Why do they hate us?
Thomas Sowell
March 17, 2004
The idea that what goes around comes around applies not only to individuals but to nations and whole civilizations. It was just a few centuries ago -- not long, as history is measured -- that China had the highest standard of living in the world and the Dutch were the world's largest exporters, while North Africans were enslaving a million Europeans.
Nowhere have whole peoples seen their situation reversed more visibly or more painfully than the peoples of the Islamic world. In medieval times, Europe lagged far behind the Islamic world in science, mathematics, scholarship, and military power.
Even such ancient European thinkers as Plato and Aristotle became known to Europeans of the Middle Ages only after their writings, which had been translated into Arabic, were translated back into European languages.
Today that is all reversed. The number of books per person in Europe is more than ten times that in Africa and the Middle East. The number of books translated into Arabic over the past thousand years is about the same as the number translated into Spanish in one year.
There are only 18 computers per thousand persons in the Arab world, compared to 78 per thousand persons worldwide. Fewer than 400 industrial patents were issued to people in the Arab countries during the last two decades of the 20th century, while 15,000 industrial patents were issued to South Koreans alone.
Human beings do not always take reversals of fortune gracefully. Still less can those who were once on top quietly accept seeing others leaving them far behind economically, intellectually, and militarily.
Those in the Islamic world have for centuries been taught to regard themselves as far superior to the "infidels" of the West, while everything they see with their own eyes now tells them otherwise. Worse yet, what the whole world sees with their own eyes tells them that the Middle East has made few contributions to human advancement in our times.
Even Middle Eastern oil was largely discovered and processed by people from the West. After oil, the Middle East's most prominent export has been terrorism.
Those who look at the world in rationalistic terms may say that the Middle East can use some of its vast oil wealth to expand its own educated classes and move back to the forefront of human achievement. They did it once, why not do it again?
All sorts of things can be done in the long run, but you have to live through the short run to get there. Moreover, even the short run, as history is measured, can be pretty long in terms of the human lifespan.
Even if the Islamic world set such goals and committed the material resources and individual efforts required, they could not expect to pull abreast of the West for generations, even if the West stood still. More realistically, it would take centuries, as it took the West centuries to catch up to them.
What will happen in the meantime? Are millions of proud human beings supposed to quietly accept inferiority for themselves and their children, and perhaps their children's children?
Or are they more likely to listen to demagogues, whether political or religious, who tell them that their lowly place in the world is due to the evils of others -- the West, the Americans, the Jews?
If the peoples of the Islamic world disregarded such demagogues, they would be the exceptions, rather than the rule, among people who lag painfully far behind others. Even in the West, there have been powerful political movements based on the notion that the rich have gotten rich by keeping others poor -- and that things need to be set right "by all means necessary."
These means seldom include concentration on self-improvement, with 19th-century Japan being one of the rare exceptions. Lashing out at others is far more immediately satisfying -- and modern communications, transportation, and weaponry make it far easier to lash out destructively across great distances.
Against this background, we may want to consider the question asked by hand-wringers in the West: Why do they hate us? Maybe it is because the alternative to hating us is to hate themselves.
©2004 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Oct 29, 2004
Oct 22, 2004
Journey to Kimland
Por favor, cuando tengan un minuto, no se pierdan esta descripción de una visita a Corea del Norte, impresionante y muy interesante,
Trans-Atlantic Tripe
Trans-Atlantic Tripe
Jeremy Rifkin's theory of failed states
David Weigel
Jeremy Rifkin has a theory about the American Dream: It's dying. It had been on the ropes, thanks to "depleting resources, increased pollution, rising costs of production, spiraling inflation, low return on investments, escalating capital shortfalls and limits to technology." But now "the Golden Days are over," and America's vaunted productivity has "bottomed out."
My mistake. Those words were actually written by Rifkin in 1979, near the conclusion of his state-of-the-world tome The Emerging Order: God in an Age of Scarcity. And while most would argue that America made a comeback in the 1980s and 1990s, Rifkin has stuck to his story. Now America really, truly, is staggering into obselesence, and The European Dream is Rifkin's chronicle of the society that will overtake it.
Taken on its own, the idea of the European Union as an America-style superpower is an easy sell. Its founding fathers considered unification as a way for the continent's battle-scarred, decolonizing countries to keep from being squeezed out by the US and the Soviet Union. Winston Churchill had proposed a "United States of Europe" as early as 1946. In 1952, when Germany, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg bound together in the European Coal and Steel Community, Jean Monnet told American policymakers that "we are not forming coalitions between states, but union among people." Polls showed Europeans really taking to heart the idea that they were citizens of something bigger and more peaceful than their nation-states. In the last decade, after the Soviet superpower fell apart, European patriotism soared. A 2001 survey in the European edition of Time suggested that a third of EU citizens between the ages of 21 and 35 "now regard themselves as more European than as nationals of their home country."
And it's a good time to be European. As Rifkin points out, the EU is the world's largest single market in the world with a $10.5 trillion GDP. Some of its member nations are outpacing the US in economic growth. It exports more than it imports. Most auspiciously, the Euro's value has risen steadily since 2001 as the dollar has weakened.
Rifkin spares no praise when it comes to these figures. Sure, the growth might be slowing down, and a change of White House occupant could reverse the spending cycle that punctured the dollar. What's really important is that "Europe has become a new land of opportunity" and "Europeans have laid out a visionary roadmap to a new promised land, one dedicated to re-affirming the life instinct and the Earth's indivisibility."
As proof, Rifkin offers that "more and more emigrants are choosing Europe over America than ever before." We don't get any statistics for that claim, or rejoinders to the EU's own modest immigration numbers, or estimates of how many come from former European colonies, or a theory of why nearly 175,000 Europeans became American citizens in 2002. (Considered as a single country, Europe sees more of its natives become U.S. citizens than every other nation except Mexico.) There's some mention of the virulent and electorally potent anti-immigration sentiment rising in the largest EU countries, but this is understandable because "every nook and cranny" of the continent is already full.
But the idea of Europe as a beacon for the poor, hungry and downtrodden is dropped pretty quickly. The point isn't that Europe is becoming a new America. It's that America's way of life has got to go.
Rifkin's real beef is with individualism, and with "the European Enlightment idea that equates private proverty with freedom." (He's using "Enlightment" in the perjorative sense.) Americans equate being happy with being rich, which is outmoded and untenable. Even if it didn't spoil the environment and burn up resources, the American lifestyle would be headed for a fall because the dreamers aren't being fulfilled. "Up until the 1960s," writes Rifkin, "upward mobility was at the core of the American Dream. Then, the dream began to unravel, slowly at first, but picking up momentum in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s."
But did it? By most indicators, the doldrums of the late 60s and 70s were blown away in the 1980s. The gap between America's rich and poor has risen, but between a quarter and a third of the population moves into a new income quintile in any given year. There are some poverty figures thrown in here to add thunder to the gloom, but they appear next to data on how Americans are getting fatter and buying bigger houses. There's an explanation for that, too: "We have become a death culture."
And this is what Rifkin had been trying to say all along. "What lies below our obsessive, if not pathological, behavior," he writes, "is the frantic desire to live and prosper by killing and consuming everything around us." Unlike Europeans, who find freedom in "embeddedness," Americans are gobbling up resources and drawing away from each other. They're moving to suburbs, which "represent the final chapter of the American dream."
Is this really the right lesson to take from the EU's success? Well, one of Rifkin's examples of American decline is "the new genre of TV reality shows," wherein "millions of viewers can live out the American Dream vicariously by watching the fortunate few who beat the odds, convinced that the dream is still alive and that their turn is coming." He fails to mention that reality shows were invented in Europe—Big Brother and Fear Factor by the Dutch TV wunderkind Jan De Mol, and Survivor by producers in Sweden. The most get-rich-quicky of the reality shows, American Idol and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, came from Britain.
And it's worth unpacking some of Rifkin's economic data. He admits that "the Thatcher-Reagan economic revolution of the 1980s, with its emphasis on deregulation" had an effect on the way the EU came together. He could have gone further in describing how a return to private property rights kickstarted the economies of Britain, France and Spain, and how European writers on the left blame their speedier, more competitive cultures on Americanization.
There are interesting arguments to be made on how America's economic rivals are approaching property rights and productivity. Rifkin may yet get around to tackling them. Expect that book to come after the Golden Days are over.
David Weigel is an editorial intern at USA Today and a 2004 graduate of Northwestern University. His blog can be read at davidweigel.blogspot.com
www.reason.com
Jeremy Rifkin's theory of failed states
David Weigel
Jeremy Rifkin has a theory about the American Dream: It's dying. It had been on the ropes, thanks to "depleting resources, increased pollution, rising costs of production, spiraling inflation, low return on investments, escalating capital shortfalls and limits to technology." But now "the Golden Days are over," and America's vaunted productivity has "bottomed out."
My mistake. Those words were actually written by Rifkin in 1979, near the conclusion of his state-of-the-world tome The Emerging Order: God in an Age of Scarcity. And while most would argue that America made a comeback in the 1980s and 1990s, Rifkin has stuck to his story. Now America really, truly, is staggering into obselesence, and The European Dream is Rifkin's chronicle of the society that will overtake it.
Taken on its own, the idea of the European Union as an America-style superpower is an easy sell. Its founding fathers considered unification as a way for the continent's battle-scarred, decolonizing countries to keep from being squeezed out by the US and the Soviet Union. Winston Churchill had proposed a "United States of Europe" as early as 1946. In 1952, when Germany, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg bound together in the European Coal and Steel Community, Jean Monnet told American policymakers that "we are not forming coalitions between states, but union among people." Polls showed Europeans really taking to heart the idea that they were citizens of something bigger and more peaceful than their nation-states. In the last decade, after the Soviet superpower fell apart, European patriotism soared. A 2001 survey in the European edition of Time suggested that a third of EU citizens between the ages of 21 and 35 "now regard themselves as more European than as nationals of their home country."
And it's a good time to be European. As Rifkin points out, the EU is the world's largest single market in the world with a $10.5 trillion GDP. Some of its member nations are outpacing the US in economic growth. It exports more than it imports. Most auspiciously, the Euro's value has risen steadily since 2001 as the dollar has weakened.
Rifkin spares no praise when it comes to these figures. Sure, the growth might be slowing down, and a change of White House occupant could reverse the spending cycle that punctured the dollar. What's really important is that "Europe has become a new land of opportunity" and "Europeans have laid out a visionary roadmap to a new promised land, one dedicated to re-affirming the life instinct and the Earth's indivisibility."
As proof, Rifkin offers that "more and more emigrants are choosing Europe over America than ever before." We don't get any statistics for that claim, or rejoinders to the EU's own modest immigration numbers, or estimates of how many come from former European colonies, or a theory of why nearly 175,000 Europeans became American citizens in 2002. (Considered as a single country, Europe sees more of its natives become U.S. citizens than every other nation except Mexico.) There's some mention of the virulent and electorally potent anti-immigration sentiment rising in the largest EU countries, but this is understandable because "every nook and cranny" of the continent is already full.
But the idea of Europe as a beacon for the poor, hungry and downtrodden is dropped pretty quickly. The point isn't that Europe is becoming a new America. It's that America's way of life has got to go.
Rifkin's real beef is with individualism, and with "the European Enlightment idea that equates private proverty with freedom." (He's using "Enlightment" in the perjorative sense.) Americans equate being happy with being rich, which is outmoded and untenable. Even if it didn't spoil the environment and burn up resources, the American lifestyle would be headed for a fall because the dreamers aren't being fulfilled. "Up until the 1960s," writes Rifkin, "upward mobility was at the core of the American Dream. Then, the dream began to unravel, slowly at first, but picking up momentum in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s."
But did it? By most indicators, the doldrums of the late 60s and 70s were blown away in the 1980s. The gap between America's rich and poor has risen, but between a quarter and a third of the population moves into a new income quintile in any given year. There are some poverty figures thrown in here to add thunder to the gloom, but they appear next to data on how Americans are getting fatter and buying bigger houses. There's an explanation for that, too: "We have become a death culture."
And this is what Rifkin had been trying to say all along. "What lies below our obsessive, if not pathological, behavior," he writes, "is the frantic desire to live and prosper by killing and consuming everything around us." Unlike Europeans, who find freedom in "embeddedness," Americans are gobbling up resources and drawing away from each other. They're moving to suburbs, which "represent the final chapter of the American dream."
Is this really the right lesson to take from the EU's success? Well, one of Rifkin's examples of American decline is "the new genre of TV reality shows," wherein "millions of viewers can live out the American Dream vicariously by watching the fortunate few who beat the odds, convinced that the dream is still alive and that their turn is coming." He fails to mention that reality shows were invented in Europe—Big Brother and Fear Factor by the Dutch TV wunderkind Jan De Mol, and Survivor by producers in Sweden. The most get-rich-quicky of the reality shows, American Idol and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, came from Britain.
And it's worth unpacking some of Rifkin's economic data. He admits that "the Thatcher-Reagan economic revolution of the 1980s, with its emphasis on deregulation" had an effect on the way the EU came together. He could have gone further in describing how a return to private property rights kickstarted the economies of Britain, France and Spain, and how European writers on the left blame their speedier, more competitive cultures on Americanization.
There are interesting arguments to be made on how America's economic rivals are approaching property rights and productivity. Rifkin may yet get around to tackling them. Expect that book to come after the Golden Days are over.
David Weigel is an editorial intern at USA Today and a 2004 graduate of Northwestern University. His blog can be read at davidweigel.blogspot.com
www.reason.com
Oct 21, 2004
Waiting Your Turn, Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada (14th Edition)
Waiting Your Turn, Hospital Waiting Lists in Canada (14th Edition)
Publication Date: October 2004
Publication Format: Critical Issues Bulletins
Author(s):
Nadeem Esmail, Senior Health Policy Analyst & Manager, Health Data Systems
Email: nadeeme@fraserinstitute.ca
Dr. Michael Walker, Executive Director
Email: michaelw@fraserinstitute.ca
Executive Summary:
The Fraser Institute's fourteenth annual waiting list survey found that Canada-wide waiting times for surgical and other therapeutic treatments changed very little in 2004. Total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment, averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces surveyed, rose from 17.7 weeks in 2003 to 17.9 weeks in 2004. This small nationwide deterioration in access reflects waiting-time increases in 4 provinces, while concealing decreases in waiting time in Alberta, Manitoba Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.
Among the provinces, Manitoba achieved the shortest total wait in 2004, 14.8 weeks, with Ontario (15.5 weeks) losing the “best access” province status that it had held since 2000, and Alberta (17.8 weeks) next shortest. Saskatchewan exhibited the longest total wait, 33.3 weeks; the next longest waits were found in Prince Edward Island (27.4 weeks) and New Brunswick (20.9 weeks).
http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp?sNav=pb&id=705
Publication Date: October 2004
Publication Format: Critical Issues Bulletins
Author(s):
Nadeem Esmail, Senior Health Policy Analyst & Manager, Health Data Systems
Email: nadeeme@fraserinstitute.ca
Dr. Michael Walker, Executive Director
Email: michaelw@fraserinstitute.ca
Executive Summary:
The Fraser Institute's fourteenth annual waiting list survey found that Canada-wide waiting times for surgical and other therapeutic treatments changed very little in 2004. Total waiting time between referral from a general practitioner and treatment, averaged across all 12 specialties and 10 provinces surveyed, rose from 17.7 weeks in 2003 to 17.9 weeks in 2004. This small nationwide deterioration in access reflects waiting-time increases in 4 provinces, while concealing decreases in waiting time in Alberta, Manitoba Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.
Among the provinces, Manitoba achieved the shortest total wait in 2004, 14.8 weeks, with Ontario (15.5 weeks) losing the “best access” province status that it had held since 2000, and Alberta (17.8 weeks) next shortest. Saskatchewan exhibited the longest total wait, 33.3 weeks; the next longest waits were found in Prince Edward Island (27.4 weeks) and New Brunswick (20.9 weeks).
http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/shared/readmore.asp?sNav=pb&id=705
Oct 20, 2004
La banalización del terror
Bitácora de Daniel Rodríguez Herrera
La banalización del terror
Moisés Rubias Barrera nos hace el honor de escribir como invitado en esta bitácora sobre el terrorismo:
Hace unos días circuló por la Red un anuncio de elpais.es, en él se podían ver dos imágenes: Nueva York con las Torres Gemelas el día 11 de septiembre de 2001 y Nueva York sin las Torres Gemelas el 12 de septiembre. El texto que acompañaba a las imágenes era el siguiente:
“Un día da para mucho
Imagínese lo que puede suceder en tres meses”
“Subscríbase a elpais.es y disfrute de tres meses de noticias gratis”
Algunos pensaron que era falso y otros verdadero, pero para todos era verosímil que en “El Pais” apareciera un anuncio de esta calaña. El anuncio resultó ser verdadero y el mismo periódico insertó un anuncio pidiendo perdón por su error.
Lo que debemos plantearnos, más allá de este caso concreto es lo siguiente:
¿Estamos ante un hecho aislado o es un síntoma más de la enfermedad de la progresía europea? La tesis que pretendo sostener es la segunda.
La izquierda europea desprecia la importancia del terrorismo antioccidental, y no quiere creerse que nos han declarado la guerra (a los “infieles” y a los musulmanes “moderados”). A pesar de las evidencias, “creen” (se creen y nos quieren hacer creer) que el atentado más brutal de la historia es, en el fondo, culpa de la política exterior estadounidense. A pesar de todos los atentados islamistas contra Occidente antes de la intervención en Irak, a pesar de lo que dice el propio Bin Laden, a pesar de todo siguen sin querer ver la realidad.
Es más, quieren creer que si nos atacan es por lo que hacemos (o para ser más exactos, por lo que hace EE.UU) y no por lo que somos. Por eso pueden permitirse malabarismos mentales para diferenciarse de los norteamericanos. El problema es que no se puede jugar a hacer equilibrios sobre el filo de un alfanje. Sobre todo por que el dueño del alfanje no hace esas distinciones.
Quieren vivir en un limbo bienpensante (y autista) asentado en dos premisas no excluyentes:
- Occidente y el capitalismo (representado por Estados Unidos) es culpable de todos los males del mundo, y el terrorismo islamista es el castigo por la pobreza en el mundo.
- El terrorismo no va contra nosotros. Los “europeos” no somos imperialistas, y si cedemos ante el Islam nada malo nos puede pasar.
La culpabilidad de Occidente, el odio hacia la economía de mercado y a la libertad no es nueva. Tan sólo se había agazapado en los desagües de la izquierda radical y ecologista tras la caída del muro de Berlín.
En cambio la permanente actitud de cesión ante el terrorismo es simplemente miedo. Un miedo nuevo, por ser indiscriminado, apenas disfrazado de diálogo intercultural.
Mientras escribía estas líneas se anunció que los islamistas han asesinado a dos mujeres italianas, noticia que luego se demostró falsa. Pero en este momento se repetía: “eran cooperantes pacifistas”. ¡No importara lo que sean! Nadie tiene derecho a asesinar (no “ejecutar”) a nadie. Parece que volvemos a los “años del plomo” en España, cuando se diferenciaba entre víctimas civiles (léase inocentes) o guardias civiles, policías o militares (léase culpables).
El miedo surge entre los progresistas cuando les puede “tocar” el terrorismo, porque mientras los asesinos sean selectivos nada malo les puede pasar (incluso pueden “comprender” sus motivos). Por eso ahora tienen miedo, porque, aunque no lo reconozcan, los islamistas matan occidentales y no sólo “neoconservadores”.
Fruto de esta mentalidad, de vez en cuando, se escapa algún lapsus como este. Quizá el creador del anuncio y quien lo aprobó acababan de ver la película de Michel Moore, o habían leído el libro en el que se afirma que no cayó un avión en el Pentágono. Quizá, pero de lo que si podemos estar seguros es que fueron a manifestarse contra Geroge Bush y Aznar pero no contra Sadam Hussein.
El problema que subyace tras este deleznable anuncio es que la banalización constante del terrorismo islamista (que no islámico) genera el clima adecuado para reírse de los americanos asesinados. Ya lo explicó Hannah Arendt en su libro “La banalidad del mal” tras su entrevista con Adolf Eichmann en una cárcel de Israel. La filósofa de origen alemán describió cómo el responsable de los traslados de millones de judíos a los campos de concentración no tenía remordimientos y se describía asimismo como un eficiente funcionario de transportes del Reich. No es necesario ser un psicópata para asesinar, tan sólo dejarse llevar por la corriente. Por un clima social que entonces describió a los judíos como seres infrahumanos o por un clima que culpabiliza a las víctimas del terrorismo de su propia muerte.
Por eso es tan importante el lenguaje; las palabras y las imágenes crean un humus, un poso que facilita la asunción de conductas como la de este periódico, conductas que tratan el terrorismo con una indiferencia cómoda pero no por ello menos culpable.
Por eso no podemos acostumbrarnos que a los terroristas iraquíes se les llame “resistentes”, que a los terroristas palestinos se les llame “activistas”, o que a los narcoterroristas de las FARC se les llame “guerrilleros”. Porque decapitar personas, poner bombas en autobuses de pasajeros o secuestrar en la selva (por poner algunos ejemplos de lo que hacen) no es otra cosa que terrorismo.
Tampoco nos podemos resignar a que se busquen justificaciones al terrorismo. La matanza de Beslan no tiene justificación, no se puede aludir a la guerra de chechenia cuando los cadáveres de los niños están aún calientes. Por muchas salvajadas que haya hecho Rusia con los chechenios, no podemos justificar un acto terrorista. Entre otras cosas porque tampoco podemos confundir a todos los chechenios con esos terroristas.
No, no podemos resignarnos. Porque banalizar el terror es el primer paso para la rendición. Utilizar a las víctimas para vender periódicos nos desarma moralmente para enfrentarnos a nuestros enemigos. Sobre todo porque los que desprecian a las víctimas no quieren reconocer que tenemos enemigos.
La memoria de las víctimas es sagrada. Como nos explicó la propia Hannah Arendt, el héroe griego lo es no sólo en el momento de realizar su gesta. La palabra reproduce la hazaña en el ágora, fija su significado en el espacio público formado por la reunión de los hombres iguales en tanto que libres. La hazaña del héroe se dota de sentido ante los demás. Por eso la palabra es tan importante. Por eso los medios de comunicación tienen el deber de honrar a las víctimas (héroes inocentes).
Por eso no debemos tener la más mínima complacencia con quienes banalizan el terror, desprecian a las víctimas y mancillan su memoria, que es también la nuestra.
http://www.liberalismo.org/bitacoras/3/1622/
La banalización del terror
Moisés Rubias Barrera nos hace el honor de escribir como invitado en esta bitácora sobre el terrorismo:
Hace unos días circuló por la Red un anuncio de elpais.es, en él se podían ver dos imágenes: Nueva York con las Torres Gemelas el día 11 de septiembre de 2001 y Nueva York sin las Torres Gemelas el 12 de septiembre. El texto que acompañaba a las imágenes era el siguiente:
“Un día da para mucho
Imagínese lo que puede suceder en tres meses”
“Subscríbase a elpais.es y disfrute de tres meses de noticias gratis”
Algunos pensaron que era falso y otros verdadero, pero para todos era verosímil que en “El Pais” apareciera un anuncio de esta calaña. El anuncio resultó ser verdadero y el mismo periódico insertó un anuncio pidiendo perdón por su error.
Lo que debemos plantearnos, más allá de este caso concreto es lo siguiente:
¿Estamos ante un hecho aislado o es un síntoma más de la enfermedad de la progresía europea? La tesis que pretendo sostener es la segunda.
La izquierda europea desprecia la importancia del terrorismo antioccidental, y no quiere creerse que nos han declarado la guerra (a los “infieles” y a los musulmanes “moderados”). A pesar de las evidencias, “creen” (se creen y nos quieren hacer creer) que el atentado más brutal de la historia es, en el fondo, culpa de la política exterior estadounidense. A pesar de todos los atentados islamistas contra Occidente antes de la intervención en Irak, a pesar de lo que dice el propio Bin Laden, a pesar de todo siguen sin querer ver la realidad.
Es más, quieren creer que si nos atacan es por lo que hacemos (o para ser más exactos, por lo que hace EE.UU) y no por lo que somos. Por eso pueden permitirse malabarismos mentales para diferenciarse de los norteamericanos. El problema es que no se puede jugar a hacer equilibrios sobre el filo de un alfanje. Sobre todo por que el dueño del alfanje no hace esas distinciones.
Quieren vivir en un limbo bienpensante (y autista) asentado en dos premisas no excluyentes:
- Occidente y el capitalismo (representado por Estados Unidos) es culpable de todos los males del mundo, y el terrorismo islamista es el castigo por la pobreza en el mundo.
- El terrorismo no va contra nosotros. Los “europeos” no somos imperialistas, y si cedemos ante el Islam nada malo nos puede pasar.
La culpabilidad de Occidente, el odio hacia la economía de mercado y a la libertad no es nueva. Tan sólo se había agazapado en los desagües de la izquierda radical y ecologista tras la caída del muro de Berlín.
En cambio la permanente actitud de cesión ante el terrorismo es simplemente miedo. Un miedo nuevo, por ser indiscriminado, apenas disfrazado de diálogo intercultural.
Mientras escribía estas líneas se anunció que los islamistas han asesinado a dos mujeres italianas, noticia que luego se demostró falsa. Pero en este momento se repetía: “eran cooperantes pacifistas”. ¡No importara lo que sean! Nadie tiene derecho a asesinar (no “ejecutar”) a nadie. Parece que volvemos a los “años del plomo” en España, cuando se diferenciaba entre víctimas civiles (léase inocentes) o guardias civiles, policías o militares (léase culpables).
El miedo surge entre los progresistas cuando les puede “tocar” el terrorismo, porque mientras los asesinos sean selectivos nada malo les puede pasar (incluso pueden “comprender” sus motivos). Por eso ahora tienen miedo, porque, aunque no lo reconozcan, los islamistas matan occidentales y no sólo “neoconservadores”.
Fruto de esta mentalidad, de vez en cuando, se escapa algún lapsus como este. Quizá el creador del anuncio y quien lo aprobó acababan de ver la película de Michel Moore, o habían leído el libro en el que se afirma que no cayó un avión en el Pentágono. Quizá, pero de lo que si podemos estar seguros es que fueron a manifestarse contra Geroge Bush y Aznar pero no contra Sadam Hussein.
El problema que subyace tras este deleznable anuncio es que la banalización constante del terrorismo islamista (que no islámico) genera el clima adecuado para reírse de los americanos asesinados. Ya lo explicó Hannah Arendt en su libro “La banalidad del mal” tras su entrevista con Adolf Eichmann en una cárcel de Israel. La filósofa de origen alemán describió cómo el responsable de los traslados de millones de judíos a los campos de concentración no tenía remordimientos y se describía asimismo como un eficiente funcionario de transportes del Reich. No es necesario ser un psicópata para asesinar, tan sólo dejarse llevar por la corriente. Por un clima social que entonces describió a los judíos como seres infrahumanos o por un clima que culpabiliza a las víctimas del terrorismo de su propia muerte.
Por eso es tan importante el lenguaje; las palabras y las imágenes crean un humus, un poso que facilita la asunción de conductas como la de este periódico, conductas que tratan el terrorismo con una indiferencia cómoda pero no por ello menos culpable.
Por eso no podemos acostumbrarnos que a los terroristas iraquíes se les llame “resistentes”, que a los terroristas palestinos se les llame “activistas”, o que a los narcoterroristas de las FARC se les llame “guerrilleros”. Porque decapitar personas, poner bombas en autobuses de pasajeros o secuestrar en la selva (por poner algunos ejemplos de lo que hacen) no es otra cosa que terrorismo.
Tampoco nos podemos resignar a que se busquen justificaciones al terrorismo. La matanza de Beslan no tiene justificación, no se puede aludir a la guerra de chechenia cuando los cadáveres de los niños están aún calientes. Por muchas salvajadas que haya hecho Rusia con los chechenios, no podemos justificar un acto terrorista. Entre otras cosas porque tampoco podemos confundir a todos los chechenios con esos terroristas.
No, no podemos resignarnos. Porque banalizar el terror es el primer paso para la rendición. Utilizar a las víctimas para vender periódicos nos desarma moralmente para enfrentarnos a nuestros enemigos. Sobre todo porque los que desprecian a las víctimas no quieren reconocer que tenemos enemigos.
La memoria de las víctimas es sagrada. Como nos explicó la propia Hannah Arendt, el héroe griego lo es no sólo en el momento de realizar su gesta. La palabra reproduce la hazaña en el ágora, fija su significado en el espacio público formado por la reunión de los hombres iguales en tanto que libres. La hazaña del héroe se dota de sentido ante los demás. Por eso la palabra es tan importante. Por eso los medios de comunicación tienen el deber de honrar a las víctimas (héroes inocentes).
Por eso no debemos tener la más mínima complacencia con quienes banalizan el terror, desprecian a las víctimas y mancillan su memoria, que es también la nuestra.
http://www.liberalismo.org/bitacoras/3/1622/
Oct 19, 2004
Definiendo al "progre"
18.10.2004
Definiendo al "progre"
Hace ya unos años que a muchos políticos no se les cae de la boca la palabra "progresismo". La Alianza debía ser el espacio "progresista" por excelencia. Ibarra se presenta a si mismo como el adalid del "progresismo", ocupando el lugar que dejó vacante por fuga la Fernández Meijide, estereotipo perfecto del "progre" nacional.
Desde la llegada de Kirchner a la presidencia se sumó otro componente cuando los Bonasso, Verbitsky, Eduardo Luis Duhalde y otros cadáveres insepultos de la política argentina pusieron su afán en intentar promover que lo setentista era por definición progresista, una jugada dialéctica que llegó a calar en nuestra clase media achambonada.
En vista al daño que el pensamiento progre ha causado, y por la vaguedad conceptual que este encierra, hace falta hacer un análisis casi taxonómico de lo que este implica. En momentos en que casi no se sabe qué significa ser peronista, ser radical, y en que muchos no se animan a definirse de otras maneras -de derecha, por ejemplo- vale la pena que al menos tengamos en claro de qué hablamos cuando hablamos de progresismo. Para ello sirven perfecamente unos párrafos extractados de uno de los textos más claros escritos en los últimos tiempos en el país: Crítica de las Ideas Políticas Argentinas, de Juan José Sebreli:
“Después del derrumbe del “socialismo real”, el socialismo de cátedra retorna al anticapitalismo romántico, al socialismo utópico anterior a Marx, al romanticismo antiilustrado con su mitología irracionalista y arcaizante, su idealización de los pueblos primitivos, el rechazo ludista de la sociedad industrial y urbana...”
“Un sector de la clase media semiculta de los grandes centros urbanos, agrupada bajo la denominación vagarosa de “progresismo”, o también “políticamente correctos”. Aunque no pueda desconocerse su consagración sincera a las luchas por las libertades, los derechos humanos, la equidad, tampoco deben soslayarse sus serias falencias. Sus principios vagos y contradictorios, mezcla de ingenuidad e hipocresía, de contestación y conformidad con las bogas vigentes y beata devoción por las “buenas causas”, asemejan a los progresistas de hoy a los “idiotas útiles” de los tiempos dorados del estalinismo. Son utilizados, a veces, pero desdeñados por la ultraizquierda y abominados por la ultraderecha, aun cuando todos ellos están unidos por un común nacionalismo y antinorteamericanismo furioso. Los progresistas inciden en la opinión pública, ya que muchos son profesores, escritores, periodistas, psicoanalistas, artistas, comunicadores sociales, a los que se suman ricos con sentimiento de culpa, o gente exitosa en el mundo del espectáculo, el deporte o los negocios”.
“Rasgos característicos del progresismo son la confusión entre moral y política, entre moral y economía, el rechazo por toda forma de realismo político, la sustitución de los análisis concretos por la denuncia y la lamentación, el reemplazo de propuestas viables por la sujeción a principios abstractos, a bellos deseos imaginarios, una obstinada negación de ver la cruda realidad y una memoria histórica maniquea y distorsionada”.
“Paradójicamente ser progresista hoy es rechazar la idea de progreso como obsoleta y predicar la decadencia de Occidente y el apocalipsis del mundo mercantilizado, temas de la derecha fascistizante de otros tiempos”.
“Por su incapacidad de crear un nuevo partido... el progresismo está obligado a apoyar alternativamente a los dos partidos mayoritarios... aunque de tanto en tanto, rompe esta rutina con la aparición de algún nuevo partido de trayectoria fugaz...”.
“El radicalismo y el peronismo son percibidos como progresistas cuando están en la oposición y reaccionarios cuando están en el poder... El progresismo, que nada aprende, repite eternamente los mismos errores...el engaño será siempre posible mientras existan quienes quieren ser engañados y necesitan engañarse a si mismos”.
http://www.sinemetu.com.ar/
Definiendo al "progre"
Hace ya unos años que a muchos políticos no se les cae de la boca la palabra "progresismo". La Alianza debía ser el espacio "progresista" por excelencia. Ibarra se presenta a si mismo como el adalid del "progresismo", ocupando el lugar que dejó vacante por fuga la Fernández Meijide, estereotipo perfecto del "progre" nacional.
Desde la llegada de Kirchner a la presidencia se sumó otro componente cuando los Bonasso, Verbitsky, Eduardo Luis Duhalde y otros cadáveres insepultos de la política argentina pusieron su afán en intentar promover que lo setentista era por definición progresista, una jugada dialéctica que llegó a calar en nuestra clase media achambonada.
En vista al daño que el pensamiento progre ha causado, y por la vaguedad conceptual que este encierra, hace falta hacer un análisis casi taxonómico de lo que este implica. En momentos en que casi no se sabe qué significa ser peronista, ser radical, y en que muchos no se animan a definirse de otras maneras -de derecha, por ejemplo- vale la pena que al menos tengamos en claro de qué hablamos cuando hablamos de progresismo. Para ello sirven perfecamente unos párrafos extractados de uno de los textos más claros escritos en los últimos tiempos en el país: Crítica de las Ideas Políticas Argentinas, de Juan José Sebreli:
“Después del derrumbe del “socialismo real”, el socialismo de cátedra retorna al anticapitalismo romántico, al socialismo utópico anterior a Marx, al romanticismo antiilustrado con su mitología irracionalista y arcaizante, su idealización de los pueblos primitivos, el rechazo ludista de la sociedad industrial y urbana...”
“Un sector de la clase media semiculta de los grandes centros urbanos, agrupada bajo la denominación vagarosa de “progresismo”, o también “políticamente correctos”. Aunque no pueda desconocerse su consagración sincera a las luchas por las libertades, los derechos humanos, la equidad, tampoco deben soslayarse sus serias falencias. Sus principios vagos y contradictorios, mezcla de ingenuidad e hipocresía, de contestación y conformidad con las bogas vigentes y beata devoción por las “buenas causas”, asemejan a los progresistas de hoy a los “idiotas útiles” de los tiempos dorados del estalinismo. Son utilizados, a veces, pero desdeñados por la ultraizquierda y abominados por la ultraderecha, aun cuando todos ellos están unidos por un común nacionalismo y antinorteamericanismo furioso. Los progresistas inciden en la opinión pública, ya que muchos son profesores, escritores, periodistas, psicoanalistas, artistas, comunicadores sociales, a los que se suman ricos con sentimiento de culpa, o gente exitosa en el mundo del espectáculo, el deporte o los negocios”.
“Rasgos característicos del progresismo son la confusión entre moral y política, entre moral y economía, el rechazo por toda forma de realismo político, la sustitución de los análisis concretos por la denuncia y la lamentación, el reemplazo de propuestas viables por la sujeción a principios abstractos, a bellos deseos imaginarios, una obstinada negación de ver la cruda realidad y una memoria histórica maniquea y distorsionada”.
“Paradójicamente ser progresista hoy es rechazar la idea de progreso como obsoleta y predicar la decadencia de Occidente y el apocalipsis del mundo mercantilizado, temas de la derecha fascistizante de otros tiempos”.
“Por su incapacidad de crear un nuevo partido... el progresismo está obligado a apoyar alternativamente a los dos partidos mayoritarios... aunque de tanto en tanto, rompe esta rutina con la aparición de algún nuevo partido de trayectoria fugaz...”.
“El radicalismo y el peronismo son percibidos como progresistas cuando están en la oposición y reaccionarios cuando están en el poder... El progresismo, que nada aprende, repite eternamente los mismos errores...el engaño será siempre posible mientras existan quienes quieren ser engañados y necesitan engañarse a si mismos”.
http://www.sinemetu.com.ar/
Oct 18, 2004
A World Without Power
les recomiendo este artículo del Hoover Digest para cuando tengan un minuto, muy interesante:
Critics of U.S. global dominance should pause and consider the alternative. If the United States retreats from its hegemonic role, who would supplant it? Not Europe, not China, not the Muslim world—and certainly not the United Nations. Unfortunately, the alternative to a single superpower is not a multilateral utopia but the anarchic nightmare of a new Dark Age.
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/digest/044/ferguson.html
Critics of U.S. global dominance should pause and consider the alternative. If the United States retreats from its hegemonic role, who would supplant it? Not Europe, not China, not the Muslim world—and certainly not the United Nations. Unfortunately, the alternative to a single superpower is not a multilateral utopia but the anarchic nightmare of a new Dark Age.
http://www-hoover.stanford.edu/publications/digest/044/ferguson.html
Oct 14, 2004
Vergüenza por lo correcto
14/10&04
Columnista invitado / Carlos Mira
Vergüenza por lo correcto
Analizar los hipotéticos escalones de degradación de los países es un ejercicio doloroso, pero necesario, para tratar de comprender dónde estamos parados. Lamentablemente, el análisis parece demostrar que hemos llegado al punto más bajo: no sólo lo que está mal es preferido por sobre lo que está bien, sino que aquellos que aún creen en lo correcto comienzan a sentirse avergonzados de sus valores.
Si pudieran escalonarse los niveles de la degradación de los países, bien podrían anotarse tres de ellos con relativa claridad.
Un primer nivel comienza con los inconvenientes que una sociedad puede presentar para distinguir lo que está bien de lo que está mal. Se trata de una instancia de por sí grave, porque, claramente, si las personas no pueden manejar con naturalidad un sistema de valores que indubitable e inconscientemente las lleve a preferir lo correcto a lo incorrecto, el país comenzará a estar a la deriva de la suerte y las veces en que las decisiones se inclinen hacia lo que está mal o hacia lo incorrecto, el país sufrirá severamente las consecuencias.
En este nivel de degradación es aún posible actuar, porque lo que reina es la confusión. Con ser grave la instancia –porque es evidente que se llegó a ella fruto de una inseguridad profunda respecto de los buenos valores de la vida- hay todavía una puerta de esperanza: uno apuesta a que aclarada la visión, momentáneamente confundida, todo vuelva a la normalidad y el país comience nuevamente a resolver disyuntivas y alternativas en función de un orden de valores apoyado en el bien y en lo correcto. Para ello habrá que educar en el buen sentido y preocuparse por difundir y trasmitir los valores de las personas de bien.
Un segundo nivel de degradación se alcanza cuando la sociedad, anoticiada ya de lo que está bien y de lo que está mal, empieza a preferir voluntariamente lo que está mal. En esta instancia la vuelta atrás comienza a ser muy dificultosa. Si las personas no están confundidas respecto de lo que corresponde sino que voluntariamente prefieren hacer lo que no corresponde, entonces el país está perdido. No sería de extrañar que comience a desarrollarse cierto sentido de orgullo por preferir lo que está mal. Incluso es bastante normal que estas sociedades inviertan una enorme cantidad de energía nacional en tratar de demostrarle al mundo que no es cierto que ellas prefieren lo que está mal, sino que lo que está bien y lo que está mal son cuestiones relativas y que como a otros puede parecerle mal lo que ellas prefieren, a ellas les parece bien (y viceversa).
Esta relativización del bien y del mal es típica de las sociedades que han alcanzado este estadio de degradación. Incluso el proceso de relativización adquiere la terminología y las formas de las discusiones democráticas: las diferencias de parecer entre lo que está bien y lo que está mal deben aceptarse como diferencias naturales de la vida en democracia.
El reinado de un orden mínimo de convivencia civilizada empieza a desmoronarse por completo. Ninguna autoridad es reconocida y la capacidad de hacer valer la cordura y la razonabilidad se ve notoriamente disminuida. Incluso, las personas de bien que, por supuesto, no tienen inconvenientes en distinguir lo que está bien de lo que está mal y que prefieren voluntariamente lo que está bien, comienzan a experimentar una sensación extraña y de manifiesta incomodidad para relacionarse socialmente. Es normal que muchas de ellas comiencen a caer, entonces, en el primer nivel de degradación descrito más arriba, esto es, a tener dificultades en distinguir lo que está bien de lo que está mal. Muchas de ellas, incluso, comenzarán a optar por lo que está mal aún en contra de sus propios valores, pero simplemente para poder seguir interactuando en una sociedad gobernada por el disvalor.
Este camino nos dirige velozmente hacia el tercer y último escalón de la degradación, caracterizado por el sentimiento de vergüenza que sienten las personas por lo que está bien y por lo correcto. Es tal el dominio cultural del disvalor que los buenos valores comienzan a resultar vergonzantes para aquellos que aún los cultivan. En este punto los avergonzados callarán, disimularán y finalmente se rendirán.
Seguramente la rendición significará que incluso las personas bien pensantes comenzaran a manejarse según pautas disvaliosas. Demás está decir que, alcanzado este punto, toda posibilidad de resuperación resulta imposible.
¿No hemos alcanzado en la Argentina este nivel de disparate? Cuando el gobernador Solá, por ejemplo, no logra sostenerse en su decisión de erradicar a un conjunto de inmigrantes ilegales, que ocupan ilegalmente un predio público en la provincia de Buenos Aires para comercializar mercadería robada y, por el contrario, se allana a revisar su decisión por motivos “sociales”, siendo permeable, incluso, al lobby de dos embajadores extranjeros, ¿no estamos en presencia de un típico “inseguro respecto de lo que corresponde” que a la primera presión da marcha atrás, sin convicción suficiente como para decir “no, señores, ustedes son una manga de delincuentes y lo que corresponde es que se vayan ya de ese lugar”?. Cuando la policía en el medio de la platea (no entre la barra brava de una tribuna) de un estadio de fútbol que se prepara para ver a su selección nacional no puede hacer valer los derechos de los ciudadanos que compraron sus entradas numeradas y que encuentran, al llegar, sus lugares ocupados por “matones” supuestamente pertenecientes a la parte “sana” de la sociedad, ¿no estamos en presencia de un monumental desorden de respeto en donde ni un uniformado puede poner las cosas en su lugar? Cuando, justamente, las personas que supuestamente por su educación y capacidad económica integran la parte “sana” de la sociedad ocupan los lugares de otros y, al pedírseles que se retiren, hacen gala del típico “matonismo” argentino, ¿no comprobamos que los valores de lo que está bien y lo que está mal se han perdido por completo, incluso, en donde sería de presumir que aún existen?
Cuando uno analiza los escalones que la historia ha marcado para la degradación de los países, tiene la fea sensación de que en la Argentina estamos muy cerca de haber pasado ya por todos ellos.
© www.economiaparatodos.com.ar
Columnista invitado / Carlos Mira
Vergüenza por lo correcto
Analizar los hipotéticos escalones de degradación de los países es un ejercicio doloroso, pero necesario, para tratar de comprender dónde estamos parados. Lamentablemente, el análisis parece demostrar que hemos llegado al punto más bajo: no sólo lo que está mal es preferido por sobre lo que está bien, sino que aquellos que aún creen en lo correcto comienzan a sentirse avergonzados de sus valores.
Si pudieran escalonarse los niveles de la degradación de los países, bien podrían anotarse tres de ellos con relativa claridad.
Un primer nivel comienza con los inconvenientes que una sociedad puede presentar para distinguir lo que está bien de lo que está mal. Se trata de una instancia de por sí grave, porque, claramente, si las personas no pueden manejar con naturalidad un sistema de valores que indubitable e inconscientemente las lleve a preferir lo correcto a lo incorrecto, el país comenzará a estar a la deriva de la suerte y las veces en que las decisiones se inclinen hacia lo que está mal o hacia lo incorrecto, el país sufrirá severamente las consecuencias.
En este nivel de degradación es aún posible actuar, porque lo que reina es la confusión. Con ser grave la instancia –porque es evidente que se llegó a ella fruto de una inseguridad profunda respecto de los buenos valores de la vida- hay todavía una puerta de esperanza: uno apuesta a que aclarada la visión, momentáneamente confundida, todo vuelva a la normalidad y el país comience nuevamente a resolver disyuntivas y alternativas en función de un orden de valores apoyado en el bien y en lo correcto. Para ello habrá que educar en el buen sentido y preocuparse por difundir y trasmitir los valores de las personas de bien.
Un segundo nivel de degradación se alcanza cuando la sociedad, anoticiada ya de lo que está bien y de lo que está mal, empieza a preferir voluntariamente lo que está mal. En esta instancia la vuelta atrás comienza a ser muy dificultosa. Si las personas no están confundidas respecto de lo que corresponde sino que voluntariamente prefieren hacer lo que no corresponde, entonces el país está perdido. No sería de extrañar que comience a desarrollarse cierto sentido de orgullo por preferir lo que está mal. Incluso es bastante normal que estas sociedades inviertan una enorme cantidad de energía nacional en tratar de demostrarle al mundo que no es cierto que ellas prefieren lo que está mal, sino que lo que está bien y lo que está mal son cuestiones relativas y que como a otros puede parecerle mal lo que ellas prefieren, a ellas les parece bien (y viceversa).
Esta relativización del bien y del mal es típica de las sociedades que han alcanzado este estadio de degradación. Incluso el proceso de relativización adquiere la terminología y las formas de las discusiones democráticas: las diferencias de parecer entre lo que está bien y lo que está mal deben aceptarse como diferencias naturales de la vida en democracia.
El reinado de un orden mínimo de convivencia civilizada empieza a desmoronarse por completo. Ninguna autoridad es reconocida y la capacidad de hacer valer la cordura y la razonabilidad se ve notoriamente disminuida. Incluso, las personas de bien que, por supuesto, no tienen inconvenientes en distinguir lo que está bien de lo que está mal y que prefieren voluntariamente lo que está bien, comienzan a experimentar una sensación extraña y de manifiesta incomodidad para relacionarse socialmente. Es normal que muchas de ellas comiencen a caer, entonces, en el primer nivel de degradación descrito más arriba, esto es, a tener dificultades en distinguir lo que está bien de lo que está mal. Muchas de ellas, incluso, comenzarán a optar por lo que está mal aún en contra de sus propios valores, pero simplemente para poder seguir interactuando en una sociedad gobernada por el disvalor.
Este camino nos dirige velozmente hacia el tercer y último escalón de la degradación, caracterizado por el sentimiento de vergüenza que sienten las personas por lo que está bien y por lo correcto. Es tal el dominio cultural del disvalor que los buenos valores comienzan a resultar vergonzantes para aquellos que aún los cultivan. En este punto los avergonzados callarán, disimularán y finalmente se rendirán.
Seguramente la rendición significará que incluso las personas bien pensantes comenzaran a manejarse según pautas disvaliosas. Demás está decir que, alcanzado este punto, toda posibilidad de resuperación resulta imposible.
¿No hemos alcanzado en la Argentina este nivel de disparate? Cuando el gobernador Solá, por ejemplo, no logra sostenerse en su decisión de erradicar a un conjunto de inmigrantes ilegales, que ocupan ilegalmente un predio público en la provincia de Buenos Aires para comercializar mercadería robada y, por el contrario, se allana a revisar su decisión por motivos “sociales”, siendo permeable, incluso, al lobby de dos embajadores extranjeros, ¿no estamos en presencia de un típico “inseguro respecto de lo que corresponde” que a la primera presión da marcha atrás, sin convicción suficiente como para decir “no, señores, ustedes son una manga de delincuentes y lo que corresponde es que se vayan ya de ese lugar”?. Cuando la policía en el medio de la platea (no entre la barra brava de una tribuna) de un estadio de fútbol que se prepara para ver a su selección nacional no puede hacer valer los derechos de los ciudadanos que compraron sus entradas numeradas y que encuentran, al llegar, sus lugares ocupados por “matones” supuestamente pertenecientes a la parte “sana” de la sociedad, ¿no estamos en presencia de un monumental desorden de respeto en donde ni un uniformado puede poner las cosas en su lugar? Cuando, justamente, las personas que supuestamente por su educación y capacidad económica integran la parte “sana” de la sociedad ocupan los lugares de otros y, al pedírseles que se retiren, hacen gala del típico “matonismo” argentino, ¿no comprobamos que los valores de lo que está bien y lo que está mal se han perdido por completo, incluso, en donde sería de presumir que aún existen?
Cuando uno analiza los escalones que la historia ha marcado para la degradación de los países, tiene la fea sensación de que en la Argentina estamos muy cerca de haber pasado ya por todos ellos.
© www.economiaparatodos.com.ar
Oct 13, 2004
THE CHOICE IS BETWEEN PRIVATE MEDICINE AND UNDERGROUND MEDICINE
THE EMPEROR'S DERRIÈRE
THE CHOICE IS BETWEEN PRIVATE MEDICINE AND UNDERGROUND MEDICINE
by Harry Valentine
When a government acts to restrict a service or a product and to control its official price, it inevitably creates shortages, as was the case on supermarket shelves in communist countries. In this case, store shelves where empty of what people wanted and overstocked of products people did not want. Government control over medicine has resulted in an increase in demand for state-paid medical services, while the supply of adequate medical service is restricted, another result of government action. A nationwide shortage of doctors exists across Canada, even though there is a large number of foreign-trained doctors who are eager to provide medical services to the public at large, who are either landed immigrants or already Canadian citizens.
The majority of Canada's provincial premiers oppose private medical services, instead regarding state medicine as the ideal. In recent years, the shortcomings of state medicine has included delayed surgeries, overcrowded hospitals and an exodus of Canadian medical personnel going to hospitals and clinics in the USA. Joining this exodus are Canadian citizens seeking medical help from private American clinics. Some patients have even traveled to hospitals and clinics af far as Germany, Turkey and India, seeking user-pay medical help that was unavailable in Canada.
Private, user-pay, underground surgery had at one time been available in back-alleys in Canada, usually to women seeking abortions. This was a result of government having banned abortions. When abortion clinics and abortion services become legally available, the back-alley underground abortion "clinics" and services that at one time had flourished for many years in most large cities, closed their doors. Government action had inadvertently created lucrative business opportunities for underground abortionists. In a similar manner, the shortcomings of government control of medicine in Canada has created new, lucrative business opportunities for foreign clinics and hospitals that are willing to provide services to Canadians citizens who care to come for a visit.
New opportunities in long-distance medicine
Advances in telecommunications technology, specifically, high-speed broadband internet networks, has opened up new opportunities in long-distance medicine. Using this technology, a doctor in one location can undertake a medical examination of a patient at a distant location, anywhere from several hundred to several thousand miles (kilometers) away. This advancing technology also allows doctors to perform "distance surgery," that is, the doctor and patient are at different locations. Recent development involving such technology now has x-ray technicians located in India, being employed by American clinics to examine American patients.
Technology is now becoming available to the home market that enables people located in private homes in Canada or the USA to consult with foreign medical personnel located abroad, on a wide variety of medical issues. Further advances in such technology could eventually see a foreign doctor located in another country, performing long-distance minor surgery on a Canadian patient, also in the privacy of their own home, or that of a friend located either in Canada or the USA. The appropriate surgical equipment could be leased on a short term basis from an American supplier (Canada would act to ban ownership of a range of electronic technology). Private, user-pay, long-distance clinics (located in the USA) could employ foreign doctors to perform a variety of minor surgical procedures on patients (from Canada), via high-speed, broadband internet technology.
While Canadian law restricts the existence of private medical services in Canada, the unintended consequence has been the increase in the number of Canadians seeking medical services abroad. The political objectives of the new federal government's health care policy may provide some relief to some Canadians over the short term. Canada's chronic shortage of doctors is a direct result of government control over health care. It is a problem that will not soon be resolved. Most foreign trained doctors living in Canada, including those who successfully practiced medicine abroad, may continue to be shut out of the Canadian medical profession over the long-term future.
This practice of mercantilism in Canada's medical profession has had a long history of political participation. Politicians were able to score points with voters by promising to maintain high standards in Canadian medicine. These high standards now include long waiting times for surgery, a chronic doctor shortage, overcrowded and underfunded hospitals. Despite these shortcomings, mercantilism in Canadian medicine may only be made more devious, by creating even more obstacles to keep foreign-trained doctors out of the Canadian medical field. The foreign doctors located abroad, at foreign hospitals and clinics, including those offering medical services over the internet, will see an increasing number of patients from Canada. This may likely be the legacy of the First Ministers' Meeting on Health which got under way on September 13.
Alternatives to public health care
Political control over health care has already revealed its downside. Attempts to rectify the problems caused by such control have the potential to create even more unintended results in the long-term future. Private citizens may therefore have to take greater personal responsibility for their health care. Many doctors and health care people located outside of Canada have written medical books and publish magazines aimed at the public at large. Other doctors and medical personnel publish newsletters over the internet, advising the public about health issues.
One health care writer, Bill Sardi, has presented articles on the benefits of vitamin C and vitamin D3 (fights cancer). Dr Weston A. Price's organization covers a range of traditional preventative health care topics. Dr Joseph Mercola's Webpage advises readers on diet, as well as a range of health issues that includes the need to increase omega-3 fat intake and the need to eliminate sugar from one's diet. The late Dr Robert Atkins of low-carb diet fame, was known to regularly take heart patients off high-cost prescription medication, replacing their daily health care regime to include lower-costing minerals and supplements.
While government officials act to protect the credibility and commercial interests of drug companies, patients in hospitals and nursing homes are falling ill with diseases caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Many high-priced antibiotics developed by drug companies are proving ineffectiveness against new, emerging strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. However, one natural-occurring antibacterial/antiviral/antibiotic products that has repeatedly proven its ability to combat a variety of strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, is sold at low-cost at almost any supermarket. A Website on the medical use of garlic advises about this.
While garlic has been recognized for its potent antibacterial properties, clove (antibacterial, antioxidant), ginger (antioxidant, cardiovascular), oregano (highest antioxidant), cinnamon (type 2 diabetes, cholesterol), and nutmeg (circulation, cholesterol) are other low-cost food products that are frequently used in homeopathic remedies. Except such low-cost alternative remedies will never be used in any public health care facility, where patients may have fallen ill due to an antibiotic-resistant bacterium. Protecting the commercial interest and credibility of drug companies may have a higher priority.
Traditionally, politicians and government officials have acted to protect the commercial interests of politically well-connected and influential groups, like the medical profession and the drug companies. The breakdown in health care in Canada is a direct result of this. The late Dr Robert Atkins repeatedly proved that low-cost supplements can be used to replace high-priced prescription drugs, for a variety of ailments. Government departments are frequently subject to lobbying by special-interest groups, including in the health care field. Officials may have little choice but to act to protect the commercial interests of politically well-connected players in the health care field.
Instead of protecting citizens, the consequences of government action in health care, will compel a growing segment of the population to seek alternative ways of protecting and maintaining their health. In the long-term future, more citizens may need to consult books written by (foreign) doctors, seek health care advice from their Websites, seek help from foreign internet-based medical services, and consult with homeopaths or practitioners of alternate medicine, perhaps even travel abroad to visit foreign user-pay health care services if the need arises. As state-run health care continues to deteriorate, an increasing number of Canadians will have little choice but to seek relief from alternative medicine. Such will become the legacy of state-run health care in Canada.
THE CHOICE IS BETWEEN PRIVATE MEDICINE AND UNDERGROUND MEDICINE
by Harry Valentine
When a government acts to restrict a service or a product and to control its official price, it inevitably creates shortages, as was the case on supermarket shelves in communist countries. In this case, store shelves where empty of what people wanted and overstocked of products people did not want. Government control over medicine has resulted in an increase in demand for state-paid medical services, while the supply of adequate medical service is restricted, another result of government action. A nationwide shortage of doctors exists across Canada, even though there is a large number of foreign-trained doctors who are eager to provide medical services to the public at large, who are either landed immigrants or already Canadian citizens.
The majority of Canada's provincial premiers oppose private medical services, instead regarding state medicine as the ideal. In recent years, the shortcomings of state medicine has included delayed surgeries, overcrowded hospitals and an exodus of Canadian medical personnel going to hospitals and clinics in the USA. Joining this exodus are Canadian citizens seeking medical help from private American clinics. Some patients have even traveled to hospitals and clinics af far as Germany, Turkey and India, seeking user-pay medical help that was unavailable in Canada.
Private, user-pay, underground surgery had at one time been available in back-alleys in Canada, usually to women seeking abortions. This was a result of government having banned abortions. When abortion clinics and abortion services become legally available, the back-alley underground abortion "clinics" and services that at one time had flourished for many years in most large cities, closed their doors. Government action had inadvertently created lucrative business opportunities for underground abortionists. In a similar manner, the shortcomings of government control of medicine in Canada has created new, lucrative business opportunities for foreign clinics and hospitals that are willing to provide services to Canadians citizens who care to come for a visit.
New opportunities in long-distance medicine
Advances in telecommunications technology, specifically, high-speed broadband internet networks, has opened up new opportunities in long-distance medicine. Using this technology, a doctor in one location can undertake a medical examination of a patient at a distant location, anywhere from several hundred to several thousand miles (kilometers) away. This advancing technology also allows doctors to perform "distance surgery," that is, the doctor and patient are at different locations. Recent development involving such technology now has x-ray technicians located in India, being employed by American clinics to examine American patients.
Technology is now becoming available to the home market that enables people located in private homes in Canada or the USA to consult with foreign medical personnel located abroad, on a wide variety of medical issues. Further advances in such technology could eventually see a foreign doctor located in another country, performing long-distance minor surgery on a Canadian patient, also in the privacy of their own home, or that of a friend located either in Canada or the USA. The appropriate surgical equipment could be leased on a short term basis from an American supplier (Canada would act to ban ownership of a range of electronic technology). Private, user-pay, long-distance clinics (located in the USA) could employ foreign doctors to perform a variety of minor surgical procedures on patients (from Canada), via high-speed, broadband internet technology.
While Canadian law restricts the existence of private medical services in Canada, the unintended consequence has been the increase in the number of Canadians seeking medical services abroad. The political objectives of the new federal government's health care policy may provide some relief to some Canadians over the short term. Canada's chronic shortage of doctors is a direct result of government control over health care. It is a problem that will not soon be resolved. Most foreign trained doctors living in Canada, including those who successfully practiced medicine abroad, may continue to be shut out of the Canadian medical profession over the long-term future.
This practice of mercantilism in Canada's medical profession has had a long history of political participation. Politicians were able to score points with voters by promising to maintain high standards in Canadian medicine. These high standards now include long waiting times for surgery, a chronic doctor shortage, overcrowded and underfunded hospitals. Despite these shortcomings, mercantilism in Canadian medicine may only be made more devious, by creating even more obstacles to keep foreign-trained doctors out of the Canadian medical field. The foreign doctors located abroad, at foreign hospitals and clinics, including those offering medical services over the internet, will see an increasing number of patients from Canada. This may likely be the legacy of the First Ministers' Meeting on Health which got under way on September 13.
Alternatives to public health care
Political control over health care has already revealed its downside. Attempts to rectify the problems caused by such control have the potential to create even more unintended results in the long-term future. Private citizens may therefore have to take greater personal responsibility for their health care. Many doctors and health care people located outside of Canada have written medical books and publish magazines aimed at the public at large. Other doctors and medical personnel publish newsletters over the internet, advising the public about health issues.
One health care writer, Bill Sardi, has presented articles on the benefits of vitamin C and vitamin D3 (fights cancer). Dr Weston A. Price's organization covers a range of traditional preventative health care topics. Dr Joseph Mercola's Webpage advises readers on diet, as well as a range of health issues that includes the need to increase omega-3 fat intake and the need to eliminate sugar from one's diet. The late Dr Robert Atkins of low-carb diet fame, was known to regularly take heart patients off high-cost prescription medication, replacing their daily health care regime to include lower-costing minerals and supplements.
While government officials act to protect the credibility and commercial interests of drug companies, patients in hospitals and nursing homes are falling ill with diseases caused by antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Many high-priced antibiotics developed by drug companies are proving ineffectiveness against new, emerging strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. However, one natural-occurring antibacterial/antiviral/antibiotic products that has repeatedly proven its ability to combat a variety of strains of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, is sold at low-cost at almost any supermarket. A Website on the medical use of garlic advises about this.
While garlic has been recognized for its potent antibacterial properties, clove (antibacterial, antioxidant), ginger (antioxidant, cardiovascular), oregano (highest antioxidant), cinnamon (type 2 diabetes, cholesterol), and nutmeg (circulation, cholesterol) are other low-cost food products that are frequently used in homeopathic remedies. Except such low-cost alternative remedies will never be used in any public health care facility, where patients may have fallen ill due to an antibiotic-resistant bacterium. Protecting the commercial interest and credibility of drug companies may have a higher priority.
Traditionally, politicians and government officials have acted to protect the commercial interests of politically well-connected and influential groups, like the medical profession and the drug companies. The breakdown in health care in Canada is a direct result of this. The late Dr Robert Atkins repeatedly proved that low-cost supplements can be used to replace high-priced prescription drugs, for a variety of ailments. Government departments are frequently subject to lobbying by special-interest groups, including in the health care field. Officials may have little choice but to act to protect the commercial interests of politically well-connected players in the health care field.
Instead of protecting citizens, the consequences of government action in health care, will compel a growing segment of the population to seek alternative ways of protecting and maintaining their health. In the long-term future, more citizens may need to consult books written by (foreign) doctors, seek health care advice from their Websites, seek help from foreign internet-based medical services, and consult with homeopaths or practitioners of alternate medicine, perhaps even travel abroad to visit foreign user-pay health care services if the need arises. As state-run health care continues to deteriorate, an increasing number of Canadians will have little choice but to seek relief from alternative medicine. Such will become the legacy of state-run health care in Canada.
Oct 8, 2004
Mail a un Amigo
Mail a un Amigo
Mucha gente me pregunta por qué sigo preocupándome y perdiendo el tiempo mandando artículos y demás sobre lo que pasa en Argentina. Lo cierto es que, a pesar de que la distancia y el hecho de no tener activos bajo ley argentina hacen que sea posible tener una actitud mucho más distendida y menos dramática, el horror de lo que está pasando en Argentina me afecta muchísimo, aunque sea indirectamente. Mi madre, mi hermano y su familia, y todos los amigos que se quedaron allá.
Además, está el desafío intelectual de entender por qué pasan las cosas que pasan, los mecanismos mentales que hacen que sea posible el nivel de irrealidad en el que se vive.
Lo que sigue es un mensaje de mail (con algunas modificaciones menores) que le mandé a un amigo para tratar de entender.
--------
Me gustaría que me ayudes a entender lo siguiente. Y esto te lo digo sin ironía y sin dobles sentidos.
Vos mismo te definiste como una persona que leyó un poco más que el promedio. Vos sos una persona informada por encima del promedio de la región donde vives, de clase media, con estudios y exposición al mundo, sabes idiomas. Estoy seguro que en una encuesta te situarías en el quintil superior del país en ingresos, nivel educativo, social, etc. En otras palabras, creo que estarás de acuerdo conmigo que sos parte de lo que podríamos considerar una elite intelectual y social dentro de Argentina.
Cada vez que nos veíamos durante la década del 90 no dejabas de hacer notar tu horror e indignación por lo que estaba pasando en el país. Corregime si me equivoco, pero eras (y sos) un critico despiadado de lo que considerabas inaceptables niveles de pobreza, corrupción galopante, del personalismo del presidente, su soberbia, su actitud farandulezca (si existe la palabra), el doble discurso permanente, etc., etc., etc.
No eras el único, era muy común escuchar a diario este tipo de críticas, de argentinos de clase media de gran sensibilidad social que se indignaban por lo que estaba pasando en el país. Después de todo lo que pasó, honestamente pensé que toda esta gente de gran corazón y enorme sensibilidad social iba a reaccionar ante la nueva realidad del país. Como te comentaba, si los indicadores de esa época eran un horror intolerable, me imaginé que indicadores dos y tres veces peores iban a ser sencillamente para salir a prender fuego al gobierno.
Lejos de esto, noto una actitud mucho más acomodaticia, extremadamente más contemplativa de la realidad, mucho más dispuesta a explicar las enormes inconsistencias de la actual administración y de las anteriores post Menem. De la Rua recortó un 13% los salarios de los empleados públicos del gobierno federal y es un mal nacido, por no decir hijo de puta, Duhalde devaluó el 70%, con una caída de alrededor del 60% del poder adquisitivo del salario de todo el mundo, y es un gran estadista; el ratio de deuda – PBI durante la administración Menem era de 60%, en este momento está llegando al 180% (y sigue el taxi) pero Menem endeudó al país (nota de color: según esta administración, creciendo al 9% anual sin parar, recién en 2010 llegaremos al ratio de deuda – PBI del final del gobierno de Menem, algo maravilloso).
Es muy llamativo que ahora me digas, y no sos el único, que por culpa de Menem fracasaron las políticas de los 90, cuando hace 5 años que no es presidente, y en el medio tuvimos por lo menos 3 administraciones más? Cuando uno de los motivos del golpe a De la Rua fue su negativa a devaluar, y por lo que leí, fue uno de los motivos por lo que lo rajaron a RS, que prefería emitir “argentinos”? Me decías que Menem fue el peor presidente de la historia, cuando fue el único desde el retorno a la democracia que terminó no uno sino dos mandatos en tiempo y en forma, con una entrega de mando en paz, sin ningún tipo de crisis ni urgencia, y a un presidente de la oposición, algo que no sucedía en por lo menos 70 años?
Me dices que fue la administración más corrupta de la historia del país, cuando lo primero que hizo fue privatizar los medios de comunicación, terminar con el manejo discrecional de, entre otras cosas, el tipo de cambio, los aranceles externos, las retenciones a las exportaciones, las tasas de interés, la gran mayoría del crédito? Hay un marcado contraste con tu actual amplitud de criterio para evaluar los logros de esta administración, especialmente considerando que para todos los fines prácticos se nacionalizaron los principales medios de comunicación, hay un manejo discrecional de, entre otras cosas, el tipo de cambio, las tarifas de comercio exterior, las retenciones a las exportaciones, las contrataciones directas del estado, el crédito, etc.
Lo que te quiero decir es que honestamente pensé que gente como vos, los argentinos de clase media de sensibilidad social, iban a ser los primeros en levantarse en contra de todo esto que esta pasando. Lejos de eso, es muy interesante ver que ahora me pides que considere que una cosa es lo que dice Kirchner y otra la que hace, que en realidad no es tan de izquierda como parece, que él no tiene la culpa de la miseria en el país?
Mi intención no es defender a la administración de Menem ni a la de De la Rua ni a ninguna otra. Aún tomando a pies juntillas todas las acusaciones y echándole la culpa a Menen de absolutamente todo lo que pasa, no se cuál es el mecanismo lógico que permite alegrarse o entusiasmarse por lo que está pasando ahora en el país.
Me gustaría que me digas cuál es tu postura sobre esto, yo tengo la mía, porque personalmente creo que es clave para entender lo que nos pasa, y más importante aún, saber si tenemos algún tipo de esperanza.
Mucha gente me pregunta por qué sigo preocupándome y perdiendo el tiempo mandando artículos y demás sobre lo que pasa en Argentina. Lo cierto es que, a pesar de que la distancia y el hecho de no tener activos bajo ley argentina hacen que sea posible tener una actitud mucho más distendida y menos dramática, el horror de lo que está pasando en Argentina me afecta muchísimo, aunque sea indirectamente. Mi madre, mi hermano y su familia, y todos los amigos que se quedaron allá.
Además, está el desafío intelectual de entender por qué pasan las cosas que pasan, los mecanismos mentales que hacen que sea posible el nivel de irrealidad en el que se vive.
Lo que sigue es un mensaje de mail (con algunas modificaciones menores) que le mandé a un amigo para tratar de entender.
--------
Me gustaría que me ayudes a entender lo siguiente. Y esto te lo digo sin ironía y sin dobles sentidos.
Vos mismo te definiste como una persona que leyó un poco más que el promedio. Vos sos una persona informada por encima del promedio de la región donde vives, de clase media, con estudios y exposición al mundo, sabes idiomas. Estoy seguro que en una encuesta te situarías en el quintil superior del país en ingresos, nivel educativo, social, etc. En otras palabras, creo que estarás de acuerdo conmigo que sos parte de lo que podríamos considerar una elite intelectual y social dentro de Argentina.
Cada vez que nos veíamos durante la década del 90 no dejabas de hacer notar tu horror e indignación por lo que estaba pasando en el país. Corregime si me equivoco, pero eras (y sos) un critico despiadado de lo que considerabas inaceptables niveles de pobreza, corrupción galopante, del personalismo del presidente, su soberbia, su actitud farandulezca (si existe la palabra), el doble discurso permanente, etc., etc., etc.
No eras el único, era muy común escuchar a diario este tipo de críticas, de argentinos de clase media de gran sensibilidad social que se indignaban por lo que estaba pasando en el país. Después de todo lo que pasó, honestamente pensé que toda esta gente de gran corazón y enorme sensibilidad social iba a reaccionar ante la nueva realidad del país. Como te comentaba, si los indicadores de esa época eran un horror intolerable, me imaginé que indicadores dos y tres veces peores iban a ser sencillamente para salir a prender fuego al gobierno.
Lejos de esto, noto una actitud mucho más acomodaticia, extremadamente más contemplativa de la realidad, mucho más dispuesta a explicar las enormes inconsistencias de la actual administración y de las anteriores post Menem. De la Rua recortó un 13% los salarios de los empleados públicos del gobierno federal y es un mal nacido, por no decir hijo de puta, Duhalde devaluó el 70%, con una caída de alrededor del 60% del poder adquisitivo del salario de todo el mundo, y es un gran estadista; el ratio de deuda – PBI durante la administración Menem era de 60%, en este momento está llegando al 180% (y sigue el taxi) pero Menem endeudó al país (nota de color: según esta administración, creciendo al 9% anual sin parar, recién en 2010 llegaremos al ratio de deuda – PBI del final del gobierno de Menem, algo maravilloso).
Es muy llamativo que ahora me digas, y no sos el único, que por culpa de Menem fracasaron las políticas de los 90, cuando hace 5 años que no es presidente, y en el medio tuvimos por lo menos 3 administraciones más? Cuando uno de los motivos del golpe a De la Rua fue su negativa a devaluar, y por lo que leí, fue uno de los motivos por lo que lo rajaron a RS, que prefería emitir “argentinos”? Me decías que Menem fue el peor presidente de la historia, cuando fue el único desde el retorno a la democracia que terminó no uno sino dos mandatos en tiempo y en forma, con una entrega de mando en paz, sin ningún tipo de crisis ni urgencia, y a un presidente de la oposición, algo que no sucedía en por lo menos 70 años?
Me dices que fue la administración más corrupta de la historia del país, cuando lo primero que hizo fue privatizar los medios de comunicación, terminar con el manejo discrecional de, entre otras cosas, el tipo de cambio, los aranceles externos, las retenciones a las exportaciones, las tasas de interés, la gran mayoría del crédito? Hay un marcado contraste con tu actual amplitud de criterio para evaluar los logros de esta administración, especialmente considerando que para todos los fines prácticos se nacionalizaron los principales medios de comunicación, hay un manejo discrecional de, entre otras cosas, el tipo de cambio, las tarifas de comercio exterior, las retenciones a las exportaciones, las contrataciones directas del estado, el crédito, etc.
Lo que te quiero decir es que honestamente pensé que gente como vos, los argentinos de clase media de sensibilidad social, iban a ser los primeros en levantarse en contra de todo esto que esta pasando. Lejos de eso, es muy interesante ver que ahora me pides que considere que una cosa es lo que dice Kirchner y otra la que hace, que en realidad no es tan de izquierda como parece, que él no tiene la culpa de la miseria en el país?
Mi intención no es defender a la administración de Menem ni a la de De la Rua ni a ninguna otra. Aún tomando a pies juntillas todas las acusaciones y echándole la culpa a Menen de absolutamente todo lo que pasa, no se cuál es el mecanismo lógico que permite alegrarse o entusiasmarse por lo que está pasando ahora en el país.
Me gustaría que me digas cuál es tu postura sobre esto, yo tengo la mía, porque personalmente creo que es clave para entender lo que nos pasa, y más importante aún, saber si tenemos algún tipo de esperanza.
Lectura Recomendada
Lectura Recomendada
Algunos libros que me ayudaron a entender un poco más. Nada complicado, si los entendí yo, se pueden imaginar que son para cualquiera:
Nota: los links a Amazon y otras librerias en línea son sólo porque me pareció lo más práctico para los que quieren leer un resumen, no implica una relación con el vendedor!
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Max Weber
Underdevelopment Is a State of Mind
Lawrence E. Harrison
Las Condiciones Culturales del Desarrollo Económico
Mariano Grondona
Crítica de las Ideas Políticas Argentinas
Juna Jose Sebreli
Manual del perfecto idiota latinoamericano
PLINIO A. MENDOZA, CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER, ALVARO V. LLOSA
Fabricantes de miseria
PLINIO A. MENDOZA, CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER, ALVARO V. LLOSA
Estos son algunos de los libros que tengo en mi wish list, me gustaría mucho leer próximamente en esta sala:
The Progress Paradox : How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse
by GREGG EASTERBROOK
Anti-Americanism
by Jean Francois Revel
Colossus: The Price of America's Empire
by Niall Ferguson
The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
by Hernando Desoto
Who Are We : The Challenges to America's National Identity
by Samuel P. Huntington
The CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS AND THE REMAKING OF WORLD ORDER
by Samuel P. Huntington
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor
by David S. Landes
Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress
by Lawrence E. Harrison
Algunos libros que me ayudaron a entender un poco más. Nada complicado, si los entendí yo, se pueden imaginar que son para cualquiera:
Nota: los links a Amazon y otras librerias en línea son sólo porque me pareció lo más práctico para los que quieren leer un resumen, no implica una relación con el vendedor!
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
Max Weber
Underdevelopment Is a State of Mind
Lawrence E. Harrison
Las Condiciones Culturales del Desarrollo Económico
Mariano Grondona
Crítica de las Ideas Políticas Argentinas
Juna Jose Sebreli
Manual del perfecto idiota latinoamericano
PLINIO A. MENDOZA, CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER, ALVARO V. LLOSA
Fabricantes de miseria
PLINIO A. MENDOZA, CARLOS ALBERTO MONTANER, ALVARO V. LLOSA
Estos son algunos de los libros que tengo en mi wish list, me gustaría mucho leer próximamente en esta sala:
The Progress Paradox : How Life Gets Better While People Feel Worse
by GREGG EASTERBROOK
Anti-Americanism
by Jean Francois Revel
Colossus: The Price of America's Empire
by Niall Ferguson
The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else
by Hernando Desoto
Who Are We : The Challenges to America's National Identity
by Samuel P. Huntington
The CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS AND THE REMAKING OF WORLD ORDER
by Samuel P. Huntington
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations: Why Some Are So Rich and Some So Poor
by David S. Landes
Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress
by Lawrence E. Harrison
Oct 1, 2004
The Voices of Visible Minorities, Speaking Out on Breaking Down Barriers
Tengo un muy buen pdf sobre las visible minorities en Canadá, definición, etc. Es muy grande para ponerlo acá, si a alguien le interesa, me lo pide y se lo mando por mail.
The Reluctant Empire
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS:
The Reluctant Empire
Niall Ferguson
Niall Ferguson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of international history at Harvard University.
By most conventional measures of power—economic, military, and cultural—there has never been an empire mightier than that of the United States today. Yet why does America have such trouble using this power effectively?
Pinkerton and Schwarzenegger
The United States today is an empire—but a peculiar kind of empire. It is vastly wealthy. It is militarily peerless. It has astonishing cultural reach. In the space of four years Americans have intervened militarily against three rogue states in the Balkans, Central Asia, and the Middle East. American troops are currently patrolling the streets of Kosovo, Kabul, and Kirkuk. Whatever the rationale, each U.S. incursion has led to a change of political regime, military occupation, and an attempt at institutional transformation euphemistically described as nation-building. Yet by comparison with other empires it often struggles to impose its will beyond its shores. Its successes in exporting American institutions to foreign lands have been outnumbered by its failures.
In many respects, this American empire shares the same aspirations and ambitions as the last great Anglophone hegemon. Despite originating in a revolt against British imperialism, the United States inherited many of its begetter’s defining characteristics. Styling itself, in good Whig terminology, an “empire of liberty,” the fledgling Republic embarked on an astonishingly rapid colonization of the central belt of the North American continent. If anything, the independent Americans expropriated indigenous peoples even more ruthlessly than they had as British subjects. However, the differences between the British and American empires became more apparent as the United States sought to extend its influence overseas. Its experiment with overt imperialism after 1898 had distinctly mixed results, ending unhappily in both the Pacific and the Caribbean, with the notable exceptions of Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
Like the fickle Lieutenant Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, American overseas interventions went through three phases: ardent in Act I, absent in Act II, anguished in Act III.
Only when the United States could cast itself in an anti-imperialist role— first against the British Empire during the Second World War and then (more wisely) against the Soviet Union during the Cold War—were Americans able to perform their own crypto-imperial role with self-confidence. Even then, there were clear limits to American stamina. The doctrine of limited war led to a draw in Korea and a defeat in Vietnam. Contradictory commitments undermined U.S. predominance in the Middle East too. It took a succession of humanitarian disasters abroad in the 1990s and terrorist attacks at home in 2001 to rekindle public enthusiasm for a more assertive U.S. foreign policy, though even this had to be cloaked in euphemism, its imperial character repeatedly denied.
The United States has invaded and occupied many countries over the past two centuries. Yet in terms of their economic and political institutions, relatively few of these have evolved into anything remotely resembling miniature Americas. Will things go any better in Kosovo, Afghanistan, or Iraq? And can President Bush live up to his implied threats to deal sooner or later with the other members of the “axis of evil,” Iran and North Korea—to say nothing of Cuba, Libya, and Syria, which were added to the list of rogue states in May 2002, as well as Burma and Zimbabwe, also singled out for presidential opprobrium in November 2003?
At the moment, simply imposing order in Iraq is proving difficult enough, even with British and Polish assistance. After all the bravado of the “three-week war,” the Bush administration quite quickly felt constrained to request assistance from the United Nations for the U.S.-established Coalition Provisional Authority. To have any hope of securing this, the United States had to promise to expedite the transfer of power from the Anglo-American coalition to an elected Iraqi government. American power also looked circumscribed in the Middle East. When George W. Bush visited the region in June 2003, some expressed the hope that the overthrow of Saddam would help break the deadlock in the Middle Eastern peace process, sending a signal to Syria and Iran that their support for terrorist organizations bent on the destruction of Israel would no longer be tolerated, bolstering the moderates among the Palestinian leadership and encouraging a skeptical Israeli government to take the route marked on the American “road map.” By the fall, however, Yasser Arafat had reasserted his control over the Palestinian administration, Ariel Sharon was building a replica of the Berlin Wall around the Palestinians, and for the first time Americans were being targeted by terrorists in the occupied territories. At the same time, Al Qaeda began to attack the one Arab autocracy that the United States had pledged itself to preserve, the house of Saud.
The Bush administration had meanwhile made equally little headway in dealing with what was surely the most dangerous of all the world’s rogue regimes, North Korea. Pyongyang’s development of long-range missiles and its research into nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons—to say nothing of its huge conventional armed forces—plainly posed a huge threat to the stability of East Asia. In December 2002 the North Koreans had repudiated a 1994 agreement shutting down its nuclear reactors and had expelled U.N. monitors; in October 2003 a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman threatened, somewhat opaquely, to “open [North Korea’s] nuclear deterrent to the public as a physical force.” Could the United States do anything about this? Apparently not—despite the fact that the country continued to depend on American aid to feed its half-starved population. Insisting that it be given not just handouts but a full-fledged nonaggression treaty with the United States, this repulsive little dictatorship defied the American hyperpower with impunity.
The United States even hesitated before sending a tiny force to the one basket-case country in Africa for which it can be said to have any historical responsibility, Liberia. In August 2003, three ships, carrying around 4,500 sailors and marines, were sent to Liberia after repeated requests for American intervention. In all, 225 U.S. personnel went ashore, of whom 50 succumbed to malaria. Two months later the Americans were gone.
This halfhearted African adventure seemed to exemplify the limits of American power. But how are we to explain these limits? By most conventional measures of power—economic, military, and cultural—there has never been an empire mightier than the United States today. Its recent difficulties in achieving its foreign policy goals cannot simply be blamed on the Bush administration’s alleged diplomatic ineptitude. Rather, we need fundamentally to rethink what we mean by power, for all too often we confuse that concept with other, quite different things—wealth, weaponry, and a winning way with “soft power.” It is in fact perfectly possible to have a great deal of all these things, yet to have only limited power. Indeed, that is precisely the American predicament.
The election of the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California in October 2003 offered an important clue to the nature of American power. In his most recent film, Terminator 3, Schwarzenegger plays a muscle-bound and almost indestructible robot, programmed to protect a young man who is destined to save the world. The film abounds in irony, not all of it intentional. In the climactic scene, the Terminator’s operating system becomes corrupted; instead of rescuing the future savior, he comes close to killing him. As his original program battles this contradictory command, the word abort flashes in bright red letters in his head, all but paralyzing him.
In three distinct ways the Terminator is a perfect, if unwitting, metaphor of American power. Although he has the body of a man half his age, Schwarzenegger himself is in fact just four years short of his 60th birthday. His determination to remain forever Mr. Universe typifies the determination of an entire generation never to grow old, though grow old they must—with significant economic consequences. The Terminator is also a very American hero for the simple reason that there is only one of him. In this he personifies the chronic manpower shortage that currently constrains American nation-building. Above all, the Terminator exemplifies the limits of American power because the word abort starts flashing in his head before he has completed his mission. Outwardly, Arnold Schwarzenegger is without question a colossus; it is hard to imagine the male body looking any bigger or stronger. He is to the human frame what the United States is to the capitalist economy. Yet his character embodies the three key deficits that explain why America only looks immensely strong without actually being immensely strong.
Three Deficits
Three fundamental deficits together explain why the United States has been a less effective empire than its British predecessor. They are its economic deficit, its manpower deficit, and—the most serious of the three—its attention deficit.
Since 1985, as we have seen, the United States has gone from being a net international creditor to being the world’s biggest debtor: its net international liabilities are now equivalent to around a quarter of its gross domestic product. America’s reliance on foreign capital is a balancing act on a very high wire. One plausible and troubling scenario is that foreign expectations could shift, leading to simultaneous pressure on the exchange rate and bond prices, with higher yields threatening American growth via mortgage rates and the housing market.
Equally troubling is America’s manpower deficit. There is undoubtedly something perplexing about the apparent shortage of American combat-effective troops at a time when the American prison population exceeds 2 million—14 times the number of American troops in Iraq. Those who warned last year that the force assigned to occupy Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein was too small have since been vindicated. Remarkably, the U.S. military presence in Iraq as I write is almost identical in size to the British presence in 1920. But in those days the population of the country was much smaller. The British had approximately one soldier for every 20 Iraqis; the United States has one for every 160.
Of the three deficits, however, it is the third that may prove the most difficult to overcome—namely, the attention deficit that seems to be inherent in the American political system and that already threatens to call a premature halt to reconstruction in both Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not intended as a term of abuse. The problem is systemic; it is the way the political process militates against farsighted leadership.
Retired general Anthony Zinni has commented: “We should believe that a stable world is a better place for us. If you had a policy and a forward-leaning engagement strategy, the U.S. would make a much greater difference to the world. It would intervene earlier and pick fights better.” But such a strategy is much easier for a soldier to imagine than for an elected politician. It is not just that first-term American presidents have only two and a half years in office before the issue of securing reelection begins to loom. It is the fact that even sooner, midterm congressional elections can have the effect of emasculating their legislative programs. It is the fact that American politics operates on three tiers simultaneously: the national, the state, and the local. How could Californians be expected to pay full attention to the problems of nation-building in Baghdad in the summer of 2003, when a self-selected mob of amateur politicians was noisily bidding to recall their incumbent governor? It is the fact that the federal executive itself is anything but a homogeneous entity. Interdepartmental rivalry is of course the norm in most human institutions of any size. But there were times in 2003 when the complete absence of coordination among the Defense Department, the State Department, and the Treasury—to say nothing of the Commerce Department, the trade representative, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the host of institutions now notionally concerned with “homeland security”—recalled the worst “polycracy” of Wihelmine Germany. The presidency is of course an elected rather than a hereditary office, but its recent incumbents have sometimes appeared to conduct business in the style of the last German kaiser, allowing policy to be determined by inter-agency competition rather than by forging a sense of collective responsibility. Small wonder so many American interventions abroad have the spasmodic, undiplomatic quality of Wilhelm II’s Weltpolitik. Imperial Germany too practiced what Michael Ignatieff has called imperialism in a hurry. It too was “impatient for quick results.”
Unlike the kaiser’s Germany, however, the United States disclaims any interest in acquiring new “places in the sun.” Its conquests are not merely temporary; they are not even regarded as conquests. The Victorian historian J. R. Seeley famously joked that the British had built their empire “in a fit of absence of mind.” Americans, however, have gone one better; here absent-mindedness has become full-blown myopia. Few people outside the United States today doubt the existence of an American empire; that America is imperialistic is a truism in the eyes of most educated Europeans. But as the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr noted as long ago as 1960, Americans persist in “frantically avoiding recognition of the imperialism [they] in fact exercise.”
Does imperial denial matter? The answer is that it does. Successful empire is seldom solely based on coercion; there must be some economic dividends for the ruled as well as the rulers, if only to buy the loyalty of indigenous elites, and these dividends need to be sustained for a significant length of time. The trouble with an empire in denial is that it tends to make two mistakes when it chooses to intervene in the affairs of lesser states. The first may be to allocate insufficient resources to the nonmilitary aspects of the project. The second, and the more serious, is to attempt economic and political transformation in an unrealistically short time frame. At the moment, the United States would seem to be making these mistakes in both Iraq and Afghanistan. By insisting—and apparently intending—that they will remain in Iraq only until a democratic government can be established “and not a day longer,” American spokespeople have unintentionally created a further disincentive for local people to cooperate with them. Who in these countries can feel confident that, if he lends support to American initiatives, he will not lay himself open to the charge of collaboration as soon as the Americans go? “If the people of the Balkans realized America would be there,” General John Shalikashvili remarked in the late 1990s, “it would be great. . . . Why is it such a crime to suggest a similar longevity [to the occupations of West Germany and Japan] in Bosnia and Kosovo?” The answer is a political one. Today’s GIs must be brought home, and soon.
These two points help explain why this vastly powerful economy, with its extraordinary military capability, has had such a very disappointing record when it has sought to bring about changes of political regime abroad. The worst failures—in Haiti, Cuba, and Vietnam—were due, above all, to this fatal combination of inadequate resources for non-military purposes and a truncated time horizon. It would be a tragedy if the same process were to repeat itself in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq. But it would not be a surprise.
Isolation (and Its Dangers)
Today’s transnational threats such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and organized crime—to say nothing of disease pandemics, climate change, and water shortages—put a premium on cooperation, not competition, between states. The attractions of unilateralism are undeniable, since demanding allies can be more irksome than invisible foes, but a solo strategy offers little prospect of victory against any of these challenges; the successful prosecution of the “wars” against all of them depends as much on multilateral institutions as does the continuation of international free trade. There is, in any case, nothing more dangerous to a great empire than what the Victorian Conservatives called, with heavy irony, splendid isolation. Then, as now, the great Anglophone empire needs perforce to work in concert with the lesser—but not negligible—powers in order to achieve its objectives. American success after both the Second World War and the Cold War was closely linked to the creation and extension of international institutions that at once limited and yet legitimized American power.
Consider the question of peacekeeping. It has become abundantly clear that the United States is not capable of effective peacekeeping—that is to say, constabulatory duties—in countries as far apart as Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq without some foreign assistance. Peacekeeping is not what American soldiers are trained to do, nor do they appear to have much appetite for it. It also seems reasonable to assume that the American electorate will not tolerate a prolonged exposure of U.S. troops to the unglamorous hazards of “low-intensity conflict”: suicide bombers at checkpoints, snipers down back streets, rocket-propelled grenades fired at patrols and convoys. The obvious solution, short of a substantial expansion of the U.S. Army, is to continue the now well-established practice of sharing the burdens of peacekeeping with other U.N. members—in particular, America’s European allies, with their relatively generous aid budgets and their large conscript armies. If they are not used for peacekeeping, it is hard to see what these soldiers are for in a Europe that has declared perpetual peace within its own borders and is no longer menaced by Russia.
Ultimately, all empires depend in some measure on money. Without hefty investment in enforcing the rule of law, countries like Afghanistan and Iraq will stagnate and perhaps disintegrate. Unless the United States is prepared to radically alter its attitudes toward low-intensity conflict, it will have little option but to cooperate with the more generous Europeans. Unilateralism, like isolation, is not so splendid after all. Indeed, it is seldom a realistic option for an empire.
The danger is that great-power cooperation could simply break down, not because of rivalry between the United States and the European Union but because both lack the will to act beyond their own borders. The internal problems of these huge and complex entities may simply distract them from the problems of failed states and rogue regimes.
The Terminator
The paradox of globalization is that, as the world becomes more integrated, so power becomes more diffuse. Thanks to the dynamism of international capitalism, all but the poorest people in the world have significantly more purchasing power than their grandfathers dared dream of. The means of production were never more productive or—as China and India achieve their belated economic takeoffs—more widely shared. Thanks to the spread of democracy, a majority of people in the world now have markedly more political power than their grandfathers. The democratic means of election were never more widely accepted as the optimal form of government. The means of education too are accessible in most countries to much larger shares of the population than was the case two or three generations ago; more people than ever can harness their own brainpower. All these changes mean that the old monopolies on which power was traditionally based—monopolies on wealth, political office, and knowledge—have in large measure been broken up.
Unfortunately, thanks to the proliferation of modern means of destruction, the power to inflict violence has also become more evenly distributed. Firepower has also been shared out as never before.
Power, let us not forget, is not just about being able to buy whatever you want; that is mere wealth. Power is about being able to get whatever you want at below the market price. It is about being able to get people to perform services or part with goods that they would not ordinarily offer to sell at any price. For empires—those ambitious states that seek to exert power beyond their own borders—power depends on both the resolve of the masters and the consent of the subjects. Yet power diminishes as it is shared. One country with one nuclear bomb is more powerful, if the rest of the world has none, than a country with a thousand nuclear bombs, if everyone else has one.
And this brings us to the final respect in which the United States resembles Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator. In military confrontations, the United States has the capability to inflict amazing and appalling destruction, while sustaining only minimal damage to itself. There is no regime it could not terminate if it wanted to—including North Korea’s. Such a war might leave South Korea in ruins, of course, but the American Terminator would emerge from the rubble more or less unscathed. What the Terminator is not programmed to do, however, is to rebuild. In his wake he leaves only destruction.
During the fall of 2003 President Bush sought to stiffen American morale by declaring that he was “not leaving” Iraq; that America “doesn’t run”; that the Middle East “must be a focus of American policy for decades to come.” If, nevertheless, the United States finally submits to political pressure at home and abroad by withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan before their economic reconstruction has been achieved, the scene will not be wholly unfamiliar. The limits of American power will be laid bare when the global Terminator finally admits, “I won’t be back.”
The Case for Liberal Empire
Unlike most European critics of the United States, I believe the world needs an effective liberal empire and that the United States is the best candidate for the job. Economic globalization is working. The rapid growth of per capita incomes in the world’s two most populous countries, China and India, means that international inequality is finally narrowing. But there are parts of the world where legal and political institutions are in a condition of such collapse or corruption that their inhabitants are effectively cut off from any hope of prosperity. And there are states that, through either weakness or malice, encourage terrorist organizations committed to wrecking a liberal world order. For that reason, economic globalization needs to be underwritten politically, as it was a century ago.
The United States has good reasons to play the role of liberal empire, both from the point of view of its own security and out of straightforward altruism. In many ways too it is uniquely well equipped to play it. Yet for all its colossal economic, military, and cultural power, the United States still looks unlikely to be an effective liberal empire without some profound changes in its economic structure, its social makeup, and its political culture.
Although I have warned against the dangers of imperial denial, I do not mean to say that the existence of an American empire should instead be proclaimed from the rooftop of the Capitol. All I mean is that whatever they choose to call their position in the world—hegemony, primacy, predominance, or leadership—Americans should recognize the functional resemblance between Anglophone power present and past and should try to do a better rather than a worse job of policing an unruly world than their British predecessors. In learning from the history of other empires, Americans will learn not arrogance but precisely that humility which, as a candidate for the presidency, George W. Bush once recommended to his countrymen.
As the Colossus of our time seems to bestride the globe, unrivaled, it must heed the words of Tony Blair in his address to Congress in July 2003, “All predominant power seems for a time invincible, but in fact, it is transient.” The question Americans must ask themselves is just how transient they wish their predominance to be. Although the barbarians have already knocked at the gates—once, spectacularly—imperial decline in this case seems more likely to come, as it came to Gibbon’s Rome, from within.
Adapted from the new book Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire, published by the Penguin Press.
© 2004 by Niall Ferguson. Used by permission of the Penguin Press, a division of the Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Available from the Hoover Press is Never a Matter of Indifference: Sustaining Virtue in a Free Republic, edited by Peter Berkowitz. To order, call 800.935.2882.
The Reluctant Empire
Niall Ferguson
Niall Ferguson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and a professor of international history at Harvard University.
By most conventional measures of power—economic, military, and cultural—there has never been an empire mightier than that of the United States today. Yet why does America have such trouble using this power effectively?
Pinkerton and Schwarzenegger
The United States today is an empire—but a peculiar kind of empire. It is vastly wealthy. It is militarily peerless. It has astonishing cultural reach. In the space of four years Americans have intervened militarily against three rogue states in the Balkans, Central Asia, and the Middle East. American troops are currently patrolling the streets of Kosovo, Kabul, and Kirkuk. Whatever the rationale, each U.S. incursion has led to a change of political regime, military occupation, and an attempt at institutional transformation euphemistically described as nation-building. Yet by comparison with other empires it often struggles to impose its will beyond its shores. Its successes in exporting American institutions to foreign lands have been outnumbered by its failures.
In many respects, this American empire shares the same aspirations and ambitions as the last great Anglophone hegemon. Despite originating in a revolt against British imperialism, the United States inherited many of its begetter’s defining characteristics. Styling itself, in good Whig terminology, an “empire of liberty,” the fledgling Republic embarked on an astonishingly rapid colonization of the central belt of the North American continent. If anything, the independent Americans expropriated indigenous peoples even more ruthlessly than they had as British subjects. However, the differences between the British and American empires became more apparent as the United States sought to extend its influence overseas. Its experiment with overt imperialism after 1898 had distinctly mixed results, ending unhappily in both the Pacific and the Caribbean, with the notable exceptions of Hawaii and Puerto Rico.
Like the fickle Lieutenant Pinkerton in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, American overseas interventions went through three phases: ardent in Act I, absent in Act II, anguished in Act III.
Only when the United States could cast itself in an anti-imperialist role— first against the British Empire during the Second World War and then (more wisely) against the Soviet Union during the Cold War—were Americans able to perform their own crypto-imperial role with self-confidence. Even then, there were clear limits to American stamina. The doctrine of limited war led to a draw in Korea and a defeat in Vietnam. Contradictory commitments undermined U.S. predominance in the Middle East too. It took a succession of humanitarian disasters abroad in the 1990s and terrorist attacks at home in 2001 to rekindle public enthusiasm for a more assertive U.S. foreign policy, though even this had to be cloaked in euphemism, its imperial character repeatedly denied.
The United States has invaded and occupied many countries over the past two centuries. Yet in terms of their economic and political institutions, relatively few of these have evolved into anything remotely resembling miniature Americas. Will things go any better in Kosovo, Afghanistan, or Iraq? And can President Bush live up to his implied threats to deal sooner or later with the other members of the “axis of evil,” Iran and North Korea—to say nothing of Cuba, Libya, and Syria, which were added to the list of rogue states in May 2002, as well as Burma and Zimbabwe, also singled out for presidential opprobrium in November 2003?
At the moment, simply imposing order in Iraq is proving difficult enough, even with British and Polish assistance. After all the bravado of the “three-week war,” the Bush administration quite quickly felt constrained to request assistance from the United Nations for the U.S.-established Coalition Provisional Authority. To have any hope of securing this, the United States had to promise to expedite the transfer of power from the Anglo-American coalition to an elected Iraqi government. American power also looked circumscribed in the Middle East. When George W. Bush visited the region in June 2003, some expressed the hope that the overthrow of Saddam would help break the deadlock in the Middle Eastern peace process, sending a signal to Syria and Iran that their support for terrorist organizations bent on the destruction of Israel would no longer be tolerated, bolstering the moderates among the Palestinian leadership and encouraging a skeptical Israeli government to take the route marked on the American “road map.” By the fall, however, Yasser Arafat had reasserted his control over the Palestinian administration, Ariel Sharon was building a replica of the Berlin Wall around the Palestinians, and for the first time Americans were being targeted by terrorists in the occupied territories. At the same time, Al Qaeda began to attack the one Arab autocracy that the United States had pledged itself to preserve, the house of Saud.
The Bush administration had meanwhile made equally little headway in dealing with what was surely the most dangerous of all the world’s rogue regimes, North Korea. Pyongyang’s development of long-range missiles and its research into nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons—to say nothing of its huge conventional armed forces—plainly posed a huge threat to the stability of East Asia. In December 2002 the North Koreans had repudiated a 1994 agreement shutting down its nuclear reactors and had expelled U.N. monitors; in October 2003 a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman threatened, somewhat opaquely, to “open [North Korea’s] nuclear deterrent to the public as a physical force.” Could the United States do anything about this? Apparently not—despite the fact that the country continued to depend on American aid to feed its half-starved population. Insisting that it be given not just handouts but a full-fledged nonaggression treaty with the United States, this repulsive little dictatorship defied the American hyperpower with impunity.
The United States even hesitated before sending a tiny force to the one basket-case country in Africa for which it can be said to have any historical responsibility, Liberia. In August 2003, three ships, carrying around 4,500 sailors and marines, were sent to Liberia after repeated requests for American intervention. In all, 225 U.S. personnel went ashore, of whom 50 succumbed to malaria. Two months later the Americans were gone.
This halfhearted African adventure seemed to exemplify the limits of American power. But how are we to explain these limits? By most conventional measures of power—economic, military, and cultural—there has never been an empire mightier than the United States today. Its recent difficulties in achieving its foreign policy goals cannot simply be blamed on the Bush administration’s alleged diplomatic ineptitude. Rather, we need fundamentally to rethink what we mean by power, for all too often we confuse that concept with other, quite different things—wealth, weaponry, and a winning way with “soft power.” It is in fact perfectly possible to have a great deal of all these things, yet to have only limited power. Indeed, that is precisely the American predicament.
The election of the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger as governor of California in October 2003 offered an important clue to the nature of American power. In his most recent film, Terminator 3, Schwarzenegger plays a muscle-bound and almost indestructible robot, programmed to protect a young man who is destined to save the world. The film abounds in irony, not all of it intentional. In the climactic scene, the Terminator’s operating system becomes corrupted; instead of rescuing the future savior, he comes close to killing him. As his original program battles this contradictory command, the word abort flashes in bright red letters in his head, all but paralyzing him.
In three distinct ways the Terminator is a perfect, if unwitting, metaphor of American power. Although he has the body of a man half his age, Schwarzenegger himself is in fact just four years short of his 60th birthday. His determination to remain forever Mr. Universe typifies the determination of an entire generation never to grow old, though grow old they must—with significant economic consequences. The Terminator is also a very American hero for the simple reason that there is only one of him. In this he personifies the chronic manpower shortage that currently constrains American nation-building. Above all, the Terminator exemplifies the limits of American power because the word abort starts flashing in his head before he has completed his mission. Outwardly, Arnold Schwarzenegger is without question a colossus; it is hard to imagine the male body looking any bigger or stronger. He is to the human frame what the United States is to the capitalist economy. Yet his character embodies the three key deficits that explain why America only looks immensely strong without actually being immensely strong.
Three Deficits
Three fundamental deficits together explain why the United States has been a less effective empire than its British predecessor. They are its economic deficit, its manpower deficit, and—the most serious of the three—its attention deficit.
Since 1985, as we have seen, the United States has gone from being a net international creditor to being the world’s biggest debtor: its net international liabilities are now equivalent to around a quarter of its gross domestic product. America’s reliance on foreign capital is a balancing act on a very high wire. One plausible and troubling scenario is that foreign expectations could shift, leading to simultaneous pressure on the exchange rate and bond prices, with higher yields threatening American growth via mortgage rates and the housing market.
Equally troubling is America’s manpower deficit. There is undoubtedly something perplexing about the apparent shortage of American combat-effective troops at a time when the American prison population exceeds 2 million—14 times the number of American troops in Iraq. Those who warned last year that the force assigned to occupy Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein was too small have since been vindicated. Remarkably, the U.S. military presence in Iraq as I write is almost identical in size to the British presence in 1920. But in those days the population of the country was much smaller. The British had approximately one soldier for every 20 Iraqis; the United States has one for every 160.
Of the three deficits, however, it is the third that may prove the most difficult to overcome—namely, the attention deficit that seems to be inherent in the American political system and that already threatens to call a premature halt to reconstruction in both Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not intended as a term of abuse. The problem is systemic; it is the way the political process militates against farsighted leadership.
Retired general Anthony Zinni has commented: “We should believe that a stable world is a better place for us. If you had a policy and a forward-leaning engagement strategy, the U.S. would make a much greater difference to the world. It would intervene earlier and pick fights better.” But such a strategy is much easier for a soldier to imagine than for an elected politician. It is not just that first-term American presidents have only two and a half years in office before the issue of securing reelection begins to loom. It is the fact that even sooner, midterm congressional elections can have the effect of emasculating their legislative programs. It is the fact that American politics operates on three tiers simultaneously: the national, the state, and the local. How could Californians be expected to pay full attention to the problems of nation-building in Baghdad in the summer of 2003, when a self-selected mob of amateur politicians was noisily bidding to recall their incumbent governor? It is the fact that the federal executive itself is anything but a homogeneous entity. Interdepartmental rivalry is of course the norm in most human institutions of any size. But there were times in 2003 when the complete absence of coordination among the Defense Department, the State Department, and the Treasury—to say nothing of the Commerce Department, the trade representative, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the host of institutions now notionally concerned with “homeland security”—recalled the worst “polycracy” of Wihelmine Germany. The presidency is of course an elected rather than a hereditary office, but its recent incumbents have sometimes appeared to conduct business in the style of the last German kaiser, allowing policy to be determined by inter-agency competition rather than by forging a sense of collective responsibility. Small wonder so many American interventions abroad have the spasmodic, undiplomatic quality of Wilhelm II’s Weltpolitik. Imperial Germany too practiced what Michael Ignatieff has called imperialism in a hurry. It too was “impatient for quick results.”
Unlike the kaiser’s Germany, however, the United States disclaims any interest in acquiring new “places in the sun.” Its conquests are not merely temporary; they are not even regarded as conquests. The Victorian historian J. R. Seeley famously joked that the British had built their empire “in a fit of absence of mind.” Americans, however, have gone one better; here absent-mindedness has become full-blown myopia. Few people outside the United States today doubt the existence of an American empire; that America is imperialistic is a truism in the eyes of most educated Europeans. But as the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr noted as long ago as 1960, Americans persist in “frantically avoiding recognition of the imperialism [they] in fact exercise.”
Does imperial denial matter? The answer is that it does. Successful empire is seldom solely based on coercion; there must be some economic dividends for the ruled as well as the rulers, if only to buy the loyalty of indigenous elites, and these dividends need to be sustained for a significant length of time. The trouble with an empire in denial is that it tends to make two mistakes when it chooses to intervene in the affairs of lesser states. The first may be to allocate insufficient resources to the nonmilitary aspects of the project. The second, and the more serious, is to attempt economic and political transformation in an unrealistically short time frame. At the moment, the United States would seem to be making these mistakes in both Iraq and Afghanistan. By insisting—and apparently intending—that they will remain in Iraq only until a democratic government can be established “and not a day longer,” American spokespeople have unintentionally created a further disincentive for local people to cooperate with them. Who in these countries can feel confident that, if he lends support to American initiatives, he will not lay himself open to the charge of collaboration as soon as the Americans go? “If the people of the Balkans realized America would be there,” General John Shalikashvili remarked in the late 1990s, “it would be great. . . . Why is it such a crime to suggest a similar longevity [to the occupations of West Germany and Japan] in Bosnia and Kosovo?” The answer is a political one. Today’s GIs must be brought home, and soon.
These two points help explain why this vastly powerful economy, with its extraordinary military capability, has had such a very disappointing record when it has sought to bring about changes of political regime abroad. The worst failures—in Haiti, Cuba, and Vietnam—were due, above all, to this fatal combination of inadequate resources for non-military purposes and a truncated time horizon. It would be a tragedy if the same process were to repeat itself in the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Iraq. But it would not be a surprise.
Isolation (and Its Dangers)
Today’s transnational threats such as terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and organized crime—to say nothing of disease pandemics, climate change, and water shortages—put a premium on cooperation, not competition, between states. The attractions of unilateralism are undeniable, since demanding allies can be more irksome than invisible foes, but a solo strategy offers little prospect of victory against any of these challenges; the successful prosecution of the “wars” against all of them depends as much on multilateral institutions as does the continuation of international free trade. There is, in any case, nothing more dangerous to a great empire than what the Victorian Conservatives called, with heavy irony, splendid isolation. Then, as now, the great Anglophone empire needs perforce to work in concert with the lesser—but not negligible—powers in order to achieve its objectives. American success after both the Second World War and the Cold War was closely linked to the creation and extension of international institutions that at once limited and yet legitimized American power.
Consider the question of peacekeeping. It has become abundantly clear that the United States is not capable of effective peacekeeping—that is to say, constabulatory duties—in countries as far apart as Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq without some foreign assistance. Peacekeeping is not what American soldiers are trained to do, nor do they appear to have much appetite for it. It also seems reasonable to assume that the American electorate will not tolerate a prolonged exposure of U.S. troops to the unglamorous hazards of “low-intensity conflict”: suicide bombers at checkpoints, snipers down back streets, rocket-propelled grenades fired at patrols and convoys. The obvious solution, short of a substantial expansion of the U.S. Army, is to continue the now well-established practice of sharing the burdens of peacekeeping with other U.N. members—in particular, America’s European allies, with their relatively generous aid budgets and their large conscript armies. If they are not used for peacekeeping, it is hard to see what these soldiers are for in a Europe that has declared perpetual peace within its own borders and is no longer menaced by Russia.
Ultimately, all empires depend in some measure on money. Without hefty investment in enforcing the rule of law, countries like Afghanistan and Iraq will stagnate and perhaps disintegrate. Unless the United States is prepared to radically alter its attitudes toward low-intensity conflict, it will have little option but to cooperate with the more generous Europeans. Unilateralism, like isolation, is not so splendid after all. Indeed, it is seldom a realistic option for an empire.
The danger is that great-power cooperation could simply break down, not because of rivalry between the United States and the European Union but because both lack the will to act beyond their own borders. The internal problems of these huge and complex entities may simply distract them from the problems of failed states and rogue regimes.
The Terminator
The paradox of globalization is that, as the world becomes more integrated, so power becomes more diffuse. Thanks to the dynamism of international capitalism, all but the poorest people in the world have significantly more purchasing power than their grandfathers dared dream of. The means of production were never more productive or—as China and India achieve their belated economic takeoffs—more widely shared. Thanks to the spread of democracy, a majority of people in the world now have markedly more political power than their grandfathers. The democratic means of election were never more widely accepted as the optimal form of government. The means of education too are accessible in most countries to much larger shares of the population than was the case two or three generations ago; more people than ever can harness their own brainpower. All these changes mean that the old monopolies on which power was traditionally based—monopolies on wealth, political office, and knowledge—have in large measure been broken up.
Unfortunately, thanks to the proliferation of modern means of destruction, the power to inflict violence has also become more evenly distributed. Firepower has also been shared out as never before.
Power, let us not forget, is not just about being able to buy whatever you want; that is mere wealth. Power is about being able to get whatever you want at below the market price. It is about being able to get people to perform services or part with goods that they would not ordinarily offer to sell at any price. For empires—those ambitious states that seek to exert power beyond their own borders—power depends on both the resolve of the masters and the consent of the subjects. Yet power diminishes as it is shared. One country with one nuclear bomb is more powerful, if the rest of the world has none, than a country with a thousand nuclear bombs, if everyone else has one.
And this brings us to the final respect in which the United States resembles Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator. In military confrontations, the United States has the capability to inflict amazing and appalling destruction, while sustaining only minimal damage to itself. There is no regime it could not terminate if it wanted to—including North Korea’s. Such a war might leave South Korea in ruins, of course, but the American Terminator would emerge from the rubble more or less unscathed. What the Terminator is not programmed to do, however, is to rebuild. In his wake he leaves only destruction.
During the fall of 2003 President Bush sought to stiffen American morale by declaring that he was “not leaving” Iraq; that America “doesn’t run”; that the Middle East “must be a focus of American policy for decades to come.” If, nevertheless, the United States finally submits to political pressure at home and abroad by withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan before their economic reconstruction has been achieved, the scene will not be wholly unfamiliar. The limits of American power will be laid bare when the global Terminator finally admits, “I won’t be back.”
The Case for Liberal Empire
Unlike most European critics of the United States, I believe the world needs an effective liberal empire and that the United States is the best candidate for the job. Economic globalization is working. The rapid growth of per capita incomes in the world’s two most populous countries, China and India, means that international inequality is finally narrowing. But there are parts of the world where legal and political institutions are in a condition of such collapse or corruption that their inhabitants are effectively cut off from any hope of prosperity. And there are states that, through either weakness or malice, encourage terrorist organizations committed to wrecking a liberal world order. For that reason, economic globalization needs to be underwritten politically, as it was a century ago.
The United States has good reasons to play the role of liberal empire, both from the point of view of its own security and out of straightforward altruism. In many ways too it is uniquely well equipped to play it. Yet for all its colossal economic, military, and cultural power, the United States still looks unlikely to be an effective liberal empire without some profound changes in its economic structure, its social makeup, and its political culture.
Although I have warned against the dangers of imperial denial, I do not mean to say that the existence of an American empire should instead be proclaimed from the rooftop of the Capitol. All I mean is that whatever they choose to call their position in the world—hegemony, primacy, predominance, or leadership—Americans should recognize the functional resemblance between Anglophone power present and past and should try to do a better rather than a worse job of policing an unruly world than their British predecessors. In learning from the history of other empires, Americans will learn not arrogance but precisely that humility which, as a candidate for the presidency, George W. Bush once recommended to his countrymen.
As the Colossus of our time seems to bestride the globe, unrivaled, it must heed the words of Tony Blair in his address to Congress in July 2003, “All predominant power seems for a time invincible, but in fact, it is transient.” The question Americans must ask themselves is just how transient they wish their predominance to be. Although the barbarians have already knocked at the gates—once, spectacularly—imperial decline in this case seems more likely to come, as it came to Gibbon’s Rome, from within.
Adapted from the new book Colossus: The Price of America’s Empire, published by the Penguin Press.
© 2004 by Niall Ferguson. Used by permission of the Penguin Press, a division of the Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Available from the Hoover Press is Never a Matter of Indifference: Sustaining Virtue in a Free Republic, edited by Peter Berkowitz. To order, call 800.935.2882.
Clinton Got Quick Care, Unlike Canadian Heart Patients
September 8, 2004
Clinton Got Quick Care, Unlike Canadian Heart Patients
by Michael Cannon
Michael F. Cannon is director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute and author of the study, "Mrs. Clinton Has Entered the Race: The 2004 Democratic Presidential Candidates' Proposals to Reform Health Insurance."
The speed with which President Clinton received quadruple bypass surgery provides an important lesson in health care reform that voters should keep in mind this election season.
Last Thursday, the former president went to Northern Westchester Hospital, near his home in Chappaqua, New York, complaining of chest pain and shortness of breath. According to the New York Times, "initial tests showed nothing extraordinary," but doctors asked the former president to return the next morning.
Friday morning, cardiologists performed an angiogram. One reported seeing "multi-vessel coronary artery disease, normal heart function and no heart attack." However, the extent of the blockage in his coronary arteries was severe enough that doctors sent him to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan.
Clinton's wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), said that when doctors at Columbia-Presbyterian saw the extent of the blockage, "[t]hey did advise him to have bypass surgery, and to do it as soon as he could." Columbia-Presbyterian admitted the former president Friday and performed a successful quadruple bypass Monday.
The timeframe is important.
President and Senator Clinton's greatest health care legacy is their attempt to pass the Health Security Act in 1993 and 1994. At the time, it was said that 39 million Americans lacked health insurance. President Clinton made "health coverage that cannot be taken away" his administration's top priority, and planned to make good on that promise by turning America's health care system over to the federal government.
Under the Clinton Health Security Act, the federal government would have compelled all Americans to buy health coverage, dictated what type of coverage they would receive and where they would purchase it, set prices for coverage and medical services, and encouraged states to form their own single-payer health care systems.
The power of individuals to make countless choices about their health care would have been handed over to government, and the few remaining market mechanisms that contain costs and promote quality would have been lost.
The Economist wrote of the Clinton health plan, "Not since Franklin Roosevelt's War Production Board has it been suggested that so large a part of the American economy should suddenly be brought under government control."
Critics warned that socialized medicine would have the same effect in America as it has in other countries.
When government makes medical care "free," people demand medical care without regard to cost. Governments can't keep up with the excess demand and therefore must find some way of allocating care amid shortage conditions. Most choose to make patients wait.
According to Nadeem Esmail and Michael Walker of Canada's Fraser Institute, the median wait for an appointment with a cardiologist in Canada's single-payer health care system was 3.4 weeks in 2003. The wait for urgent bypass surgery was another 2.1 weeks on top of that, while the wait for elective bypass surgery was an additional 10.7 weeks. Canadian doctors reported a "reasonable" wait would be 0.9 and 6.1 weeks, respectively. Great Britain and New Zealand have even longer waiting times for bypass surgery.
Esmail and Walker cite studies confirming that longer waits for heart surgery result in a higher risk of heart attack and death.
In fact, they report American hospitals act as a "safety valve" for Canadian patients who face life-threatening shortages: "The government of British Columbia contracted Washington State hospitals to perform some 200 operations in 1989 following public dismay over the 6-month waiting list for cardiac bypass surgery in the province... A California heart-surgery centre has even advertised its services in a Vancouver newspaper."
Had America had followed his lead ten years ago, President Clinton might not have been able to get his diagnosis and surgery appointment so quickly.
Instead of waiting overnight for an appointment with a cardiologist, he might have had to wait the 3.4 weeks Canadians do.
Instead of waiting three days for quadruple bypass surgery, he might have had to wait over two weeks.
Instead of receiving care from what Senator Clinton called "one of the great hospitals in the world," President Clinton might be looking for a safety valve.
Since the Clinton health plan was defeated, untold patients have been aided because America's health care system, whatever its faults, was not subjected to the shortages and waiting lines that plague other nations.
But the future is less certain. Democratic presidential candidate Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) is aggressively promoting his $1 trillion health care plan that borrows heavily from the Clinton health plan. Senator Kerry too seems to believe that having government issue a paper guarantee of "coverage" is the same thing as having access to medical care.
Truth be told, presidents and senators will never have a hard time getting medical treatment. Esmail and Walker report "a profusion of recent research reveals that cardiovascular surgery queues are routinely jumped by the famous and politically-connected." It's the rest who have to wait. Despite the Canadian government's egalitarian rhetoric, "low-income Canadians have less access to specialists, particularly cardiovascular ones, and have lower cardiovascular and cancer survival rates than their higher-income neighbours."
I join all Americans of good will in wishing President Clinton a speedy recovery. And I hope they will join me in wishing Senator Kerry's health plan a quick, painless death.
1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington D.C. 20001-5403
Phone (202) 842-0200
Fax (202) 842-3490
All Rights Reserved
© 2004 Cato Institute
Clinton Got Quick Care, Unlike Canadian Heart Patients
by Michael Cannon
Michael F. Cannon is director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute and author of the study, "Mrs. Clinton Has Entered the Race: The 2004 Democratic Presidential Candidates' Proposals to Reform Health Insurance."
The speed with which President Clinton received quadruple bypass surgery provides an important lesson in health care reform that voters should keep in mind this election season.
Last Thursday, the former president went to Northern Westchester Hospital, near his home in Chappaqua, New York, complaining of chest pain and shortness of breath. According to the New York Times, "initial tests showed nothing extraordinary," but doctors asked the former president to return the next morning.
Friday morning, cardiologists performed an angiogram. One reported seeing "multi-vessel coronary artery disease, normal heart function and no heart attack." However, the extent of the blockage in his coronary arteries was severe enough that doctors sent him to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan.
Clinton's wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY), said that when doctors at Columbia-Presbyterian saw the extent of the blockage, "[t]hey did advise him to have bypass surgery, and to do it as soon as he could." Columbia-Presbyterian admitted the former president Friday and performed a successful quadruple bypass Monday.
The timeframe is important.
President and Senator Clinton's greatest health care legacy is their attempt to pass the Health Security Act in 1993 and 1994. At the time, it was said that 39 million Americans lacked health insurance. President Clinton made "health coverage that cannot be taken away" his administration's top priority, and planned to make good on that promise by turning America's health care system over to the federal government.
Under the Clinton Health Security Act, the federal government would have compelled all Americans to buy health coverage, dictated what type of coverage they would receive and where they would purchase it, set prices for coverage and medical services, and encouraged states to form their own single-payer health care systems.
The power of individuals to make countless choices about their health care would have been handed over to government, and the few remaining market mechanisms that contain costs and promote quality would have been lost.
The Economist wrote of the Clinton health plan, "Not since Franklin Roosevelt's War Production Board has it been suggested that so large a part of the American economy should suddenly be brought under government control."
Critics warned that socialized medicine would have the same effect in America as it has in other countries.
When government makes medical care "free," people demand medical care without regard to cost. Governments can't keep up with the excess demand and therefore must find some way of allocating care amid shortage conditions. Most choose to make patients wait.
According to Nadeem Esmail and Michael Walker of Canada's Fraser Institute, the median wait for an appointment with a cardiologist in Canada's single-payer health care system was 3.4 weeks in 2003. The wait for urgent bypass surgery was another 2.1 weeks on top of that, while the wait for elective bypass surgery was an additional 10.7 weeks. Canadian doctors reported a "reasonable" wait would be 0.9 and 6.1 weeks, respectively. Great Britain and New Zealand have even longer waiting times for bypass surgery.
Esmail and Walker cite studies confirming that longer waits for heart surgery result in a higher risk of heart attack and death.
In fact, they report American hospitals act as a "safety valve" for Canadian patients who face life-threatening shortages: "The government of British Columbia contracted Washington State hospitals to perform some 200 operations in 1989 following public dismay over the 6-month waiting list for cardiac bypass surgery in the province... A California heart-surgery centre has even advertised its services in a Vancouver newspaper."
Had America had followed his lead ten years ago, President Clinton might not have been able to get his diagnosis and surgery appointment so quickly.
Instead of waiting overnight for an appointment with a cardiologist, he might have had to wait the 3.4 weeks Canadians do.
Instead of waiting three days for quadruple bypass surgery, he might have had to wait over two weeks.
Instead of receiving care from what Senator Clinton called "one of the great hospitals in the world," President Clinton might be looking for a safety valve.
Since the Clinton health plan was defeated, untold patients have been aided because America's health care system, whatever its faults, was not subjected to the shortages and waiting lines that plague other nations.
But the future is less certain. Democratic presidential candidate Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) is aggressively promoting his $1 trillion health care plan that borrows heavily from the Clinton health plan. Senator Kerry too seems to believe that having government issue a paper guarantee of "coverage" is the same thing as having access to medical care.
Truth be told, presidents and senators will never have a hard time getting medical treatment. Esmail and Walker report "a profusion of recent research reveals that cardiovascular surgery queues are routinely jumped by the famous and politically-connected." It's the rest who have to wait. Despite the Canadian government's egalitarian rhetoric, "low-income Canadians have less access to specialists, particularly cardiovascular ones, and have lower cardiovascular and cancer survival rates than their higher-income neighbours."
I join all Americans of good will in wishing President Clinton a speedy recovery. And I hope they will join me in wishing Senator Kerry's health plan a quick, painless death.
1000 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington D.C. 20001-5403
Phone (202) 842-0200
Fax (202) 842-3490
All Rights Reserved
© 2004 Cato Institute
Panel ¿Qué es la globalización? Consecuencias para la Argentina y la región
Panel ¿Qué es la globalización? Consecuencias para la Argentina y la región
Jorge Avila
No soy un experto en el tema, por eso me voy a limitar a sistematizar algunos hechos y reflexiones sobre la naturaleza y las consecuencias de la globalización que me parecen importantes para comprender el fenómeno.[1] Primero, voy a anticiparles las conclusiones para que ustedes tengan una hoja de ruta de mi exposición, y luego me referiré a la primera globalización, a su interrupción, a la segunda globalización, a las consecuencias sociales del fenómeno y a la reacción de nuestro país frente a ella.
1. Anticipo de las conclusiones
· La globalización no es un fenómeno exclusivo de nuestro tiempo. La primera de ellas ocurrió a partir de 1850, sufrió una brusca interrupción entre la Primera Guerra Mundial y la Segunda Guerra Mundial, se aceleró en los últimos 50 años y todavía más en los últimos 10.
· La causa es una aguda reducción de los costos de transporte y de comunicación y, por tanto, no es reversible en el largo plazo. No es un proceso centralizado, conducido por el FMI. Es un proceso descentralizado, conducido por el mercado, que simplemente ocurre, nos guste o no.[2]
· Viene acompañada por una estandarización monetaria, de contratos y de pesos y medidas.[3]
Agudiza la competencia en los mercados de bienes, servicios y capitales, y arroja ganadores y perdedores en el corto plazo.[4]
Crea grandes tensiones políticas. Disminuye la pobreza, pero hace menos equitativa la distribución del ingreso nacional y cuestiona el papel de las naciones.
2. Primera globalización
Hasta 1860 los barcos sólo transportaban mercadería muy cara, como lo hacen los aviones en la actualidad. El barco de vapor fue la principal innovación tecnológica del transporte marítimo en el siglo XIX. La apertura de los canales de Suez y de Panamá también resultó crucial. La refrigeración tuvo fuertes implicancias para el comercio internacional. En 1876, el barco Le Frigorifique llevó carne congelada de Argentina a Francia por primera vez. Las otras dos grandes innovaciones tecnológicas del siglo XIX fueron el ferrocarril y el telégrafo.
La revolución en el transporte y las comunicaciones ejerció un fuerte impacto sobre los mercados de mercaderías, pero también sobre los de capitales y trabajo. Sesenta millones de europeos emigraron en los 100 años después de 1820. Los movimientos internacionales de capitales a fines del siglo XIX fueron los más grandes registrados hasta entonces y desde entonces.
La internacionalización fue la regla. Se hacían conferencias para estandarizar casi todo, desde pesos y medidas hasta el correo. La adopción del patrón oro fue la expresión de este proceso en el plano monetario.
John Maynard Keynes, en “Las Consecuencias Económicas de la Paz”, un libro publicado en 1919, hizo una magnífica descripción de la Europa globalizada anterior a la Primera Guerra Mundial. Voy a leerles dos párrafos:
“Mientras desayunaba en su cama, el habitante de Londres podía ordenar por teléfono los productos más variados de toda la Tierra, en las cantidades que fueran necesarias y esperar su pronta entrega en la puerta de su casa. (Describe el funcionamiento de un sistema de libre comercio internacional.) Esa persona también podía invertir por teléfono parte de su riqueza en la explotación de recursos naturales y en otras empresas en cualquier rincón del mundo, y así compartir el fruto de esas inversiones. (Explica la gran movilidad inter-nacional de capitales existente y la ausencia de riesgos de expropiación o devaluación.) Y también podía subirse a barcos y trenes baratos y confortables para viajar a cualquier país sin pasaporte u otra formalidad; podía mandar a un empleado al banco a comprar oro amonedado y luego embarcarse a países extranjeros sin conocer sus religiones, lenguas o costumbres, y considerarse muy mal tratado ante la más mínima interferencia.” (Se refiere al espíritu cosmopolita de entonces.)
“Pero lo más importante era que aquella persona creía que ese estado de cosas era algo normal, cierto y permanente; creía que el cambio sólo era posible para mejor, y que cualquier desvío de lo previsto era aberrante, escandaloso y evitable. El militarismo y el imperialismo, las rivalidades raciales y culturales, los monopolios, las restricciones (como pasaportes, cuotas de comercio o controles de cambios) y la exclusión, que después asumirían el papel de la serpiente en este paraíso, eran poco más que curiosidades de los diarios, y parecían no ejercer ninguna influencia en el curso ordinario de la vida social y económica, cuya internacionalización era prácticamente completa.”
3. Interrupción de la primera globalización y emergencia de la segunda
Aquel mundo próspero y cosmopolita fue destruido por dos hechos y por un cambio ideológico: la Primera Guerra Mundial y la Gran Depresión, y el repudio de la doctrina liberal que fue una reacción a tales sucesos. La Primera Guerra Mundial creó una profunda desilusión con respecto al sistema democrático y al internacionalismo. La década de 1920 trajo el proteccionismo, la hiperinflación y las devaluaciones. Y la Gran Depresión destruyó la confianza en el capitalismo y la competencia, y puso al Estado en el centro de la escena económica.
El cambio del clima ideológico se advierte en los ensayos de los principales intelectuales argentinos de la década de 1910. José Ingenieros, en Sociología, Leopoldo Lugones, en Literatura, y Alejandro Bunge, en Economía, giraron del liberalismo político y económico al autoritarismo político y la autarquía económica.
La reapertura del comercio fue rápida. EEUU revirtió el proteccionismo extremo de la Ley de Comercio Recíproco en 1934 y sentó las bases de la liberalización del comercio multilateral de productos industriales. Apenas terminó la guerra, este país ejerció una fuerte presión a favor del multilateralismo. En los últimos 50 años ha habido un gran avance en esta materia. Incluso gigantes como China e India han empezado a integrarse al comercio mundial. Aunque en el comercio agrícola se ha avanzado poco y nada en el último medio siglo, y los servicios recién están en los comienzos de una apertura real.
4. Impacto económico y social de la globalización; consecuencias políticas
La globalización tiene una enorme incidencia sobre los ingresos de las personas menos calificadas. En EEUU este impacto ya tuvo lugar y ahora se está revirtiendo. En Europa y en Japón todavía lo están sufriendo. Con respecto a la experiencia de EEUU surgen tres conclusiones: a) la pobreza es la más baja en 20 años; b) el ingreso real promedio de las familias es el más alto en 30 años; c) la participación en el ingreso nacional del 20% de la población más pobre es la más baja de los últimos 30 años, en tanto que la participación del 5% y el 20% más rico es la más alta. Todo el mundo se ha enriquecido, pero los ricos se han enriquecido mucho más que los pobres. En EEUU piensan que esta puede ser la semilla de una reacción violenta.
Dornbusch, un gran economista internacional recientemente fallecido, creía que tal vez la equidad sea un lujo demasiado caro; que tal vez sea mejor concentrarse en la reducción de la pobreza.
5. Conclusiones para la Argentina
El impacto de la ruptura de la primera globalización fue importante aunque transitorio en Europa, en EEUU y en los restantes países anglosajones. Fue tremendo y permanente en la Argentina. Nuestra declinación en el siglo XX no se debió a una pobre educación pública o a una gran desigualdad en la distribución del ingreso. Fue el producto de una ideología que nos condujo a repudiar en bloque a las instituciones republicanas, al capitalismo y a EEUU.
Tengamos presente que la globalización es un hecho tecnológico irreversible y que lo importante es sacar el máximo provecho de ella. Para lo cual es condición necesaria una moneda estable, crédito e inversión externa y más comercio con el resto del mundo. Moneda, crédito y comercio exterior, justo las tres instituciones económicas básicas que la Argentina no tiene.
Fundaciones Atlas, Naumann y Cívico Republicana e Interbloque Federal
Congreso de la Nación, 15 de septiembre de 2004
[1] Por un tratamiento más extenso del tema, consulte J. C. De Pablo, R. Dornbusch y J. Nogués (2001): La Globalización, la Argentina y Cada Uno de Nosotros, Consejo Empresario Argentino, y K. O’Rourke y J. Williamson (1999): Globalization and History, MIT Press.
[2] Felipe González dijo que estar a favor o en contra de la globalización tiene tanto sentido como estar a favor o en contra del descubrimiento de América. Por otra parte, según Vicente Vázquez Presedo, a fines del siglo XIX los aranceles casi no cayeron en Argentina, pero la reducción del costo de transporte fue tan grande que los precios de las manufacturas cayeron mucho, tanto como si hubiera habido una importante liberalización comercial.
[3] Para reducir costos de transacción.
[4] Según la visión de Danny Rodrick, en un mundo globalizado la tasa de interés se fija en Nueva York, el salario en Shanghai y el impuesto a las ganancias en las islas Cayman.
Jorge Avila
No soy un experto en el tema, por eso me voy a limitar a sistematizar algunos hechos y reflexiones sobre la naturaleza y las consecuencias de la globalización que me parecen importantes para comprender el fenómeno.[1] Primero, voy a anticiparles las conclusiones para que ustedes tengan una hoja de ruta de mi exposición, y luego me referiré a la primera globalización, a su interrupción, a la segunda globalización, a las consecuencias sociales del fenómeno y a la reacción de nuestro país frente a ella.
1. Anticipo de las conclusiones
· La globalización no es un fenómeno exclusivo de nuestro tiempo. La primera de ellas ocurrió a partir de 1850, sufrió una brusca interrupción entre la Primera Guerra Mundial y la Segunda Guerra Mundial, se aceleró en los últimos 50 años y todavía más en los últimos 10.
· La causa es una aguda reducción de los costos de transporte y de comunicación y, por tanto, no es reversible en el largo plazo. No es un proceso centralizado, conducido por el FMI. Es un proceso descentralizado, conducido por el mercado, que simplemente ocurre, nos guste o no.[2]
· Viene acompañada por una estandarización monetaria, de contratos y de pesos y medidas.[3]
Agudiza la competencia en los mercados de bienes, servicios y capitales, y arroja ganadores y perdedores en el corto plazo.[4]
Crea grandes tensiones políticas. Disminuye la pobreza, pero hace menos equitativa la distribución del ingreso nacional y cuestiona el papel de las naciones.
2. Primera globalización
Hasta 1860 los barcos sólo transportaban mercadería muy cara, como lo hacen los aviones en la actualidad. El barco de vapor fue la principal innovación tecnológica del transporte marítimo en el siglo XIX. La apertura de los canales de Suez y de Panamá también resultó crucial. La refrigeración tuvo fuertes implicancias para el comercio internacional. En 1876, el barco Le Frigorifique llevó carne congelada de Argentina a Francia por primera vez. Las otras dos grandes innovaciones tecnológicas del siglo XIX fueron el ferrocarril y el telégrafo.
La revolución en el transporte y las comunicaciones ejerció un fuerte impacto sobre los mercados de mercaderías, pero también sobre los de capitales y trabajo. Sesenta millones de europeos emigraron en los 100 años después de 1820. Los movimientos internacionales de capitales a fines del siglo XIX fueron los más grandes registrados hasta entonces y desde entonces.
La internacionalización fue la regla. Se hacían conferencias para estandarizar casi todo, desde pesos y medidas hasta el correo. La adopción del patrón oro fue la expresión de este proceso en el plano monetario.
John Maynard Keynes, en “Las Consecuencias Económicas de la Paz”, un libro publicado en 1919, hizo una magnífica descripción de la Europa globalizada anterior a la Primera Guerra Mundial. Voy a leerles dos párrafos:
“Mientras desayunaba en su cama, el habitante de Londres podía ordenar por teléfono los productos más variados de toda la Tierra, en las cantidades que fueran necesarias y esperar su pronta entrega en la puerta de su casa. (Describe el funcionamiento de un sistema de libre comercio internacional.) Esa persona también podía invertir por teléfono parte de su riqueza en la explotación de recursos naturales y en otras empresas en cualquier rincón del mundo, y así compartir el fruto de esas inversiones. (Explica la gran movilidad inter-nacional de capitales existente y la ausencia de riesgos de expropiación o devaluación.) Y también podía subirse a barcos y trenes baratos y confortables para viajar a cualquier país sin pasaporte u otra formalidad; podía mandar a un empleado al banco a comprar oro amonedado y luego embarcarse a países extranjeros sin conocer sus religiones, lenguas o costumbres, y considerarse muy mal tratado ante la más mínima interferencia.” (Se refiere al espíritu cosmopolita de entonces.)
“Pero lo más importante era que aquella persona creía que ese estado de cosas era algo normal, cierto y permanente; creía que el cambio sólo era posible para mejor, y que cualquier desvío de lo previsto era aberrante, escandaloso y evitable. El militarismo y el imperialismo, las rivalidades raciales y culturales, los monopolios, las restricciones (como pasaportes, cuotas de comercio o controles de cambios) y la exclusión, que después asumirían el papel de la serpiente en este paraíso, eran poco más que curiosidades de los diarios, y parecían no ejercer ninguna influencia en el curso ordinario de la vida social y económica, cuya internacionalización era prácticamente completa.”
3. Interrupción de la primera globalización y emergencia de la segunda
Aquel mundo próspero y cosmopolita fue destruido por dos hechos y por un cambio ideológico: la Primera Guerra Mundial y la Gran Depresión, y el repudio de la doctrina liberal que fue una reacción a tales sucesos. La Primera Guerra Mundial creó una profunda desilusión con respecto al sistema democrático y al internacionalismo. La década de 1920 trajo el proteccionismo, la hiperinflación y las devaluaciones. Y la Gran Depresión destruyó la confianza en el capitalismo y la competencia, y puso al Estado en el centro de la escena económica.
El cambio del clima ideológico se advierte en los ensayos de los principales intelectuales argentinos de la década de 1910. José Ingenieros, en Sociología, Leopoldo Lugones, en Literatura, y Alejandro Bunge, en Economía, giraron del liberalismo político y económico al autoritarismo político y la autarquía económica.
La reapertura del comercio fue rápida. EEUU revirtió el proteccionismo extremo de la Ley de Comercio Recíproco en 1934 y sentó las bases de la liberalización del comercio multilateral de productos industriales. Apenas terminó la guerra, este país ejerció una fuerte presión a favor del multilateralismo. En los últimos 50 años ha habido un gran avance en esta materia. Incluso gigantes como China e India han empezado a integrarse al comercio mundial. Aunque en el comercio agrícola se ha avanzado poco y nada en el último medio siglo, y los servicios recién están en los comienzos de una apertura real.
4. Impacto económico y social de la globalización; consecuencias políticas
La globalización tiene una enorme incidencia sobre los ingresos de las personas menos calificadas. En EEUU este impacto ya tuvo lugar y ahora se está revirtiendo. En Europa y en Japón todavía lo están sufriendo. Con respecto a la experiencia de EEUU surgen tres conclusiones: a) la pobreza es la más baja en 20 años; b) el ingreso real promedio de las familias es el más alto en 30 años; c) la participación en el ingreso nacional del 20% de la población más pobre es la más baja de los últimos 30 años, en tanto que la participación del 5% y el 20% más rico es la más alta. Todo el mundo se ha enriquecido, pero los ricos se han enriquecido mucho más que los pobres. En EEUU piensan que esta puede ser la semilla de una reacción violenta.
Dornbusch, un gran economista internacional recientemente fallecido, creía que tal vez la equidad sea un lujo demasiado caro; que tal vez sea mejor concentrarse en la reducción de la pobreza.
5. Conclusiones para la Argentina
El impacto de la ruptura de la primera globalización fue importante aunque transitorio en Europa, en EEUU y en los restantes países anglosajones. Fue tremendo y permanente en la Argentina. Nuestra declinación en el siglo XX no se debió a una pobre educación pública o a una gran desigualdad en la distribución del ingreso. Fue el producto de una ideología que nos condujo a repudiar en bloque a las instituciones republicanas, al capitalismo y a EEUU.
Tengamos presente que la globalización es un hecho tecnológico irreversible y que lo importante es sacar el máximo provecho de ella. Para lo cual es condición necesaria una moneda estable, crédito e inversión externa y más comercio con el resto del mundo. Moneda, crédito y comercio exterior, justo las tres instituciones económicas básicas que la Argentina no tiene.
Fundaciones Atlas, Naumann y Cívico Republicana e Interbloque Federal
Congreso de la Nación, 15 de septiembre de 2004
[1] Por un tratamiento más extenso del tema, consulte J. C. De Pablo, R. Dornbusch y J. Nogués (2001): La Globalización, la Argentina y Cada Uno de Nosotros, Consejo Empresario Argentino, y K. O’Rourke y J. Williamson (1999): Globalization and History, MIT Press.
[2] Felipe González dijo que estar a favor o en contra de la globalización tiene tanto sentido como estar a favor o en contra del descubrimiento de América. Por otra parte, según Vicente Vázquez Presedo, a fines del siglo XIX los aranceles casi no cayeron en Argentina, pero la reducción del costo de transporte fue tan grande que los precios de las manufacturas cayeron mucho, tanto como si hubiera habido una importante liberalización comercial.
[3] Para reducir costos de transacción.
[4] Según la visión de Danny Rodrick, en un mundo globalizado la tasa de interés se fija en Nueva York, el salario en Shanghai y el impuesto a las ganancias en las islas Cayman.
A través del espejo...y lo que Alicia encontró del otro lado…
A través del espejo...y lo que Alicia encontró del otro lado…
-¿Qué no lo puedes creer? --repitió la Reina con mucha pena; - Prueba otra vez: respira hondo y cierra los ojos. Alicia rió de buena gana: --No vale la pena intentarlo--dijo. Nadie puede creer cosas que son imposibles.-Me parece evidente que no tienes mucha práctica --replicó la Reina. --Cuando yo tenía tu edad, siempre solía hacerlo durante media hora cada día. ¡Cómo que a veces llegué hasta creer en seis cosas imposibles antes del desayuno! (…)
Lewis Carroll
No hace mucho encontrábamos el país en una suerte de limbo, sin saber qué depararía su futuro y sin siquiera poder definir en qué situación nos encontraba el presente. Maravillosamente, ese país dejó el limbo, y a juzgar por las crónicas del día fue a dar al paraíso. Henos pues, allí… Todo aquello que podía desvelar a la sociedad, de pronto se esfuma. Es bueno amanecer un día y que de pronto todo lo vivido desemboque como por arte de magia en un final feliz. Si acaso fuéramos Alicia y estuviéramos viviendo un cuento podría ser posible que esto suceda así. Pero no es este, el país de las maravillas, o sí… todo depende del cristal con que se mire o del narrador que nos cuenta qué sucede como si no fuésemos nosotros los protagonistas…
- Maravilloso es que Néstor Kirchner decida comenzar la gestión un año y medio después de su asunción y que nada se altere en consecuencia.
- Maravilloso es escuchar que comienza la etapa de la consolidación de algo que nunca existió.
- Maravilloso es que se presenten de golpe cuatro objetivos nuevos prioritarios para la agenda presidencial y que ninguno de ellos contemple lo que la ciudadanía considera básico: Seguridad. Y más aún, maravilloso es que los medios aplaudan y celebren como si estuviesen haciéndonos un favor.
- Maravilloso es que recuerden el día del Maestro pero no a Domingo Sarmiento y más maravilloso todavía es que el presidente “honre” a educadores regalándoles 70 pesos. No. No era el día de los inocentes…
- Maravilloso es que de la noche a la mañana aparezcan los prófugos claves de la década del 90’ máxime si están dispuestos a declarar contra todo lo actuado en esa época.
- Maravilloso es que después de la tercera marcha de Blumberg los secuestros desaparezcan y que todo intento por privar de la libertad a una persona es inmediatamente desbaratado por la policía. (¿La misma del “gatillo fácil” a la que no importaba si se le tomaba una comisaría…?)
- Maravilloso es que en Santiago del estero todo recobre la paz y los Juárez, estén felices y contentos sueltos sin causas y sin por qué.
- Maravilloso es que un juez como Galeano renuncie y el Presidente sin titubeos se lo acepte.
- Maravilloso es que el FMI dejara de ser el malo de la película y se lograse un superávit acorde a lo que Rodrigo Rato pidiera en su paso por la Argentina.
- Maravilloso es que el paradero de Fernando Esteche y Quebracho ya a nadie le interese demasiado. Cumplieron con su papel, pueden ausentarse sin que los medios o el gobierno pregunten hacia adónde o con quién…
- Maravilloso es que enmudezcan los Fernández y que no haya más voces explicando que en el gobierno no se dijo lo que se escuchó decir…
- Maravilloso es que el piquete nuestro de cada día se abra como el Mar Muerto para que el pueblo prometido pueda pasar tras de sí. Hoy sólo ocuparon la mitad de los puentes.
- Maravilloso es prime en las urgencias del Gabinete la demanda de los acreedores, aquellos que antes fueran aves de rapiña y buitres porque sí…
- Maravilloso es que la economía crezca y que se filmen a tiempo los actos de corte de cinta.
- Maravilloso es que el desempleo crezca pero ese dato no altere el ánimo de la ciudadanía ni se contradiga con el crecimiento, el desarrollo y toda esta fiesta de soluciones a granel.
- Maravilloso es que Cristina Fernández de Kirchner desembarque en el conurbano y no se escuchen los rugidos de los Duhalde ni asome Felipe Solá, o griten los intendentes o lo expliquen los Fernández…
- Maravilloso es que de pronto transversalidad y justicialismo se unan en matrimonio sin alterar las bases del movimiento que fue y ya no es… ¿O sigue siendo y nadie dice dónde y de la mano de quién se fue?
- Maravilloso es que los fondos de Santa Cruz sigan detrás de la frontera protegidos contra la propia dirigencia…
- Maravilloso es que de pronto sean protagonistas de este cuento y de este país de maravillas sin Alicia un Aldo Ducler. Eso garantiza que también puede resurgir Al Kazar o resucitar Alfredo Yabrán. Todo es posible en Argentina…
- Maravilloso es que los analistas dominicales de pronto sólo atiendan a Brasil como si no tuviésemos más geografía de este lado de la cartografía.
- Maravilloso es que el presidente se reconcilie con todos los sectores sin que queden grietas ni rencores.
- Maravilloso es que el sindicalismo declame a cuatro vientos su unidad aún cuando la trilogía no logró comenzar.
- Maravilloso es el aumento del salario mínimo vital y móvil con acuerdo de todos los sectores aunque nadie explique de dónde saldrán los fondos…
- Maravilloso es que la Corte Suprema de pronto se erija como la gran administradora de justicia en la Argentina por un fallo a favor de una jubilación.
- Maravillosa es que la diferencia entre Lavagna y De Vido se plantee sólo en las últimas tres líneas de un matutino porteño cuando en medio, están en juego los servicios públicos, ni más ni menos…
Y maravilloso es que pese a lo que hemos vivido y alas experiencias en carne propia no haya un ápice de conciencia y de memoria que nos diga que algo huele mal cuando todo cambia de la noche a la mañana y no sea Argentina el país de las maravillas… Ni usted ni yo, Alicia. Maravillosamente, ¿se nos ha de explicar algún día con qué se logró todo esto? ¿Y quién ha de pagar la fiesta kirchnerista?
Por GABRIELA POUSA(*) Analista Política. Lic. en Comunicación Social (Universidad del Salvador) Master en Economía y Ciencias Políticas (ESEADE) Estudios en Sociología del Poder (Oxford)
Queda prohibida su reproducción total o parcial sin mención de la fuente.
Gentileza: Gabriela Pousa
Fuente: Agencia NOTIAR
-¿Qué no lo puedes creer? --repitió la Reina con mucha pena; - Prueba otra vez: respira hondo y cierra los ojos. Alicia rió de buena gana: --No vale la pena intentarlo--dijo. Nadie puede creer cosas que son imposibles.-Me parece evidente que no tienes mucha práctica --replicó la Reina. --Cuando yo tenía tu edad, siempre solía hacerlo durante media hora cada día. ¡Cómo que a veces llegué hasta creer en seis cosas imposibles antes del desayuno! (…)
Lewis Carroll
No hace mucho encontrábamos el país en una suerte de limbo, sin saber qué depararía su futuro y sin siquiera poder definir en qué situación nos encontraba el presente. Maravillosamente, ese país dejó el limbo, y a juzgar por las crónicas del día fue a dar al paraíso. Henos pues, allí… Todo aquello que podía desvelar a la sociedad, de pronto se esfuma. Es bueno amanecer un día y que de pronto todo lo vivido desemboque como por arte de magia en un final feliz. Si acaso fuéramos Alicia y estuviéramos viviendo un cuento podría ser posible que esto suceda así. Pero no es este, el país de las maravillas, o sí… todo depende del cristal con que se mire o del narrador que nos cuenta qué sucede como si no fuésemos nosotros los protagonistas…
- Maravilloso es que Néstor Kirchner decida comenzar la gestión un año y medio después de su asunción y que nada se altere en consecuencia.
- Maravilloso es escuchar que comienza la etapa de la consolidación de algo que nunca existió.
- Maravilloso es que se presenten de golpe cuatro objetivos nuevos prioritarios para la agenda presidencial y que ninguno de ellos contemple lo que la ciudadanía considera básico: Seguridad. Y más aún, maravilloso es que los medios aplaudan y celebren como si estuviesen haciéndonos un favor.
- Maravilloso es que recuerden el día del Maestro pero no a Domingo Sarmiento y más maravilloso todavía es que el presidente “honre” a educadores regalándoles 70 pesos. No. No era el día de los inocentes…
- Maravilloso es que de la noche a la mañana aparezcan los prófugos claves de la década del 90’ máxime si están dispuestos a declarar contra todo lo actuado en esa época.
- Maravilloso es que después de la tercera marcha de Blumberg los secuestros desaparezcan y que todo intento por privar de la libertad a una persona es inmediatamente desbaratado por la policía. (¿La misma del “gatillo fácil” a la que no importaba si se le tomaba una comisaría…?)
- Maravilloso es que en Santiago del estero todo recobre la paz y los Juárez, estén felices y contentos sueltos sin causas y sin por qué.
- Maravilloso es que un juez como Galeano renuncie y el Presidente sin titubeos se lo acepte.
- Maravilloso es que el FMI dejara de ser el malo de la película y se lograse un superávit acorde a lo que Rodrigo Rato pidiera en su paso por la Argentina.
- Maravilloso es que el paradero de Fernando Esteche y Quebracho ya a nadie le interese demasiado. Cumplieron con su papel, pueden ausentarse sin que los medios o el gobierno pregunten hacia adónde o con quién…
- Maravilloso es que enmudezcan los Fernández y que no haya más voces explicando que en el gobierno no se dijo lo que se escuchó decir…
- Maravilloso es que el piquete nuestro de cada día se abra como el Mar Muerto para que el pueblo prometido pueda pasar tras de sí. Hoy sólo ocuparon la mitad de los puentes.
- Maravilloso es prime en las urgencias del Gabinete la demanda de los acreedores, aquellos que antes fueran aves de rapiña y buitres porque sí…
- Maravilloso es que la economía crezca y que se filmen a tiempo los actos de corte de cinta.
- Maravilloso es que el desempleo crezca pero ese dato no altere el ánimo de la ciudadanía ni se contradiga con el crecimiento, el desarrollo y toda esta fiesta de soluciones a granel.
- Maravilloso es que Cristina Fernández de Kirchner desembarque en el conurbano y no se escuchen los rugidos de los Duhalde ni asome Felipe Solá, o griten los intendentes o lo expliquen los Fernández…
- Maravilloso es que de pronto transversalidad y justicialismo se unan en matrimonio sin alterar las bases del movimiento que fue y ya no es… ¿O sigue siendo y nadie dice dónde y de la mano de quién se fue?
- Maravilloso es que los fondos de Santa Cruz sigan detrás de la frontera protegidos contra la propia dirigencia…
- Maravilloso es que de pronto sean protagonistas de este cuento y de este país de maravillas sin Alicia un Aldo Ducler. Eso garantiza que también puede resurgir Al Kazar o resucitar Alfredo Yabrán. Todo es posible en Argentina…
- Maravilloso es que los analistas dominicales de pronto sólo atiendan a Brasil como si no tuviésemos más geografía de este lado de la cartografía.
- Maravilloso es que el presidente se reconcilie con todos los sectores sin que queden grietas ni rencores.
- Maravilloso es que el sindicalismo declame a cuatro vientos su unidad aún cuando la trilogía no logró comenzar.
- Maravilloso es el aumento del salario mínimo vital y móvil con acuerdo de todos los sectores aunque nadie explique de dónde saldrán los fondos…
- Maravilloso es que la Corte Suprema de pronto se erija como la gran administradora de justicia en la Argentina por un fallo a favor de una jubilación.
- Maravillosa es que la diferencia entre Lavagna y De Vido se plantee sólo en las últimas tres líneas de un matutino porteño cuando en medio, están en juego los servicios públicos, ni más ni menos…
Y maravilloso es que pese a lo que hemos vivido y alas experiencias en carne propia no haya un ápice de conciencia y de memoria que nos diga que algo huele mal cuando todo cambia de la noche a la mañana y no sea Argentina el país de las maravillas… Ni usted ni yo, Alicia. Maravillosamente, ¿se nos ha de explicar algún día con qué se logró todo esto? ¿Y quién ha de pagar la fiesta kirchnerista?
Por GABRIELA POUSA(*) Analista Política. Lic. en Comunicación Social (Universidad del Salvador) Master en Economía y Ciencias Políticas (ESEADE) Estudios en Sociología del Poder (Oxford)
Queda prohibida su reproducción total o parcial sin mención de la fuente.
Gentileza: Gabriela Pousa
Fuente: Agencia NOTIAR
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