The failed instauration of the Republic is responsible for the economic failures of Latin America and the endurance of populism.
To analyze the current state of Latin America we must go back in time to a factor most countries have in common, which is Spain. We are told that when Spain came to Latin America, they brought with them the concepts and traditions of the western lifestyle from Judeo-Christian values such as liberty, individualism, rights, private property, and institutionalism. Spanish writer Jose Ortega and Gasset analyzed the colonizing Spain from the 14th and 15th centuries that invaded America. He stated in his investigation that there wasn’t a western culture stablished in Spain by that time, so Spain couldn’t have given us what they never had. It was a feudal disaster among empires that were trying to establish. It was not a place where Liberty, individualism, or private property were being promoted. The Spain that conquered us had just expelled the MOROS that had been there for over eight centuries. Until finally Castillas and Aragon won the great battle of power. It is important to understand where we come from and what had happened in the continents to understand the processes that took place and led us to the present way of life.
Another lie we got told is that the pre-Columbian societies like the Mayans the Azteca’s, and the Incas were pacific civilizations that supported each other and danced together until colonization arrived in ships. These societies were elitist classist slavery and economically discriminatory. An example of this is the Aztecs had rules for the lower classes and they wouldn’t be able to wear certain colors or own certain types of animals. People in Latin America were already used to be commanded and stepped upon. That’s why it was so easy for the colonizers to come, settle and command an already submissive population.
Why is there poverty in Latin America? Alvaro Vargas Llosa wrote a book called Liberty of Latin America, in it, he resources to history and realizes that there are five principles of oppression that survived throughout all the economic and social eras from Latin America from the pre-Columbian America to the present moment.
The first factor is Corporativism is a notion of things where the State operates from a corporate perspective of society. the authorities and the laws are not directed for individuals but for organized groups. This taught us that as individuals our worth is not measurable nor impactful, and that we needed to join a club or a group to have rights, be heard, and supported by the state. The army, church, syndicates, and worker unions are famous groups, where depending on the quality of your connections and how strong the fight of your belonging group was, the better was the relation with the state. This corporativist view of society takes away the notion of an individual to be self-sufficient and established in the subconscious mind of the Latin American person the thought of “what will they think of me” “what will society say about me” so the individual has panic to be themselves because before that one must ‘belong’ and fit in.
The second factor of oppression is state mercantilism. People tend to blame capitalism for all the things that went wrong economically in Latin America throughout history. When if we pay attention to the definition of Capitalism whether it is from Marx’s or Smith’s perspective, it means free market, a market free of privileges, monopolies, and oligopolies, free from bureaucratic obstacles that allow some to trade and exchange yet prevents others from doing so. We blame capitalism and the idea of free market for ruining economies in Latin America when this is a system that we never had.
In the present, if I as a Paraguayan want to set up a store in my country or any other country in south America, I would have to go through bribes, bureaucracy, and take part in an enormous corruption wheel to get what I want. Another thing we cannot do is migrate freely and have lets say a Mexican working in Peru in a spam of two weeks, so that capitalist free market that we so passionately blame for all the economic misfortunes we had to endure as a continent, is in reality just a ghost of a lie from a system that never took place.
We must call the issues we have with their real name so that we can effectively identify them and address them. What we’ve had in Latin America throughout history is called State Mercantilism. It is believed that Spain brought capitalism with the ‘western way of life’ but this is not true. Spain had forbidden the entrance to the new world to Gypsies, Jews, Germans, French, and English people. This made us xenophobes and kept us from trading with other people. They would operate their state mercantilism from ‘El consejo de Indias’ or the council of the indies that regulated all the economic movement of the crown.
Thirdly I can mention Privilege as another principle of oppression, from the Latin privilegium, privis meaning private and legum meaning laws, hence, laws for the private. In Latin America we never had equality before the law. There has always been a separation measured with the most random things to differentiate us from one another such as the color of our skins, our last names, how much money do we have, what kind of stuff are we able to purchase. So just like in the past the noble was different from the priest, the priest was different than the peasant we carry those ways until the present and people are not worth for their merit or what they are capable of, and this condemned them to stay in the social stratum where they belong. This prevents social mobility and stratifies economic relations because the whole economy is based in the work of many for the wealth of few.
The last two principles of oppression that characterize south American governments and economies are politicized laws where few had the power to create laws that affected entire populations and these laws were made to fit and support the aspirations of those in power and hypocritical philanthropy.
We became ‘Republics’ by dragging all these characteristics into the political systems of today. The law does not exist to rule our consciences, our ideas, our will, our gifts, or our trades. The actual mission of the law is to prevent the actions of people from crushing or going over the rights of others.
Bastiat said that the law was perverted by two opposing forces, the first one, unintelligent selfishness, and the second one hypocritical philanthropy. We must understand that we are all selfish by nature and come to peace with this idea. This doesn’t apply only to humans, its in all of nature. Life wants to continue alive and to do so being selfish is a need. There are two kinds of selfishness, rational selfishness and irrational selfishness, the difference is that the first one sees its rights to life, property, and liberty as equal to everyone else’s, when the second one believes that their rights are above anyone and everyone. This led the world to face catastrophic consequences. When politicians in Latin America give speeches and proclaim ‘not having personal interests’, or ‘my only interest is the people and their wellbeing’ or even worse when the Latin American public proclaim the need of ‘good selfless politicians’ we must understand that all people are selfish by nature and learn how to become rational selfish beings. Most politicians (not to say all of them) are selfish and end up working for themselves to grow their patrimony in the time they have in power.
The solution to these problems that we have been carrying throughout history and continue to benefit only the few who rise to power every five or so years is the real transition to the Republic like Aristotle proposed. This true concept of republic aims to create dialogue for all ideas and beliefs; it seeks balance among the three powers of the state (and Latin America has a rotten and useless judicial system). The republic stands for meritocracy, to give opportunities to qualified people to design plans and to create opportunities for other people to also become qualified.
Life, private property, and freedom, these are the three basic rights that the republic proposes. We are born and become the owners of two things, our bodies, and our minds. We decide over these two and chose what is best to feed both the body and the mind. Parting from these two private properties we can create and obtain all other kinds of things like land, and wealth. Lastly, freedom that ensures we are capable of being the owners of the previous two rights and being the owners of our own choices.
Aristotle proposed a system with a leader called president, this figure cannot do as it pleases because there will be a congress to regulate and assess them, this congress should be divided in two. On one side there would be a senate composed of the most brilliant minds like philosophers, scientists, and intellectuals capable of designing the best future for all the people under the regime, and on the other side a group of the commons to represent the working class like the craftsmen, teachers, merchants, etc. So, the main purpose of the congress is for the senate that draws the future not to forget that there are commons living in the present moment, and for these two sides to communicate and exchange ideas and draw the limits and a clear path for the president. A republic only works if there is democracy for the people to select who will be the ones representing them in this congress. A republic without democracy becomes a tyranny of the oligarchies, and a democracy without republic becomes a tyranny of the demagogies. Republic and democracy need each other, and they are composed of a mixed government that only works when there is a functioning judicial system that controls the representatives and the citizens.
Populism has manipulated the democracies around Latin America by generating hate among the voting population, eliminating opposition from the legislative power by removing the scientists and philosophers and placing friends on their spots, buying judges in court thus breaking the judicial system, reforming constitutions, placing limits on private properties and freedom of speech, and manipulating media to promote their messages.
According to the republic, the government has a mediator role that ensures people exercise their three individual rights in the most efficient way and not compromise others in doing so, when someone is in fault, there should be a judicial system to make reparations and set things in motion again.
Politician Eduardo Enriquez once said ‘It is possible to build the dreamed Republic, when at last we break free from the inferiority complexes that up until now have kept us tied to mediocre political projects. The path starts by assuming with responsibility the civic compromise that is born from our condition as free men and women’
SOURCES
Gloria Álvarez: República Vs Populismo #RepVsPop. (2015, August 11). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6wzSwhhMh0&t=3015s
Gasset, O. J. Y. (2022). Invertebrate Spain, (First ed.). W.W. Norton & Co., inc.
Llosa, V. A. (2005). Rumbo a la Libertad/Liberty of Latin America (Spanish Edition). Planeta Publishing.
