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<p>Gary -</p>
<p>Thanks for the on-the-ground response from the "middle of the
world". I realize(d) you (like all of us) live in a bubble and I
appreciate your acknowledging the two impinging bubbles you
recognize yourself to be circumscribed by: 1) retired folk who
avoid deep political thought; 2) locals without the education or
experience to see much beyond the local community.</p>
<p>In some ways this feels like a template for many of our own
bubbles... sort of a 1) personal/professional/socioeconomic
bubble; 2) geolocal bubble . There are probably more and they
may or may not overlap significantly. I use FriAM to try to
force some of my own bubbles to impinge on one another, or perhaps
to explore the interstices between the otherwise natural
impingements... <br>
</p>
<p>I'm not a regular (only dropped in once or twice) vFriam
participant, and I don't know about Merle, I think she may make a
better effort than I and could probably be drawn into making an
appearance for a topic *like* this if you were interested. I'll
ping her offline as well to see if she might be
interested/available to vFriAM up on this (or some vaguely
related) topic next week?</p>
<p>- Steve<br>
</p>
<p>Regarding "the Golden Age of Latin America", I found this
(working) paper which moderately reflects what I think of as "the
Golden Age". I think they acknowledge (and maybe even explain)
what you have experienced/observed/believe about "keeping Latin
America dirt poor":</p>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/89360/1/64049434X.pdf"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">On the Latin American Growth
Paradox:
A Hindsight into the Golden Age </a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/89360/1/64049434X.pdf"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">Giorgia Barboni∗and Tania Treibich†
November 12, 2010</a><br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/89360/1/64049434X.pdf"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/89360/1/64049434X.pdf</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<blockquote>
<p><i>In 1950, Latin American countries’ capabilities were
promising: however, some other
countries starting at the same level, or even below, made a
better use of their initial
endowments. At the time, countries like Argentina and
Venezuela had a higher GDP
per capita than other European countries belonging to the
developed world today (Italy,
Spain...) and many East Asian countries that have managed to
catch up with the Western
World in the last decades (see Figure 1 below). Indeed, the
data on GDP per capita
over the last 60 years reveals that since 1950, Latin American
countries have diverged
from the Western World. With a GDP growth rate between 4 and 5
percent, they have
fallen behind Europe which economy has reached a 20,000
dollars per capita level today.
The Latin American countries grew slowly until 1980 and, from
then, their GDP per
capita growth has been stationary. The only exception would be
Chile which after a
period of slow growth started an expansion period in 1980s,
converging to the highest
levels. Asian countries in comparison followed a convergence
path, starting way lower
and reaching the European levels of GDP per capita after fifty
years of catching up.
Castaldi et al. (2008(16)) point out that this divergence can
also be measured by the
widening productivity gap between Latin America and the
international frontier in the
last decades.
Other indicators of education and science may also support the
hypothesis that back then,
Latin American countries had a big potential for convergence.
Argentina, for example,
was thought to be so promising that it could join the
innovators’ club (Castaldi et al.,
2008(16)). Then, what happened during the Golden Age
(1950-1975) that prevented
South American countries to exploit this potential for growth?</i></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Which is naturally just one perspective, but provides the basic
idea of what said "Golden Age" was/is/might-be. <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/13/23 9:33 AM, Gary Schiltz wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CANr4ZeOjRbGK3QYHgw6W0==92mfecKjbDovU6c2k56DM0TVJJw@mail.gmail.com">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Despite living here in the middle of the world, I'm afraid I don't
give these ideas enogh serious thought these days. I interact mostly
with people who are retired and avoid deep political thought, and with
locals who don't have the education or experience to see much beyond
the local community. I REALLY MUST make myself make it a priority to
start attending the VFriam meetings on Thursday. It might be valuable.
I wonder, does Merle ever tune in? She seems the most socially
concerned (maybe even hopeful?) person on the list.
By the way, I wasn't aware that there ever was a "Golden Age of Latin
America". Care to elaborate? My view (shaped perhaps too much by
reading "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" in the early 2000s) is
that Latin America has always been dirt poor, just like the more
developed world wants it to be. First under the thumb of the USA and
USSR/Russia, and now China. No wonder dictators thrive here.
On Thu, Jan 12, 2023 at 1:31 PM Steve Smith <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:sasmyth@swcp.com"><sasmyth@swcp.com></a> wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
GaryS, et al -
I was recently trying to make a little more sense of the larger sociopolitical situation across central/south America and realized that your location in Ecuador might provide some useful parallax.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.as-coa.org/articles/2023-elections-latin-america-preview">https://www.as-coa.org/articles/2023-elections-latin-america-preview</a>
I was (not?) surprised to read that there was a renewed interest in "regional integration". This article references Lula and Obrador and several other Latin American leaders who might be attempting a broader ideological (and economic) alignment/cooperation across the region.
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.bloomberglinea.com/english/will-lula-achieve-regional-integration-in-latin-america/">https://www.bloomberglinea.com/english/will-lula-achieve-regional-integration-in-latin-america/</a>
With the unrest of the summer triggered? by energy/fossil-fuel prices it seems like Ecuador has become (temporarily, modestly) unbalanced which seems like an opportunity for change, whether for better or worse. I see in the first article (Elections Preview) that Lasso has a very low approval rating and the upcoming (February) elections might include/yield a recall for him?
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">I lived on the border of AZ/MX as a teen in the early 70s and the recent memory/residue of the Golden Age of Latin America was still evident. The Mexican border town (Agua Prieta) still had moderately grand facilities and institutions (e.g. A huge library with elaborate fountains on the grounds, etc) even though they were not able to support them in that grandeur... So I think I still have an ideation that Latin America has many of the resources or (hidden) momentum to achieve a resurgence of some sort.
These reflections are partly triggered by this interview/article produced by WBUR/Boston and distributed via NPR:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/01/11/8-billion-earth-population-rise-human">https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/01/11/8-billion-earth-population-rise-human</a>
Which reminded me that while we *do* have a total-population problem with our 8B and rising numbers (and 90+ % of land animal by mass being human or human domesticates), the *distribution* of people, and more to the point the demographic fecundity/fertility distribution is very uneven and in fact seems to be inversely proportional to various features of human civilization ranging from GDP to education to technological development. Some (like DJT) turn this into a judgement and a reason for resentment/fear (e.g. S*hole country labels) but others have a more progressive view. An excerpt from the WBUR interview/article:
Jennifer Sciubba: "We're moving toward this aging and shrinking world, and we are worried because we can't sustain that same huge level of economic growth in the past. And we do need to think about what that might look like, so we can look relook at concepts like retirement. We can look at concepts like what is work life. We also, though, have to start thinking about family and marriage. And, you know, we're talking about a paradigmatic shift.
"That means we have to look at the world through a completely different lens than we've looked at the world in the past. But all of our theories about the good life, our economic theories, our political theories, those were all developed under conditions of population growth and economic growth, as William said. So it's really hard to get a paradigmatic shift and say, what if we try to look at the world in a different way? Can we look at an aging and shrinking society as a good thing? Can we look at growing older individually as a good thing? We've not been good at that. And so we're kind of taking that negativity and applying it at the societal level."
This passage specifically references aging (individual and population) but there are other references to economic/technological disparities.
I also defer here to others who have an international POV (e.g. Pieter in South Africa, Sarbajit in India, Jochen in Germany, and I believe we have someone from Cuba, I think we lost (off the list) Mohammed from Egypt a few years ago, etc.) as well. We are not a very demographicly representative group here but still offer a somewhat broad samplying by some measures.
I realize this is yet another of my rambly maunderings but I'd be curious to hear what others are observing/thinking about these issues in this current time of global flux.
- Steve
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