Ignoring crucial conflict in Bolivia – IMF imperialism

In the midst of all this Iraq and Korea talk, the United States and the world have lost… In the midst of all this Iraq and Korea talk, the United States and the world have lost sight of a crucial issue: Bolivia, and how recent developments there are clear evidence of the continued rape of third-world countries by global, corporate juggernauts.

Heavy violence and rioting consumed much of La Paz, one of Bolivia’s capital cities, for two days last week when an anti-taxation protest degenerated into chaos.

It was basically the same as many of the protests that have been so colorfully dotting U.S. cities lately. You know, 7,000 police officers strike and join civilian protesters in raiding government buildings. Then the police use tear gas to help protesters siege the Foreign Ministry and set fires in almost a dozen government buildings which rage on for 12 hours because the fire department is on strike too; looters go wild, 29 people die, tanks roll through the streets and all this under the familiar chants of protesters calling on their president to “Resign or die, those are your options!”

And here’s the real kicker – although no one has explicitly mentioned this part yet – it’s all pretty much our fault. Not directly of course, but if you follow the cause and effect chain a few extra steps that’s where you end up.

The protesters said they were protesting a tax increase. The president, 72-year-old Sanchez de Lozada, raised income taxes. Why? Because the International Monetary Fund promised a hefty economic loan to Bolivia if they could reduce the government deficit from 8.5 percent of the budget to 5.5 percent, according to the Associated Press. Why? Because the IMF cares about third-world countries and is willing to make sacrifices so they may become productive nations in their own right and eventually trade with IMF countries. Pretty nice, huh?

So, the IMF is willing to aide Bolivia in creating a free-market system that will catapult Bolivia from its third-world status to world super power. But the ignorant Bolivian farmers are too selfish and naïve to suffer the temporary costs necessary for such a transformation.

Stupid Bolivians! Can’t they see what similar programs did for Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil? How ungrateful can you … Oh, wait.

We seem to be caught in some sort of Wittgensteinian language game. “Free-market system” to us, means something completely different from what it means to South Americans.

To us it means easy flow of goods between nations, competition in the market place, more productive labor, cheaper goods, infrastructure, economic growth and all that good stuff.

To South Americans it means: OK, we don’t have any sort of established infrastructure capable of competing with multi-billion dollar global corporations. So, when we open our borders to foreign investment, all of our land and labor will be bought by foreign corporations. Then our domestic economy will collapse because all the money we spend is going to corporations outside our borders.

Inacio Da Silva, president of Brazil, watched his country learn this lesson the hard way. A few years ago he articulated the dilemma, “I am against the Free Trade treaty with the US, because it’s a proposal that would mean the annexation of South America’s economy to the United States.”

The IMF, WTO, USA, – fill in any multi-national corporate acronym you wish – “agreements” with third-world countries seem to basically consist of the following doctrine: Reduce your nation’s debt so that we can be sure your economy is a sound investment. Then we’ll give you money to set the groundwork for a stable market-based economy and once that’s taken care of we’ll monopolize that market and rape your country of all the productive labor possible.

At the “Conference on Economic Sovereignty in a Globalizing World,” globalization scholar Susan George noted that, depending on the year, two-thirds to three-fourths of money marked “Foreign direct investment” goes to mergers and acquisitions which almost always result in layoffs – not jobs.

So, I guess the Bolivian protesters had a legitimate grievance.

I’m not against the free-market system in general. In fact I’m quite fond of it. Used to be called the “Capitalist Cowboy” you know. But third-world nations must be allowed to develop their own infrastructure before being forced to compete with U.S. and European corporations. That would be globalization. Give developing countries money and don’t move in for a few decades. That might help people. But this, this is just corporate imperialism.

Questions, Comments, Insights, or Suggestion? Wminton@pittnews.com