Jan D. Walter, DW: South America has had enough of socialism
Leftist politicians had their heyday in South America in the 2000s. Now, their election promises have gone down the drain along with global commodity prices.
Brazil's former President Dilma Rousseff is now the latest of many successful socialist leaders in South America to fall from power.
The deceptive charm of socialism that had South America in its hold in the 2000s is not just vanishing in Brazil. At the turn of this century, leftist parties throughout the continent achieved majorities in parliamentary and presidential elections: Lula da Silva in Brazil, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Nestor and Cristina Kirchner in Argentina.
They had much in common right from the beginning: the promise of socially just policies through redistribution, the mutual triple enemy of capitalism-USA-oligarchy, a dose of nationalism and the cultivation of personality cults in familiar South American caudillo fashion.
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WNU Editor: These ideologies never die. When I was in Russia two weeks ago at an economic forum .... I still met hard core communists and socialists who are convinced that life under Communism was not as bad as it has being documented .... and as for those who lived under it (myself included) .... we are all liars. Same in China. Same in Cuba. As for the socialism model in South America .... the excuses are already being made on why things have gone south. The power of the elites. The influence of Western governments and their commercial interests. A fifth column. The excuse that the Latin American model of socialism is not really socialism. That their intentions were good .... and they did help some of the poor by redistributing wealth .... but they did not implement their policy correctly.
Etc. etc. etc..
Sighhh .... what can I say. Lived it personally. Witnessed it in other countries. Heard it all before .... and I have no interest to buy that t-shirt ever again.
Norway is an example of how you integrate a Petrostate, with socialist economics.
ReplyDeleteVenezuela is not.
Maduro and the Chavista's should plan their retirement to Cuba, study up on how they "failed" Socialism, stock up on cervesa and popcorn , and let the Ogliarches take charge of Venezuela for the benifit of the 1% again.
All the Ogliarches have in their bag of tricks is extreme austerity, selling off Venezuela's assets for pennies on the dollar, and they can't control the weather or the price of oil either.
Wrong use (again) of the term "socialism", Im not socialist, but to called South American "populisms" that use a left wing speech as a demagogic weapon is closer to poetry more than an accurate description. By the way I noticed long time ago Americans have the tendency to classify other sistems as "communist" or "socialist" when they dont match their point of view, basically said by people who don't read much.
ReplyDeleteMany of these goverments were "caudillos" indeed, corrupt, unefficient, they use the anti-USA speech as Americans use the "terrorist", anti-communist and others.. the same manipulative excuses.
Is it possible that capitalism AND socialism have failed in Latin America?
ReplyDeleteCould it be BOTH t-shirts are best cut up into cleaning rags??