Susan Kaufman Purcell is the director of the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami. However based on the academic rigor she displays in a commentary of hers published today in the Miami Herald I would have difficulty giving her a passing grade in a freshman history course.
I will demonstrate what I mean. In the article she states how she is concerned with waning influence of the United States in Latin America. In the process she has apparently forgotten what the exigencies of scholarly argument are. Five paragraphs in she makes this very apparent.
...There is a down side, however, to Latin America's growing dependence on China and Venezuela, as well as to the relative decline of U.S. influence in the region.
• First, neither China nor Venezuela gives great importance to strengthening democracy in the region. While many Latin American governments might initially welcome such noninterference in the internal affairs of their countries, the fact remains that U.S. support for democracy in Latin America is an important explanation for why the region has been more democratic in recent years than governments in other emerging market regions.
Really? I personally know many people throughout Latin America who would very strongly disagree with this statement. Very recently the Republican Party has illegally supported the PAN party in Mexico. The US government also was involved to some degree in the obviously anti-democratic coup in Venezuela a couple of years back. The nation has an extremely long history of military intervention and thwarting democracy, yet Purcell presents this as if it were an undisputed fact. I would be happy to debate whether the US has been a democratic influence in the region. Unfortunately she doesn't even cite one example of something so clearly disputable. And this should be taken seriously?
She continues:
• Second, neither China nor Venezuela gives great importance to strengthening market economies in the region. Although many anti-globalization supporters would disagree, Latin America has benefited from Washington's push for market economies. Admittedly, the market reforms of the 1990s did not produce the growth levels or employment opportunities that many expected.
Now we get into the heart of her simplism Let's start with something that has bothered me for some time; the disingenuous and ahistorical use of the term 'anti-globalization.'
I have spent significant time with those who oppose the American version of unrestricted free trade and the market economy. I lived in Argentina from 1998 to 2002 during the heart of the economic collapse and witnessed firsthand the frustration and misery these policies had on much of the population. And I was in Cancun during the 2003 WTO conference. Certainly there are fringe elements that are, for lack of a better word, 'anti-globalizationist'. But this is not a serious position. It is somewhat akin to being anti-gravity. John Gray treats the issue of globalization in a much more refined and scholarly fashion.
A global single market is very much a late-twentieth-century political project. It is good to remind ourselves of this, and to make an important distinction. This political project is far more transient than the globalization of economic and cultural life that began in Europe in the early modern period from the fifteenth century onwards, and is sets to advance for centuries. For humankind at the close of the modern period globalization is an historical fate [my emphasis]. Its basic mechanism is the swift and inexorable spawning of new technologies throughout the world. That technology-driven modernization of the world's economic life will go ahead regardless of the fate of a worldwide free market. Growing economic interconnectedness does not depend on the orthodoxies of the IMF. Only an ecological catastrophe can halt or retard it. (Pg . 23 False Dawn, John Gray [The New Press, New York, 1998])
It is shameful that an important academic would argue with such simplistic talking points. My god, it is obviously (and it pains me to even have to point this out) not about being for or against 'globalization.' There are actual issues involved in how a local economy and the global economy should be organized and we should not have to be wasting time dissecting juvenile misrepresentations from someone in a position that demands one know better. If there is one thing that Hugo Chavez is clearly NOT doing, it is becoming an isolationist while retreating behind immense barriers of protective tariffs and drastically reducing his country's foreign trade. In fact he is doing the contrary - actively looking to integrate Latin America and open up new markets for his country and the region in other parts of the world.
Nowadays probably the closest thing you can get to some kind of anti-globalist state is North Korea and I am afraid I don't recall too many progressive leaders calling for their nations to emulate their model.
What we need to discuss and debate are issues such as
- what domestic industries should be protected and what shouldn't
- what types of regional free trade zones should be created.
- the levels of subsidies and tariffs in both developed and underdeveloped nations.
- how much should local circumstances and conditions be taken into consideration when developing trade positions, budgets and plans for economic development
- to what extent should natural resources be controlled by the nation itself
- can and/or should labour and environmental regulations be international?
- how much should be invested in social programs, especially education and health
- are the roles of the IMF and World Bank productive or counter productive?
- issues of debt and interest repayment in the face of social and economic crisis - who much should be repaid, in what form, and when (Take the case of Nigeria, pressured by such organizations as the IMF and World Bank to pay off its entire debt despite the fact that 75% of the population live on less than a dollar a day, and many will simply die without help): "The Jubilee Debt Campaign, a pressure group, notes that the $12.4 billion that Nigeria has paid back over the past six months is more than the G8 club of rich nations will give away in debt relief to poor countries over 10 years")
- dealing with the immense corruption, especially among the elite, and the huge degree of tax evasion (that has always been given lip service by the IMF but never pursued with the same intensity as they have done when demanding cuts in social spending (again see Argentina, or Mexico)
Is it not incredibly "America-centric" to believe that there is only one model to be followed regardless of the state of the local economy, the composition of natural resources, the level of development, the historical role of family and culture in the economy, the geographical location, the political, ethnic and sectarian realities, etc?
She says that, "Latin America has benefited from Washington's push for market economies." Again this is most certainly a debatable position so you would think she would explain what she means by "benefitted," and give examples. Without doing so it is an entirely useless statement. If the majority have benefitted then why such a radical reorganization of most governments in the region? Argentina, the 1990s shining success story of the Washington consensus, crashed very hard and it was not pretty. Does she want to argue that Argentina was better off taking this route?
She continues:
The fact remains, however, that the implementation of the so-called Washington Consensus reforms lowered inflation, stabilized currencies, attracted foreign investment, gave consumers access to more and better products at lower prices and modernized infrastructure, communications and other services.
Inflation was exchanged for debt. Poverty either increased or stayed the same. The stabilized currency in Argentina was one of the prime causes of the economic collapse. Social exclusion and crime rose. Gaps between the rich and poor rose (by the way, creating further problems in a region that has always struggled with democracy and corruption by its society's elite), foreign investment disappeared when the inevitable economic downturn resulted (more on this in a second). Certainly the middle class got more access to consumer products, but many poor got even poorer and, given the wide variety of forms 'globalization' has taken across the globe in this era of increasing technological connectedness, it is very much reasonable to assume that they would have achieved access to these consumer products regardless of the specific economic model Latin American nations would have pursued.
The failures, unfortunately, were significant. The reform process stopped too soon -- well before sufficient labor, educational, tax, regulatory and legal reforms had been implemented.
In addition, the reforms lacked a sufficient social component that would have given the lower classes more of a stake in the new market-based economies.
This is rich. She had earlier mentioned the increase in foreign investment during the heyday of neo-liberalism in Latin America but now fails to note the obvious reason for this - the IMF's demand state expenditures be reduced, especially in health care, education and pensions along with a reduction of taxes for foreign multinationals and and easing of labour and environmental regulations. I have no idea what she means by "a sufficient social component " but I can't see how the social problems can be reduced if you simply continue the same policies that so greatly contributed to the social problems in the first place. Regardless, a respected academic must be far more precise and specific.
In addition the use of the word "reform" could mean anything. It is either highly dishonest or lazy, either way inexcusable from someone in her position. Finally the argument that "if they had just gone farther" can be applied to any failed policy and has been used by losers from Vietnam to Iraq. It is not a justifiable position, especially without explaining how so. I would have loved to see her try to stand up in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires in late December 2001 and argue that the problem was the De La Rua hadn't gone far enough (when half the population had fallen below the poverty line and a quarter didn't have enough to eat).
• The third cost of the decline of U.S. influence and the rise of Venezuelan and Chinese influence involves the Latin American militaries. In tandem with its support for democracy and market economies, Washington tried to help the region avoid a costly arms race.
How so? Examples? When you argue a case you need evidence. The United States has given enormous amount of military aid to Colombia, Venezuela's neighbour and, as said, has supported a coup in Venezuela. Is it particularly surprising that Venezuela has decided to increase its military spending? Obviously I am operating from a very different ideological perspective, but it is her very contentious statements presented without evidence or examples rather than a conservative viewpoint that make her position so weak.
Its training programs for Latin America's military also emphasized the importance of civilian control of the military and respect for human rights, despite the fact that these efforts did not always produce the desired results.
Speaking of contentious claims. "Its training programs ... emphasized the importance... of respect for human rights." Seriously? For example? Is she referring to the Latin American military that learned how to cut its teeth at the infamous military school, the School of the Americas, in Georgia that led to the killing fields throughout much of the continent in the 1970's and 80's? Or perhaps she is talking about the more recent influence of the U.S. military, you know the militarythat "emphasizes the importance of respect for human rights" in such places as Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and Haditha. Hard to say, but again I wouldn't mind seeing an example or two.
China, which has become involved in military training in Latin America, does not share these concerns. And the Venezuelan government, which also does not share them, is engaged in an unprecedented military buildup.
Unprecedented? In their history? In Latin America? I don't know. She doesn't say. Neither does she cite any figures to back this up. From what I understand, besides facing a potentially hostile neighbour (Colombia) along with the world's only superpower that has been constantly clamoring for the government's overthrow, the Venezuelan military was in desperate need of some modernization. And the United States worried about "an unprecedented military buildup." C'mon. Let's be real here.
Although Chávez claims that the buildup is a defensive move against alleged U.S. plans to invade his country, it will undoubtedly trigger a revived Latin American arms race.
Undoubtedly? How so? Which countries? Surprise, surprise she doesn't say.
Both Latin America and the United States need to take steps now to ensure that democracy and market economies do not become casualties of the new global economic and political order. Latin American governments, ideally in partnership with business, labor and other leaders, must find a way to revive the market reforms while addressing at least some of the needs and concerns of groups that feel they have been excluded from their benefits.
They must also give legal and regulatory reforms equal importance in order to make democracy relevant and accountable to the lower classes. At the same time, the United States must find new ways to engage with the region to strengthen democracy and market economies so that the efforts and accomplishments of the earlier wave of reforms will not have been in vain.
That is generous of her, the call for leaders to address "at least some of the needs and concerns of groups that feel they have been excluded from their benefits." Someone in her position should clearly understand that it isn't market economies versus Bolshevism. The questions and issues that need to be confronted include much of what I outlined above. This nonsense is absolutely useless.
While I would certainly expect a simplistic talking head in the anti-intellectual environment of American cable news, or on the opinions pages of the he said/she said journalism of the New York Times or Washington Post to produce a column such as this, Purcell is in theory working in an academic environment. You would think that this would necessitate a much more nuanced, sophisticated and relevant approach. Unfortunately this is clearly not the case. It appears that the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami isn't overly picky when choosing its directors.
(Note: edited after first posting)
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