Blog from Britain II – An Economist Fairy Tale

London

Several times this week my walks about town have taken me past the headquarters of that venerable British weekly, The Economist. Somewhere inside, a writer for the magazine was cheerily weighing in on events a hemisphere away in Bolivia, in an article that carried the appropriate subtitle: Some dangerous fairy tales about what is going on in South America.

I say “appropriate” because the article does a fine job of spinning a whopping fairy tail of its own about events in the country where I live. [Note: Since the actually article is hidden behind a pay-for-it fence at the magazine’s Web site, I’ll post the full text in a comment to this Blog entry.]

The unnamed Economist writer (Has he ever been in Bolivia? It is not an unreasonable question.) warns that too much of the international commentary has painted recent Bolivian events as “a popular revolution by downtrodden Andean Indians.” One “pundit” is singled out for special scorn, someone who wrong-headedly told the New York Times, “that Latin America is in open rebellion against the economic policies of the Washington consensus.”

The unnamed pundit was I.

In any event, in getting the story wrong the Economist writer followed the time-tested formula for conjuring up a fairy tale:

First, Have a Vivid Imagination

With a single stroke the Economist rewrites Bolivian history to blame public control of gas and oil (as it was until a decade ago) for the nation’s notorious economic suffering in the 1980s: Inefficient state oil and mining companies stoked the hyperinflation of the early 1980s.

Indeed, Bolivia’s notorious hyperinflation of two decades ago was a disaster to behold. People still tell stories of the prices of food and shoes shooting up by double between breakfast and dinner. The culprit was not, however the sin of having the nation’s natural resources in public hands. It had a good deal more to do with the collapse of global tin market on which nearly half of the nation’s economy depended. That and years of dictatorships.

Second, Invent the Villains

The Economist has a simple explanation about why tens of thousands of Indians, miners, workers, students and others chased down their government leaders to demand recuperation of the nation’s oil and gas – outside funding. The Economist writes:

Where does the money come from? Venezuela's populist president, Hugo Chavez, of whom Mr. Morales is a disciple? Perhaps, though there is no proof. The drug trade? Maybe. European NGOs? Probably, in some cases.

You might disagree with their economic analysis. Fair enough. But the people I have spoken to marching under a hot Bolivian sun have been there because they really do want the country to take back the gas and oil and convinced that nothing short of marching will get the government to listen given the huge pressures being brought to bear on the other side from the real external forced involved – British Petroleum, the IMF and others.

Five years ago the same they can’t possibly be mad about what they say they are mad about thinking tried to blame drug traders for the Cochabamba water revolt. Do foreign writers like the one for the Economist really think Bolivians can’t think for themselves?

Finally, Have a Moral

Lastly we have this gem of Economist insight into the course of politics among Bolivia and its neighbors:

As for that continental rebellion against the Washington consensus, it is largely confined to Venezuela, where high oil prices have let Mr. Chavez defy the laws of economics. Elsewhere, Latin America's poor are too busy trying to earn a living to indulge such
fantasies.

Last I checked Brazil did not elect Lula because he pledged to defend and deepen the Washington Consensus status quo there. In Argentina, the President responded to the IMF’s demands to pay down its debt with a declaration that he’d consider thirty cents or so on the dollar. Uruguay didn’t just elect a Socialist president because he was endorsed by BP or the World Bank. In Bolivia the struggle may be on the streets but it is all part of the same region-wide public rebellion against a package of economic policies that the people living with them have dubbed an outright failure.

The spin is on my friends. Some people out there desperately want the world to believe that Bolivia’s five years of uprisings against the policies of market-driven globalization are anything but. Drug traffickers, not high Bechtel water rates drove people into the streets of Cochabamba in 2000. Renegade police leaders, not at IMF-imposed tax increase, are what led to 34 deaths in February 2003. Cash from Hugo Chavez drove Bolivia to the brink this month and last, not a genuine demand that gas and oil be public (as 92% voted for last July).

Fairy tales make great bedtime stories for our children but they make for lousy economic policy and worse journalism.

PS: To all. No, as some have speculated, I did NOT leave Bolivia for safety reasons. If safety had been a concern I would not have left my family. I am in Europe for work.