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Let's face it, democracy is a sham in this hemisphere. They have no intention to share power with the little people.
Viva la revolucion!

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Electo con una clara mayoría, Morales confirma un giro positivo de la política latinoamericana: la izquierda puede llegar al poder por la vía electoral.

Elected with a clear majority, Morales confirms a positive turn in the politics of Latin America: the left can arrive in power through the electoral route.

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Chomsky points out that the electoral wins of both Morales (2005) and Aristide (1991) depended on broadly based, long-term grass-roots political mobilization able to put forward a genuine alternative. This kind of bottom-up democracy actually engages the public, according to Chomsky, and is unfamiliar in the 'developed' democracy of the United States, where the system basically functions to disengage--and thus disenfranchise--a public whose choices are likely to be two rather similar representatives of elite interests.

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Have you read any of the academic literature on democracy? I have a pretty basic, second hand grasp from University. The USian 'developed' democracy of deciding between elite interests (the reality of most Latin American democracy's surely only moreso) sounds alot like what Robert Dahl coined as Polyarchy. My knowledge of Dahl himself is second hand but I have read much of (and would suggest to anyone) the book Promoting Polyarch by William Robinson.

It dissects/critiques breifly the Polyarchic democracy that Dahl promoted and then argues, that this is what the US is really promoting in all their 'democracy promotion' business, particularly after the cold war. (They will settle for a UN backed transitional dictatorship if they have to though)

He has a really good chapter on Haiti (the first coup and restoration of Aristide), and also discusses Chile, Nicaragua, the Phillipines.

Unfortunately the contemporary examples of bottom-up, social movement democracy doesn't seem encouraging. Haiti suffered to coups and the other big example- the worker's party in Brazil- is probably the best documented case of a bottom up party I can think of but Lula has been incredibly cautious about redistribution in one of the most unequal countries in the world.

[ 23 February 2006: Message edited by: thebabblerformerlyknownas'larry' ]

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Originally posted by thebabblerformerlyknownas'larry':
Fidel, I agree that democracy in this hemisphere is mostly a sham, but I don't see that as a reason to lionize Fidel Castro. Would you care to argue otherwise?

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I think it would be more difficult to discredit Fidel Castro. Cuba has been the most stable country in the Caribbean and Latin America for a while now. And I think credit for this has to go the revolution and people's democracy in the years that followed 1959. Cuban's have endured shortages of all kinds throughout a mean-spirited cold war embargo by the United States. Cuban's were able to avoid right-wing death squads and US-installed despots by positioning themselves behind Fidel and the revolution. Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Chile, all countries where democracy was feigned and then stolen from the people, have endured abject poverty and vast inequality. To say that Cuban's could have achieved what is occurring only now in Bolivia and Venezuala would be wild speculation and in all likelihood unrealistic. There are still some 13 wealthy ranching families who posess title to most of the best farming lands in Central America, which was handed to their predecessors during Spanish colonial times. The democracy that exists in Cuba and the democratic poverty in Central and South America today are a stark contrast. Cuba's socialism is an experiment in the future whereas Latin America has endured a cold war holocaust in its struggle for its fledgling democracies.

As you've said, TBFKAL, vast inequality still exists in Brazil and Venezuela. If real land redistribution occurs in either of those two countries, I fear the consequences and continued U.S. meddling - the single largest reason for Cuban's not to trust gringo foreigners who come to their country and speaking about "freedom" and "democracy." In one case, a CIA agent was putting up for election in El Salvador. I mean, come on, the Americanos have been rigging elections in Latin America since at least 1912 in Nicaragua. There's only one special interest group who can possibly benefit from multi-party elections in Latin America, and that's American money seeking power and vice versa.

The progress made by the revolution under a strong central leader is a long list. Cuba is a head and shoulders above most all other Latin American countries wrt to human developement and social democracy. Does anyone want me to provide a list here ?.

What democratic nation makes several attempts to assassinate another country's leader and wage economic warfare on its people ?.

What democratic nation(our Librano autocrats) aids and abets a shadow government in the overthrow of a democratically elected leader in Haiti ?.

As long as imperialism exists, it will, by definition, exert its domination over other countries. Today that domination is called neocolonialism. - Ernesto Che Guevara

Learn from Cuba, says World Bank

[ 23 February 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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where the system basically functions to disengage--and thus disenfranchise--a public whose choices are likely to be two rather similar representatives of elite interests.

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But they had Nader, and nobody really voted for him. We have the NDP, which gained some strength last month, and a few other options too.

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Originally posted by Mr. Magoo:

But they had Nader, and nobody really voted for him. We have the NDP, which gained some strength last month, and a few other options too.

The fact that the same parties win is not the same as saying that they win because the people only have two to choose from.

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There's a good article somewhere explaining why voter participation is significantly lower with FirstPastThePost electoral systems in three most politically conservative western nations, and why PR/MMP is advanced democracy by comparison. It explains why we've been ruled by successive plutocracies in North America who control the news media and ensuring that Canadian's and American's are bombarded with anti-left rhetoric and pro-corporate agenda 24/7/365. It explains why half a million voters on our west coast voted Green but sent no MP's to Ottawa, and why less than half a million right coasters voted Librano and sent 20 MP's to the halls of power. It's a matter of bad math used to favour a foreign-based corporate agenda that we don't have democracy, Magoo.

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It's a matter of bad math used to favour a foreign-based corporate agenda that we don't have democracy, Magoo.

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I thought we brought our electoral system with us when we came from England. (?)

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If more Canadian's were to have the Rabble/babble news dumped in their mail boxes Monday to Friday for several years, do you think they'd have voted like they did ?. I don't think so.

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I think the tail is wagging the dog there. I doubt most people who support the left do so because they read rabble. But I bet a lot of people began reading rabble because they support the left.

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The world is, according to some, improving its democratic nature, because there are so many new democracies. But, in my view, though the proliferation of democracy may yet prove to be as good a thing as it is made out to be, the fact is that democracies are tolerated by the powers that be where they once weren’t, because things like the WTO have made the world not safe for democracy, but safe from democracy. The scope and role of governments, democratically elected or not, has been so constricted, the reach of politics is so limited and the reach of the market and its corporate keepers so vast, that what once had to be achieved by authoritarianism, intimidation, violence, or other ways of subverting the democratic, is now achieved in the open for all to see at the WTO

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And that's the more respectable side of North American plutocracy that we can mention without probing the darkest side of corporate-sponsored end of it. "North American capitalism is a car permanently on blocks." I don't know who said that, but I like it. We go from one crisis to another with self-interest as the economic driver, and the result is that appalling greed takes precedence over the will of the people.
Democracy in North America has become an illusion. The people can only look forward to the same corporate and financial dictatorship controlling millions of lives decade after decade.

Hundreds of millions of people around the western world rejected laissez-faire capitalism in the 1930's. Now, our weak and ineffective politicians are wanting to reintroduce aspects of that era's political economy, little by little in spite of its complete failure again in 1980's Chile and Argentinan economic experiments with the help of some of the most brilliant minds in ultra right-wing economics. These people just won't take "no" for an answer.

[ 23 February 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

The question is whether it is a reproducible model. I have a hard time believing that it is. Cuba is a small country with no major extractible resources; the revolution was protected by the Soviet Union, at least partly for its own purposes; and it is now struggling. The times have changed a bit, in other words.

So it is at least worth looking at other models. Consider, for example, Chile. Now, Chile is not a revolutionary paradise. It has not challenged the free-trade policies adopted, as you say, with great glee during the dictatorship. It has not revoked the Constitution which gives unreasonable power to the military.

So what has the Concertación done in 16 years of popular rule? They have not altered the broad macroeconomics of the country. But they have:

-- Reduced the under-5 mortality rate from 19 to 9 (per thousand live births) between 1990 and 2003. In the same period, the under-5 mortality rate for Cuba was reduced from 13 to 8; for the United States from 10 to 8; and for Canada from 9 to 6.

-- Reduced the poverty rate from 38.6% to 18.8% and the severe poverty rate from 12.9% to 4.7% in the same period, making it the only country in South America to have achieved the millenium goal of halving the poverty rate.

-- Increased the average school attendance for 15-24 year olds in rural regions from 7.9 to 9.4, and in urban regions from 9.9 to 10.9, in both cases the highest statistic in South America.

Those statistics come about because of a policy of social spending. In 1990, Chile's social expenditures were about US$400 per capita: by 1997 it was spending US$600 per capita, and by 2003 US$763 (all in constant year 2000 dollars), putting it roughly equal to Cuba and Costa Rica (Argentina and Uruguay spend much more). Since then, spending has continued to increase. Nonetheless Michelle Bachelet has called the investment insufficient, and promises to invest even more in health and education.

Now, it's commonly said that Chile shows one of the highest inequality rates in the hemisphere (measured by Gini Index, for example), but that's no longer the case. It's not because Chile has succeeded in closing the gap, although as shown above it has succeeded in distributing benefits -- the under-5 mortality rate is a pretty good measure of general population health. It's because inequality has increased in almost all South American countries, whereas in Chile it is roughly stable, possibly with a slight downward trend. (Only Guatemala, Mexico and Panamá have significantly reduced inequality over the period 1990-2002).

So there is still a lot to criticize about Chile, but real peoples' real lives have improved significantly, and the Concertación still has at least four more years to institutionalize the benefits.

That might not be a reproducible model either, but I think it demonstrates something.

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Originally posted by rici:

The question is whether it is a reproducible model. I have a hard time believing that it is. Cuba is a small country with no major extractible resources; the revolution was protected by the Soviet Union, at least partly for its own purposes; and it is now struggling. The times have changed a bit, in other words.

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Support for the revolution in Cuba has never been greater. And why do countries withcornucopias of extractable resources and guided by IMF structural adjustment programs performed so badly in comparison with countries who have bypassed Washington consensus and the IMF, like India(to a lesser degree) and China, to a greater extent. China has fewer natural resources than any of Russia, Africa and Latin America, and they have not experienced human misery on the same scale since experimenting with market socialism.
The rate of poverty in Russia is 30 times what it was before glasnost. Much the same experience was had across Eastern Europe 16 years(shades of Chile) later. Life expectancy in Russia is a disgrace. High unemployment has become a permanent feature of the Russian economy as it is among Easter bloc nations. The question eventually becomes, at what point do they declare it a disaster?.

China is not a role model for the world either mind us, but the approach to solving issues of abject poverty in that country has been to provide jobs and economic growth rates anywhere from six to ten percent over the last 21 years in a row. Whereas in natural resource-rich nations like Russia and the others, the advice has been to privatise, slash jobs and implement economic austerity to shock the economy into efficiency. And I think at least some of the Chinese model is worth considering along with what happened in Chile.

And what did happen in Chile?. Well, they abandoned the idea that a fully deregulated economy would be allowed to continue by the people themselves who begand protesting soup kitchen capitalism and unemployment levels that reached 39 percent as the wealth of the country was shovelled to the richest few percent. The wealthy in Chile weren't complaining at all about it.

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It has not challenged the free-trade policies adopted, as you say, with great glee during the dictatorship. It has not revoked the Constitution which gives unreasonable power to the military. They have not altered the broad macroeconomics of the country. But they have:

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But they didn't stay the course with Chicago School reforms. The reforms were supposed to build an inflation-free ultra politically conservative economy based on financial services and the outlawing of trade unions. After privatizing everything in sight and capital freed of the dead hand of government bureaucracy, the Chilean economy spiralled downward into depression and bankruptcy. The workers rioted in the streets and were suddenly unafraid of government bullets. It was Pinochet himself who fired the Chicago School graduates. The dictator was ready to show compassion to the workers by making trade unionism legal again and spending liberally on renewing thousands of government jobs. Chile's Salmon industry is a good example of how they resuscitated the lifeless economy - the national industry employs over a 100K Chilean's.

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So there is still a lot to criticize about Chile, but real peoples' real lives have improved significantly, and the Concertación still has at least four more years to institutionalize the benefits.

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Agreed. The Bachelet government has a difficult task infront of them. Reducing the infant mortality rate in Chile from 8-9/1000 to what it is in Cuba and even better in 30 advanced democracies with socialized medicine will be a monumental task. For every full number increment they ratchet downward to, more money and resources must be invested in social democracy. The Scandinavian's plow a third of their GDP's back into social programs and still rank in the top five of Harvard School of Business' Economic Competitive Growth Index - ECGI. That's been the general experience from Cuba, a very low income country, to Singapore, another Asian experiment in market socialism where workers are earning fifth highest incomes in the world on average. If Chile is to attain anywhere near Singapore's lowest IM rate in the world, it's going to have to tackle inequality. and that means reducing the income and wealth gaps between rich and poor.

Viva la revolucion!

[ 24 February 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

Obviously, I agree with you completely about Russia and Eastern Europe. The imposition of so-called "market capitalism" (actually mafia capitalism, but arguably they're two sides to the same coin) was clearly a disaster. But it happened. (As the old fable says, "beware of what you wish for, lest you receive it.")

Finally, about Chile: I don't understand why you complain about the Chilean government creating a socialized salmon industry. Is that not a good thing? But I don't have a lot of knowledge about the Chilean salmon industry, to be honest. But how does the "lifeless" salmon economy in Chile differ from the sugar economy in Cuba?

But more substantively, yes, it is clear that popular opposition defeated Pinochet, in the end. And the government which was elected, despite Pinochet's attempt to stack the electoral deck, has set out to rebuild the country according to what is generally believed to be Chilean ideals. It is taking a long time, but there is real progress.

Now, the under-5 mortality rate in Chile is 9, while in Cuba it is 8. That's not a huge difference, and those figures were from 2003, so it is possible that they have already met. Chile does not spend more money per capita on social programs than Cuba; the expenditure is roughly comparable (according to CEPAL, Cuba spends a couple of percent more.) So you could say that, from a statistical viewpoint, they've achieved the same result with the same cost. I'm not sure I would go that far, since Cuba's medical spending includes a lot of medical support for other countries, and I don't know how CEPAL accounts for that.

Nonetheless, Chile has had a lot of success in improving citizen health, and it has done it essentially by strengthening and expanding public health care; i.e., moving towards what would be recognized in Europe as a "socialized medicine" model (or at least a semi-socialized medicine model).

For what it's worth, I find Singapore to be an odd comparison for a number of reasons, but leaving that aside I agree that the only way Chile can continue to make advances is to decrease inequality. From my reading of Bachelet's Plan of Government, I think she agrees, too. The document is available online, but it's 102 pages long; my summary is that it could probably have been written by an NDP strategist in the days when I was an NDP activist (I don't know if that is still the case) although the time is long past when the NDP would release a 100-page book during an election campaign. An important difference, of course, is that Bachelet actually got elected president. So we'll see how she does.

As for one-party governments, Latin America has had a lot of those, and on balance the results have been pretty negative. Nonetheless, Latin Americans are probably less committed to democracy than, say, Canadians, at least according to international comparative polling, which shows that Latin Americans (aside from ones living in countries with a deep democratic tradition like Uruguay) are less firmly in agreement with the statement that "democracy is the best form of government in all cases". However, the majority in all countries polled (which I believe does not include Cuba) do agree.

I suspect that the group who disagree with that statement, both in Latin America and the rest of the world, include those who are at heart corporativists (that is, fascists -- I try to reserve the use of the word "fascist" for those who actually support fascism instead of casting it around indiscriminately as an all-purpose derogative). The tendency is worrying, and I would prefer not to give it any support, myself.

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Originally posted by rici:
Fidel: I don't think you understood my remark about Cuba's lack of extractible resources. The empire wants extractible resources. From an ideological and propaganda perspective, Cuba is a nuisance for them, but having tried various times to overthrow it and failed, they are,

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I did misunderstand what you were getting at, but the fact that American neocolonialism depends on natural wealth to prop it up is not relevant here. That's what I'm saying. The former world bankers in that article praising Cuba I think would agree, too. The Cuban's have also realized that achieving social democracy does not necessitate bankrupting a country as so many on the right have tried to make cases stating as much without factual proof. This is no small matter as it was used as an argument everywhere in the world for convincing governments of the need to cutback on social welfare state from the U.S.A, to Canada to former republics of USSR beginning in the late 1970's to now. The real evidence bieng reported around the world is that social democracy and strong, vibrant economies go hand-in-hand.

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Finally, about Chile: I don't understand why you complain about the Chilean government creating a socialized salmon industry. Is that not a good thing?

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Yes, as I mentioned prev, the Chilean economy was on its knees in the early 80's after near complete deregulation of the economy. It was more a case of New Deal socialism by the dictator with a change of heart which set the economy rolling again than Chicago School macroeconomic policies.

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Now, the under-5 mortality rate in Chile is 9, while in Cuba it is 8. That's not a huge difference, and those figures were from 2003, so it is possible that they have already met. Chile does not spend more money per capita on social programs than Cuba; the expenditure is roughly comparable (according to CEPAL, Cuba spends a couple of percent more.) So you could say that, from a statistical viewpoint, they've achieved the same result with the same cost. I'm not sure I would go that far, since Cuba's medical spending includes a lot of medical support for other countries, and I don't know how CEPAL accounts for that.

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Good. I agree. (Just so you know I'm acknowledging your better than above average understanding of the subject here)And I believe the under 5 mortality in Cuba was one whole number lower than that in the following year, according to UNICEF. Moving from one full number to the next really is a significant statistical difference wrt to mortality figures.

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For what it's worth, I find Singapore to be an odd comparison for a number of reasons, but leaving that aside I agree that the only way Chile can continue to make advances is to decrease inequality.

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I found it an odd example too at the time. The Asian's have strange mores and culture. and the Singaporean's are no exception with their hardline approach to battling corruption with capital punishment. I think of it as southern U.S.-style justice with an emphasis on abating white collar crime, said to be worth ten or twenty times the value of all street and blue collar crime here in the west. Go figure. Aside from their unusual approach to justice, they are a thriving Asian tiger economy. Social democracy is everwhere on the small island some 40 years after breaking free of colonialism. In 1965, Singapore was further behind than Cuba wrt to just about everything. Lee Kwan Yew, a protege of British socialist Harold Wilson, is largely credited with picking that country off its knees.

[ 24 February 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

2004 stats:

Under-5 mortality: Cuba 7; Chile 8
Infant mortality: Cuba 6; Chile 8
Life expectancy at birth: Cuba 78; Chile 78

So advantage Cuba, but both of them are enormously ahead of the South American norm, and the difference is certainly not enormous.

Their legal system is draconian and patriarchal. They use corporal and capital punishment freely; Singapore has the highest execution rate in the world relative to its population, and 70% of their executions are for drug offences. Half a kilo of marijuana will get you a mandatory death sentence by hanging. They prefer to execute many innocent victims of their all-too-imperfect justice system than to allow one scofflaw to escape punishment.

At the same time they give trade and support to the brutal military government of Burma. And they look the other way as Indonesians who got rich through smuggling, drug trafficking, illegal logging, and other corrupt activities in their homeland take up permanent residence in Singapore.

It's a middle-class society, one of the richest per capita in the world, thanks in part to the thousands of foreign migrant workers who go there to toil for low but steady wages to feed their families back in Bangladesh or Malaysia. At the same time it is highly authoritarian and they have little freedom. Their press and their labour movement are government-controlled; they don't allow demonstrations without a government permit; dissent is suppressed; conformity, obedience, patriotism, and "family values" are encouraged; freedom of assembly and association are curtailed by legislation. There is no universal medical care system in Singapore; getting sick can bankrupt you. Singapore is a member of the USA's anti-Iraq coalition and has ships and aircraft in the Persian Gulf.

How did Singapore get from fourth world basket case to where it is now, M.Spector?.

In your opinion, what's stopping El Salvador or Haiti from becoming a booming tiger-ish economy diversified in just about every sector, from a nationalized airline to telecom to manufacturing electronics. Singapore rose further, faster than a real example for laissez-faire capitalist society based on financial services and sweat shop textiles - Hong Kong. HK's another island nation, and truly a showcase for vast inequality which the right-wing lunies love to holdup as an example of pure, laissez-faire capitalism at its best. Inequality does not exist in Singapore to nearly that same degree.

Singapore's infant mortality is unbelievably low according to UNICEF. Do you think they achieved it with with HMO's and US-style health care ?.

Yes, they have universal health care, or at least a public-private form of it now as we do. And the news from OECD and U of Greenwich Business School on 3P's in Europe says that it's no solution to rising health care costs. The world is experimenting with 3P's, and it doesn't look good on balance sheets say some fairly reputable sources. All Singaporean's access a doctor on a regular basis. That's not true in the U.S. with its most privatized and most expensive health care system in the world.

Remember something about Singapore - fifth highest incomes in the world on average. I didn't say "per capita." Everyone owns either their own apartment or home. The economy is one of the most diversified in the world. Lee Kwan Yew invested in education for many years in accelerating change in Singapore. It was essentially New Deal socialism on a smaller scale.
Singapore's economy is a model for state interventionism more than anything. Pssst! That's witchcraft as far as capitalism goes. Think invisible hand worship.

Highly equitable income distribution is a feature of Singapore's economy. And they've managed to achieve green zones on the small island. People have to apply for a special permit to own a car, they take the environment that seriously. And really, why should they when Singapore has a modern state-owned rail service ?.

Pro-capitalists will always tell you Singapore is a model for that success. It's an abberation that they don't like to dwell on for very long - like New Deal socialism that picked the States up off its knees after 1929 and allowed them to practice upside-down socialism slash Keynesian-militarism throughout the cold war.

There was a closed experiment in pure, Smithian laissez-faire capitalism conducted in Chile from 1973 to about 1985, M. Spector. Capitalists don't like discussing that one either.

[ 25 February 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]

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Originally posted by rici:
By the way, Iceland is tied with Singapore for top place, but the numbers are actually so small in both cases that it's pretty hard to say more than that they are both doing something right; I don't think the difference would be statistically meaningful on that small a sample.

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The auto manufacturers have been combined and brought into government ownership (let's hope they're not as bad as British Leyland, which never once made a profit in all the years the government owned it ), and we already know that the natural gas sector is primarily government-owned. Yukos was effectively unprivatized with help from China.