Latin American Left--Making a comeback?

Just out of college, I graduated in 1994, I ended up working in New York City at Banco de Galicia y Buenos Aires, an Argentine bank, on their trading floor. At the time, Emerging Markets, especially Latin American markets were hot, hot, hot. Communism was dead--except for Cuba. Privatization, after decades of protectionism and nationalized companies, was all the rage. Mario Vargas Llosa, the famed Peruvian author and failed presidential candidate had spoken on the superiority of capitalism and free markets at my graduation from Georgetown's School of Languages and Linguistics. I was reading Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War, by Jorge Castenada, one of Mexico's most important political scientists, discussing a decline in the left of the region and their search for a place in the new world order.

Well, it looks like the left is emerging again, but what form it will take is still up for grabs. The 90s did not save Latin America. The poor are still desperately poor. The privatizations were not always the most egalitarian of processes and in many cases rich insiders became the oligarchs of industries. Despite the arguments of brilliant authors, like Vargas Llosa, capitalism, like communism, was not a magic bullet. Now we have Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva in Brazil, a president who began his political career as a labor leader. Michelle Bachalet Jeria, recently made history with her win in Chile, becoming the nation's first woman president. She is described as a pro-business leftist. In Argentina, Nestor Carlos Kirchner, was elected following string of short-lived presidencies after the economic collapse of the country. As a young man, Kirchner was a radical leftist who fought against the military dictatorship and as president has shown disdain for the International Monetary Fund using it to his advantage to restructure the country's debt and improve the national economy. Also on the left, Tabare Vazquez of Uruguay, but the two most radical and well-known of the new left area Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Juan "Evo" Morales Aima of Bolivia.

Chavez, whose government and personality garnered a feature story in the April 2006 issue of National Geographic, has partnered with Fidel Castro to bring doctors and free health services to the poor, seized private lands for redistribution to the peasants and used the country's oil reserves and exports as a bargaining chip with countries like the United States. "Evo" Morales cut his teeth in politics as the head of the cocalero movement, a coalition of coca farmers opposed to the eradication of the coca crop by U.S. supported Bolivian governments. What may have put him over the top in elections was an on-going, public feud with U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, Manuel Rocha. Anytime the U.S. representative had something negative to say about Morales or Morales against Rocha, he seemed to do even better in the polls. His election was as much a victory over American influence in the region as it was a victory over Morales' political opponents. His MAS party (Movimiento al socialismo) is anti-U.S. and anti-capitalism. Morales even dresses in a manner that demonstrates his disdain for the business driven capitalization that he rails against. Rather than a suit and tie, Evo sports a sweater made of alpaca wool, even when meeting with world leaders.

Morales and Chavez represent the most extreme left forms of government in Latin America. Other, like Brazil's Lula, though once quite radical himself, have adopted a pragmatic leftist leaning, but more centrist approach having reached office. Few expect Bachalet of Chile to be turning her country into a continental Cuba. Even Morales, who shunned the United States on his first international tour, visited with European leaders and the Chinese, as well has his comrades in Havana and Caracas on the trip. Obviously he is not unaware that business interests and investments have to be addressed if his government and his country are to succeed.

As former president of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardozo, himself a former left-leaning sociologist, said on Foreign Exchange this morning, globalization is here to stay. There are balances that need to be reached, but in the best cases, foreign investment opens up opportunities for both sides. And so the pendulum swings. Where it will eventually come to rest, is probably somewhere in the middle.

Here is a great quote I found on Wikipedia credited to now Bolivian president Evo Morales from his campaign for that office. His opponents from more traditional parties did not want to debate him, so he said referencing U.S. ambassador Rocha: "I prefer to argue with the owner of the circus, not with the clowns."