAFTA turned a catastrophe into a mere disasterâ€?.

On this topic…
…We always seem to get to the point of ‘two roads diverged’. Do we really know what would have happened had these events not occured?

By: BruceMcF

BruceMcF — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 04:11:32 +0000

Jscorse says, “Many people continue to attribute all sorts of ills to free trade, capitalism, and markets that are simply based on sloppy thinking, sloppy methodology, confusing correlation with causation, and an inability to appreciate what the counterfactuals might have been…”

After giving this article as an example of “right thinking”:

http://www.nber.org/books/glob-pov/mcmillan-et-al10-19-05.pdf

Talk about sloppy thinking! This is a typical example of neoclassical economic reasoning where numbers are thrown into a statistical model without any real effort to think through the problem.

The article concludes that the poorest farmers did not suffer from NAFTA because the majority do not sell food into the marketplace. It does not bother to ask the question — if they are buying food to survive, where do they get the money?

Typically, especially in areas away from the larger cities, they get it by working for larger farmers. Since the very large farmers tend to have a dedicated workforce and use less labour intensive methods, a lot of that employment is middle sized farmers. And the article notes that middle sized farmers have been hit hard by NAFTA.

And “confusing correlation with causation”? The entire empirical basis of the article is correlation, with causation brought in by assumption.

And sloppy methodology? 80 percent of NAFTA by page count is devoted to issues of capital flows, yet before NAFTA was ratified some of the modelling used to project employment gains all around were based on the assumption of no capital flows between countries.

And now after large numbers of Mexican minifundistas have been pushed over the brink by NAFTA, the argument has become, “sure, the projected employment gains did not occur, but it would have been even worse without NAFTA — NAFTA turned a catastrophe into a mere disaster”. Following that line of attack, no matter how badly any policy fails, it is a success, because we can synthesize a counterfactual that makes it look rosy by comparison.

By: peggysue

peggysue — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 16:08:04 +0000

Viva Michelle Bachelet! I am thrilled that Chile has elected a Socialist woman.

“Bachelet is the daughter of an air force general who was tortured and died in prison after Augusto Pinochet seized power in 1973. She too was imprisoned by Pinochet’s regime before fleeing into exile.” quote from today’s 1/17/06 Democracy Now!

Kind of a different outlook on torture than our corrupt republicans who like to use torture and supported Pinochet.

As horrifying as my own government, (the evil Mr. Bush) is. Bachelet gives me hope.

By: Fruits and Votes » Blog Archive » Bolivia and Morales’s “socialism”

Fri, 13 Jan 2006 01:17:35 +0000

[...] I want to call readers’ attention to an excellent radio program on Bolivia. On Open Source, it aired on January 3, but I just now have had a chance [...]

By: Angel

Angel — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 02:37:01 +0000

Nikos: I have never been in Sweden, actually I have never been anywhere else in my life other than my poor little Mexico. All I know comes from what I read, listen, and see, and it passes through a glass I have somewhere between my brain and my eyes, that is a little distorted by local idiosyncracy, historical facts and events in country, my family upbringing, and of course, from my tv set and radio and internet. So I must give you credit and agree that what you say here about the swedish people is true. Please excuse me if I came too strong in my opinion above.

By: Peter B

Peter B — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 18:57:15 +0000

A little yellow bird Says: (January 3rd, 2006 at 9:34 pm) “I see people talk of free-markets and the degree that they seem to work”

I cannot doubt that they are in operation; however, one must analyze who they work for. I believe the reason why most Americans are pro-free trade is because they are profitting from it. Is it in ‘operation’? Yes. Does it mean it works? Is it fair? “To whom are you speaking to” is my only reply. I have doubts that the poor citizens of Bolivia agree with it, and I’m sure they are aware and educated of it’s hazards, just as Jamaicans were.

Here’s a good movie if you want to see a link between poverty and the money lending institutions and free-trade in Jamaica
Life and Debt (maybe it is written as Life + Debt)

I’m catching up to this post as I work… I’m suprised that there are few mentions to colonialism (including post-colonialism and the theoretical neo-colonialism [of which I have yet to digest]).

By: Nikos

Nikos — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 02:06:40 +0000

Angel: touche!
You’re inarguably right about the European colonialist past. But I wasn’t speaking of that. Instead I meant the contemporary American global ’strategic’ deployment of effectively invincible military forces, in a carefully crafted and calcualted policy to maintain the current world-order pyramid — an arrangement wherein the USA ideal of unrestrained capitalisim is wholly dominant, and wherein the international business climate favors American-linked multinationals (like the Bechtel idiocy in Bolivia) as far as the eye can see. A pyramid of dominance-and-submission wherein only a small (and perhaps fading) fear of seeming like a monstrous world-tyranny keeps the USA government from nuking reprobates like the “Axis of Evil.”

As for the suggestion that the Swedes would behave like we Norte Americanos if only they could: well, I beg to differ. Perhaps it used to be true, but I met NO ONE in Sweden who would allow their government to behave like insatiable pigs. They’d vote ‘em out and gently send ‘em abroad: to the USA, where folks like that can always find good payin’ jobs in the Washington neo-con think-tanks.

Anyway, despite this small defense of the Swedes, thanks for your post. (And please feel free to chime in on our other threads. Perspectives of knowledge from the wider world would only benefit our often parochial debates.)

By: Angel

Angel — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 00:52:40 +0000

As a matter of fact, the USA is not the only country to use its diplomacy to advance their economic interests, to say or imply that Sweden or any European country does not do that itÂ´s not only unrealistic but also ignorant. It was the Europeans who started all these, and the Americans play the game, but they did not invented it. Actually, here in Mexico, the Spanish, German, French, and most European contries (the Swedish included, Astra Seneca, BBB, Ericson,etc) are always pushing their home corporations, among the most active are the spanish, the spanish government offices here are a mixture of spanish corporations and banks representatives, and they are not necessarily famous for paying the best salaries. These governments would do exactly the same as the USA, provided they had the power and means, but since they canÂ´t, then they want to be seen as the good guys in the block with their foreign policy, but only a few naive people eat that crap. We all remember here in Mexico how the spanish, french and others tried to dominate us in the past. So after 5 or more hundred years of European nations trying to conquer and dominate the world now we are to believe all of a sudden they are the good guys, yeah right!.

By: Agroblogger

Agroblogger — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 15:41:44 +0000

Bolivia’s Balancing Act

Since the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia’s December election, pundits the world over have been trying to put a label on the new face of Latin American populism. Is he a socialist, a communist, an extremist, a Bolivarian, a drug trafficker, …

By: Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » The Week That Was - Bolivian Blogs

Thu, 05 Jan 2006 03:12:04 +0000

[...] Bolivia recently joined Economist Jeffrey Sachs on Radio Open Source regarding the topic: Latin America’s New Socialism. The election of Evo Morales has attracted many [...]

By: Nikos

Nikos — Thu, 05 Jan 2006 01:39:56 +0000

Ole Nick, the rightist alter-ego who voiced my (our) 2:09 PM post on Jan.3rd, has pointed out quite rightly that â€˜imperialistâ€™ as an adjective is a clichÃ© overworked to the point of meaninglessness, especially when preceding â€˜foreign policyâ€™. My apologies.

What I really meant was: â€œa foreign policy designed to advance the interests of American-led transnational corporations by any means necessary, not excluding the promotion of monopolistic foreign natural resource exploitation, the exploitation of wage-slaves laboring in inhumane conditions, and overthrow of democratically elected governments through subversion and assassinationâ€”such as Mossadeq in Iran and Allende in Chile, to name but two, even while hypocritically trumpeting the godly virtues of American style republicanism. A foreign policy that apparently breeds enough resentment and hatred to cause widespread applause when barbaric terrorists massacre American civilians.â€?

Incidentally, Ole Nick says, â€œYeah! Now thatâ€™s a REAL manâ€™s foreign policy, not that pacifist crap from those sissie Swedes!â€? And then goes back to channel surfinâ€™ between pro wrestling and Fox News.