Articles and opinion columns by Latin American analysts who take an unwavering stand for freedom, including members and directors of the IID.
Protecting workers from the vicissitudes of fortune may appear a noble idea, but there are unintended consequences. The first consideration should be whether shielding us from the vicissitudes of fortune is a legitimate function of government, but let us put that philosophical question aside for another day to focus now on unemployment insurance.
Along with the supplantation of the Republic’s Constitution by the “Plurinational State” in Bolivia, universal suffrage practices have been eliminated, the number of Senators has been increased to 36, the equality of all citizens has been eliminated, seven (7) new “special, indigenous, or native peasantry” districts have been imposed with a fascist corporate system, the “community vote” has been instituted. A new electoral system has been imposed, one in which someone with nearly 26% of the votes can garnish 50% of the Senate members, and with 30% of the votes “wins” the majority of the entire Legislative Assembly. Anyone can be President in the first round “with 40% of valid votes, with a difference of at least 10% from the second runner-up”.
To the disappointment of those that think that Karl Marx’s maxim is in our Constitution, it is not in our constitution for government to engage in wealth redistribution. An open and democratic society is one in which people are equally free to become economically unequal as a result of our unequal natural distribution of aptitude and abilities. Even more basic, as economist John Cochrane points out: “Rich people mostly give away or reinvest their wealth. It’s hard to see just how this is a problem…”
As a result we have today 80 million people fleeing from their countries of origin accompanied by the most horrific violations of human rights to be experienced by the planet since the Holocaust. Worse, we have an ongoing pandemic that took hold of the world while the U.N. looked at the unfolding tragedy without being able to mobilize resources to a multilateral effort that could have standardized the fight against the disease while protecting economic life.
Impartiality, independence, and suitability are essential individual conditions in judges and are indispensable institutional principles of the Judicial Branch. Facts, however, reveal that in Argentina and Bolivia through undue actions the government applies, has subjugated the Judicial Branch to the Executive Branch, and has turned justice into a mechanism for political persecution and a guarantor of impunity for corrupt criminals in the government and its inner circles.
Except for economic journals and newsletter the IDB ins not a frequent headliner. Contrary to the IMF that seems to attract the most controversial sentiments around the world and the World Bank that is identified with large watershed projects like the Aswan Dam, the IDB seems to be as boring an institution as the Bal des Petits Lits Blanc created by Baroness Seilliere in 1919. This is quite remarkable for an institution that according to its own press releases disburses on average $9.7 billion per year since 2008 in the form of loans and an average of $534 million per year in approved grants.
Opponents who pursue to recover freedom and democracy for their peoples cannot continue giving a show of political misery and disdain of the citizenry that now-a-days is sustaining dictatorships and the impunity of the dictators.
Mr Bukele came to power as a disruptive Millennial who would crack all resistance to reform and set El Salvador onto a path of development and renewed democracy. Expectations on his performance were high to the point of getting a cheering accolade from investment funds.
The dictatorship that continues ruling Bolivia is based on a legal/constitutional structure that violates human rights, a criminal-territorial structure based on narcotics’ trafficking and an order of impunity. The Bolivian crisis today is the dictatorial oppression that has resulted in -and aggravates- the health, economic, social, and political crisis that has a continental importance as a precedent for the recovery of democracy in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
To reestablish democracy in Venezuela is a matter of regional as well as worldwide interest that has resulted in; the recognition of Juan Guaido as the legitimate President of Venezuela, the application of extraordinary international pressure measures that highlight the absence of an internal coherence. With time running out, Venezuelan political leaders by forming a government of national unity can still create a decisive internal political force to end the usurpation.
