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LATIN AMERICA - How Has Latin America Moved Left?
Immanuel Wallerstein
Monday 11 December 2006, posted by
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June 15, 2006 - The discussion on the leftward trend of Latin America in recent years reflects all the confusion, worldwide, about what it means to be on the left in the twenty-first century. The confusion is among all wings of world political opinion. There are various explanations for this confusion. The most obvious reason is that different people are measuring different things as the criterion of moving left. The second is that no such political tendency is perfectly linear. It always reflects ups and downs, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t an overall trend. And the third reason is that politicians notoriously speak multiple languages to different audiences, but that doesn’t mean one cannot discern bottom lines.
The first thing to distinguish among criteria is whether we are speaking of a given regime’s position on geopolitical issues or their internal policies. Of course the two are linked. But nonetheless regimes are not necessarily consistent. For Latin America the main geopolitical issue is their attitude towards and relationship with the United States. There seems little question that, on this issue, the vast majority of Latin American states have moved a considerable distance since 2000. One only has to ask the U.S. Department of State about it. They are quite aware that their voice is no longer heard with the respect and fear it once was. This is more than a matter of Chavez’s strident tones. We can see this even in the volatile actions and largely centrist views of the present government in Ecuador. The fact is that openly rightwing candidates do not win elections any more, except in Colombia. This simply wasn’t true as recently as a decade ago.
The second thing to look at is the position of the various regimes on questions relating to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the multiple propositions for free trade agreements offered by the United States. If the WTO is stymied in its present negotiations, if the IMF matters a lot less than it did a decade ago, and if the United States can get nowhere in the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), it is in large part due to the numerous "left-of-center" governments in Latin America which have put obstacles in their way. This is not the doing of Cuba but of Brazil and Argentina. Even in Peru, the newly-elected very centrist president, Alan Garcia, who defeated Ollanta Humala (openly endorsed by Chavez), said in his first post-victory declaration that he was going to review critically every clause of the bilateral free trade agreement the previous Peruvian government had been negotiating with the United States.
Those who criticize the various new Latin American regimes from the left tend to emphasize what they have been doing internally more than their geopolitical stances. There are several critical "internal" issues. The first is the rights of the so-called indigenous populations. This has been a political issue in Latin American countries for over two centuries. But it is only today that there is beginning to be a breakthrough in terms of their rights. This is in large part the result of the increased consciousness and political mobilization of these populations.
Of course, this varies country by country. And the power of indigenous populations is in part related to their demographic strength. Still, notice what has been happening. Presidential candidates of indigenous origins have been elected in a number of countries. Their mobilization was a crucial factor in the election of Evo Morales, himself of these origins, in Bolivia. Their mobilization has made it difficult for Ecuador to stay in its traditionally rightwing political position. We need scarcely mention the obvious case of Mexico, which now lives and operates within the context of a situation changed fundamentally by the Zapatista rebellion. Even in a country which has a rather small percentage of indigenous peoples, such as Chile, their struggle has now become a major issue with which the government must contend.
The second issue, often closely allied to the first one, is that of land reform. Here the left critics of the concept of a leftward turn have probably their strongest case. The fact is that the Brazilian Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT) has in effect reneged on its pledges to carry out some significant reform. And, in consequence, its crucial supporter, the Movimento dos Sem Terras (MST), has moved further and further away from the PT. But the new Bolivian government has just announced that it will move forward on land reform. And if it does, this should create a big boost for such movements in other countries.
The third internal issue is the control of natural resources (not only mining and energy but water). This doesn’t always mean outright nationalization but it certainly means a significant degree of state control and a significant national retention of income generated. Here too, bit by bit, albeit often slowly, there has been movement. One need only read the screams about protectionism to see that this is a reality with which multinationals know they have to come to terms today. In past decades, they could easily arrange friendly coups d’état. This has become very difficult, as Venezuela has demonstrated.
The fourth internal issue is the degree to which the new regimes allocate significant additional resources to education at all levels and to health-related structures. Here too, as with land reform, the results so far have been limited, although one of the reasons has been lack of governmental resources, something which may be overcome by measures in other domains. We have to reserve judgment on this account.
Finally, there is the question of the degree to which the military is being constrained from direct interference in the national decision-making processes. Latin America today is very different indeed from the epoch, not so long ago, of military coups supported by the United States, and military regimes specializing in torture. Indeed, the amnesties that the military arranged for themselves when they returned to the barracks are being revoked, slowly and carefully but up to this point successfully.
So, what is the overall picture? Latin America has definitely moved left from where it was. Whether this will continue and amplify in the next decade is a function both of the evolving world geopolitical picture and the degree to which left social movements within Latin America will maintain cohesion and put forward lucid programs.
Commentary No. 187.
These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.
Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence Global. For rights and permissions, including translations and posting to non-commercial sites, and contact: rights at agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.336.286.6606. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically, or e-mail to others, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To contact author, write: immanuel.wallerstein(AT)yale.edu.
Permission granted by the author on December 8th, 2006.
Forum posts
1. LATIN AMERICA - How Has Latin America Moved Left? (by Immanuel Wallerstein), 13 December 2006, 13:08, posted by Greg Grandin
Good analysis on the multiple dimensions of the LA Left. There is another important dimension, and that is to the degree that the rise of the left represents a structural realignment that limits the ability of the US to rally LA behind its "war on terror." I wrote a short piece on this in the New Statesman, which I’ll paste below.
The uprising
Greg Grandin
Published 04 December 2006
As Venezuelans go to the polls, they bring to a close not just a contest between President Hugo Chávez and his main challenger, Manuel Rosales, but a year-long, continent-wide campaign. Those sharply critical of Washington-backed economic liberalisation have been pitted against those in favour of freer trade with the United States. It’s been a race to the wire, with leftists taking Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Nicaragua and Ecuador, and centrists and conservatives holding Colombia, Peru, Costa Rica and Mexico.
Those committed to a vision of globalisation as it proceeded in the 1990s - reduced tariffs, deregulation, tight money and privatisation - have worked hard to brush off the importance of this election cycle. The Wall Street Journal and the Economist, for instance, repeatedly point out, correctly, that many of Latin America’s new leftists, such as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil or Michelle Bachelet in Chile, are fiscal moderates, and that the firebrand style of Chávez is the exception not the rule for the region’s reformers.
Yet, despite policy differences, and largely independently of the outcome of specific elections, Latin America is undergoing a political and economic realignment. The White House is hoping for an upset in Venezuela, but even if the impro bable happens and Chávez loses, this will only slow, not stop, the decline of US influence in the area that used to be called its "backyard".
During the cold war, Washington counted on Latin America to watch its back as it moved about in the world. Regional governments voted en bloc in favour of the US and against the USSR at the United Nations, while bilateral economic treaties gave US corporations and banks special preference, ratifying Latin America’s status as a province of the United States within an increasingly open world. When a country tried to break out of this system, the US supported coups that installed more co-operative military regimes, with death-squad auxiliaries eliminating those who continued to dissent.
Following the demise of the Soviet Union, Washington moved away from its reliance on repressive Latin American proxies, banking instead on its ability to project its power through elections and economic pressure.
This worked throughout the 1990s, as heavily indebted countries governed by centrists, grasping for the carrot of foreign investment, submitted to the command of the IMF. Ever mindful of the punishing stick of currency-market sell-offs, they cut back social spending, privatised national industries, weakened the power of organised labour, deregulated the financial sector, and did away with trade barriers that protected local manufacturers and peasant producers.
Over the past few years, however - roughly since Chávez’s landslide victory in 1998 - the system has begun to break down. The Washington consensus, as this set of policies came to be called, proved an absolute disaster.
Between 1980 and 2000, the region grew cumulatively by only 9 per cent in per capita terms. Compare that with the 82 per cent expansion of the previous two decades, and add to it the financial crises that have rolled across Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Argentina over the past 15 years, sweeping away accumulated savings, destroying the middle class, and wrecking the agricultural sector, and you will get a sense of why voters have turned left.
Efforts to move beyond free-trade orthodoxy have been aided by the significant stores of capital that have been built up in Asia, Europe and the Middle East, which have helped wean Latin America off its dependence on US finance. Likewise, high oil prices have transformed Venezuela into a regional creditor, with Caracas investing its petrodollars not in US banks but in infrastructure and bonds that help neighbouring countries break free from the IMF.
When, in 2004, the Argentinian president, Néstor Kirchner, offered the holders of his country’s $170bn external debt 30 cents per dollar, many predicted the markets would punish Argentina by withholding future investment. But, with Chinese capital pouring in, and Kirchner’s economic prudence proving a profitable bet, such threats are not as persuasive as they once were. Similar access to alternative sources of investment has allowed not just the leftist governments of Bolivia and Venezuela, but even a conservative one in Ecuador, to negotiate more favourable contracts with multinational energy companies.
Co-operation among the region’s economies is also providing Latin America with leverage. Earlier this year, the Montevideo-based Latin American Integration Association reported that trade among its 12 member nations had grown 110 per cent since 2003, a much faster pace than had been predicted. In addition, rapidly expanding trade with Europe and Asia, particularly China, has helped the region gain considerable autonomy from US markets.
With financial independence comes political freedom. Over the past couple of years, governments from across the political spectrum have demonstrated a steadfast unwillingness to enlist in Washington’s "war on terror". They have rejected the Pentagon’s efforts to subordinate their militaries to US command; opposed the invasion of Iraq; refused to elect the US-backed candidate to the leadership of the Organisation of American States (OAS); declined to pass a law that would have exempted the US from the International Criminal Court; and rebuffed calls to isolate Venezuela. Such dissent was unthinkable during the cold war.
In response to this independence movement, the White House has tried to sell the idea that there are "two lefts" in Latin America: a responsible one it is willing to work with and an irresponsible one that is a threat to democracy. It gets help from commentators such as Jorge Castañeda, who divides Latin America between bad populists and good reformers, and Álvaro Vargas Llosa, who writes about a "carnivorous" and a "vegetarian" left.
Yet such a simplistic split does not hold. For one thing, it is the supposed red-meat left that has had the most economic success. Growth in Venezuela and Argentina is off the charts, with impressive declines in poverty and unemployment, while Chile and Brazil are experiencing sluggish performance.
And the "good reformers" themselves don’t buy it. Leaders from Lula, Bachelet and Morales to Kirchner and Chávez share a commitment to integration, diversification and policies that spur not just growth, but fairness. It is this common agenda that led Bachelet, responding to the Bush administration’s attempt to use her moderation to criticise Chávez, to defend Venezuela as a country working to "eradicate poverty and eliminate inequality". It is also what led Lula to make his first post-re-election trip abroad to Caracas, where he announced his support for Chávez’s third-term campaign.
There are real conflicts among Latin American nations that Washington could exploit: between Bolivia and Brazil over energy issues, say, or Argentina and Uruguay over trade. It is having a hard time, however, backing up its divide-and-rule strategy with real incentives. The US has tried to weaken opposition to the Free Trade Areas of the Americas by picking off low-hanging fruit such as Paraguay and Peru with bilateral economic pacts. But the Democrats, now in control of Congress, have just declared that they will block ratification of free-trade treaties with Peru and Colombia because they fail to protect labour rights. Likewise, the steady decline of the dollar has reduced the importance of the US market. So, when Washington recently threatened to revoke trade concessions to Argentina and Brazil as punishment for their resistance to regional free-trade agreements, Buenos Aires and Brasília refused to budge.
With its political and economic influence in the region waning, the US is at a crossroads. It can either work with Latin American nationalists to develop equitable economic policies, or return to the days when it relied on repressive strongmen to enforce its authority locally. That the Pentagon last month announced an increase in military aid to Latin America in response to the rise of the left suggests that it has already taken a step in the wrong direction.
Greg Grandin teaches history at New York University. His latest book is "Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States and the rise of the new imperialism" (Metropolitan Books)
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