Latin America Goes Backwards

The Legion of the Backwards

The economic lesson from the 1970s and 1980s was Hayek was right. In order to help an economy, a government, and the people in a country it was best to let businesses and markets be free of government control. Incidents like the British coal mining strikes and resolsed showed that while some people will be hurt by deregulation; the economy and most people are better off. (See the documentary Commanding Heights for more)

East Asia including China, Europe, and North America have successfully deregulated many industries and are stronger for it. So what does Latin America decide to do? Nationalize industries!

National Geographic has a good article on the effort by governments in South America to seize natural resources. This scares away business and investors and while it may give temporary improvements the economies will become stagnat and fail like Albania did (from 1910 backwoods to 1960s Communist power house to 1910-style backwoods in the year 2000). It is more than just the economy which is hurt but also, as National Geographic points out, the environment. Many environmental reserves are becoming the private playground and money pit for Latin America dictators and dictator-lites.

Do not think these are efforts to give resources and power to the people. Nationalization in Latin America is done by thugs who receive funds from the industries and resources instead of a shareholder. At best its robbing Peter to pay Paul, at worst it is robbing honest men to pay the Devil.

Unfortunately look for Latin America's turn backwards to continue as it bucks the rest of the world in political movement towards the center-right.

Category: Geopolitics