[p2p-research] fakeness of recovery

[Michel Bauwens]

a few elements:

- the awakening of native people to political and social power, something
unprecedented until now (bolivia main example, protests against oil
incursion in peru another one)

- deep and long overdue agricultural reforms that will lead to a leap in
productivity in agriculture (latin america still has many feudal land
arrangements that were not tackled before)

- huge growth of cooperatives and solidarity economic infrastructure in
almost all the countries involved, again brazil and venezuela come to mind

- important social measures in education, basic income in many of the
countries such as brazil and venezuela, guaranteeing a much more decent life
for the disenfranchised populations

- the success of argentina in using sovereign money creation and refusal of
debt payments to get out of the deep neoliberal crisis it was in ...

- the success of lula's social democratic policies in brazil, leading to
sustained economic growth

- five year high sustained growth in Venezuela wi th chronic poverty down
from 20.2 percent of the population to 11.8 percent between 2002-08 (and
this after a 30 year rise  of it before Chavez)

I'm insisting on this one, because you seem really the victim of propaganda
on this one

your talk about collapse really seems specious in view of the spectacular
achievements cited below:

(of course it's before the meltdown, which affected it like every other
country in the world)

See: http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela-2009-02.pdf

The current economic expansion began when the government got control over
the national
oil company in the first quarter of 2003. Since then, real
(inflation-adjusted) GDP has nearly
doubled, growing by 94.7 percent in 5.25 years, or 13.5 percent annually.
Most of this growth has been in the non-oil sector of the economy, and the
private sector
has grown faster than the public sector.
During the current economic expansion, the poverty rate has been cut by more
than half,
from 54 percent of households in the first half of 2003 to 26 percent at the
end of 2008.
Extreme poverty has fallen even more, by 72 percent. These poverty rates
measure only cash
income, and do not take into account increased access to health care or
education.
Over the entire decade, the percentage of households in poverty has been
reduced by 39
percent, and extreme poverty by more than half.
Inequality, as measured by the Gini index, has also fallen substantially.
The index has fallen
to 41 in 2008, from 48.1 in 2003 and 47 in 1999. This represents a large
reduction in
inequality.
Real (inflation-adjusted) social spending per person more than tripled from
1998-2006.
>From 1998-2006, infant mortality has fallen by more than one-third. The
number of primary
care physicians in the public sector increased 12-fold from 1999-2007,
providing health care
to millions of Venezuelans who previously did not have access.
There have been substantial gains in education, especially higher education,
where gross
enrollment rates more than doubled from 1999-2000 to 2007-2008.
The labor market also improved substantially over the last decade, with
unemployment
dropping from 11.3 percent to 7.8 percent. During the current expansion it
has fallen by
more than half. Other labor market indicators also show substantial gains.
Over the past decade, the number of social security beneficiaries has more
than doubled.
Over the decade, the government’s total public debt has fallen from 30.7 to
14.3 percent of
GDP. The foreign public debt has fallen even more, from 25.6 to 9.8 percent
of GDP.
Inflation is about where it was 10 years ago, ending the year at 31.4
percent. However it has
been falling over the last half year (as measured by three-month averages)
and is likely to
continue declining this year in the face of strong deflationary pressures
worldwide.


On Wed, Dec 30, 2009 at 2:22 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Please point me to interesting developments in Latin America as you see
> them.  I'd love to be proven wrong.  A friend just told me that Panama is
> the new el Dorado.  Who knows...  I don't know Spanish so my ignorance of
> the topic is almost boundless.
>
> Ryan
>
>
> On 12/29/09, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> We clearly disagree about Latin America, I  think they have a fair chance
>> at building a much more just social compact right now, and I think the
>> historic awakening of their natives peoples are hugely important, as is the
>> development of the social economy at the grassroots, whatever we may think
>> of the left caudillos in power. I think a social democratic Andean
>> capitalism is going to be a force to be reckoned with.
>>
>


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