[FRIAM] unrest in SoAm & Global ideological/sociopolitical/economic alignment...

[Gary Schiltz]

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 <sasmyth at swcp.com> wrote:
>
> 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.
>
> https://www.as-coa.org/articles/2023-elections-latin-america-preview
>
> 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.
>
> https://www.bloomberglinea.com/english/will-lula-achieve-regional-integration-in-latin-america/
>
> 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?
>


> 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:
>
> https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/01/11/8-billion-earth-population-rise-human
>
> 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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