We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, July 17, 2014

New Wave of Washington Consensus in Latin America

Click here to access article by Don Quijones from Wolf Street. 

The author looks at economic trends in Latin America and sees some new moves by the neoliberal leadership of the US led ruling capitalist classes. (Neoliberal policies and operations that have been applied to Latin America are frequently identified as the "Washington Consensus".)
Something big is going down in Latin America: A slow-moving tectonic shift threatens to split the continent down the middle on ideological lines. On the Atlantic side are Mercosur nations such as Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela, whose governments are by and large statist and protectionist. On the opposite side are the four signatories of the recently signed Pacific Alliance, Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile – countries that are, in the words of the Financial Times, more “reform” and “liberal” minded.
Meanwhile, another capitalist gang known as the BRIC nations is taking shape to counter the capitalist gang represented by the US led Empire. Further details on this are provided by Pepe Escobar in his recent article "BRICS against Washington Consensus: Death Sentence for the Neoliberalism?". Unfortunately, Escobar's article suggests that the movement of the BRICs to create a multi-polar world would be a positive development. This view seems to be a common delusion among many critics of the US Empire. If you believe that, then you should also believe that the competing capitalist empires of the 20th century, the Anglo-American empire and the two blocks led by Germany in both WWI and II, were good for world.