Gary -
Thanks for the on-the-ground response from the "middle of the
world". I realize(d) you (like all of us) live in a bubble and I
appreciate your acknowledging the two impinging bubbles you
recognize yourself to be circumscribed by: 1) retired folk who
avoid deep political thought; 2) locals without the education or
experience to see much beyond the local community.
In some ways this feels like a template for many of our own
bubbles... sort of a 1) personal/professional/socioeconomic
bubble; 2) geolocal bubble . There are probably more and they may
or may not overlap significantly. I use FriAM to try to force some
of my own bubbles to impinge on one another, or perhaps to explore
the interstices between the otherwise natural impingements...
I'm not a regular (only dropped in once or twice) vFriam
participant, and I don't know about Merle, I think she may make a
better effort than I and could probably be drawn into making an
appearance for a topic *like* this if you were interested. I'll
ping her offline as well to see if she might be interested/available
to vFriAM up on this (or some vaguely related) topic next week?
- Steve
Regarding "the Golden Age of Latin America", I found this (working)
paper which moderately reflects what I think of as "the Golden Age".
I think they acknowledge (and maybe even explain) what you have
experienced/observed/believe about "keeping Latin America dirt poor":
On the Latin American Growth Paradox: A Hindsight into the Golden Age
Giorgia Barboni∗and Tania Treibich† November 12, 2010
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/89360/1/64049434X.pdf
In 1950, Latin American countries’ capabilities were promising:
however, some other countries starting at the same level, or even
below, made a better use of their initial endowments. At the time,
countries like Argentina and Venezuela had a higher GDP per capita
than other European countries belonging to the developed world today
(Italy, Spain...) and many East Asian countries that have managed to
catch up with the Western World in the last decades (see Figure 1
below). Indeed, the data on GDP per capita over the last 60 years
reveals that since 1950, Latin American countries have diverged from
the Western World. With a GDP growth rate between 4 and 5 percent,
they have fallen behind Europe which economy has reached a 20,000
dollars per capita level today. The Latin American countries grew
slowly until 1980 and, from then, their GDP per capita growth has
been stationary. The only exception would be Chile which after a
period of slow growth started an expansion period in 1980s,
converging to the highest levels. Asian countries in comparison
followed a convergence path, starting way lower and reaching the
European levels of GDP per capita after fifty years of catching up.
Castaldi et al. (2008(16)) point out that this divergence can also
be measured by the widening productivity gap between Latin America
and the international frontier in the last decades. Other indicators
of education and science may also support the hypothesis that back
then, Latin American countries had a big potential for convergence.
Argentina, for example, was thought to be so promising that it could
join the innovators’ club (Castaldi et al., 2008(16)). Then, what
happened during the Golden Age (1950-1975) that prevented South
American countries to exploit this potential for growth?
Which is naturally just one perspective, but provides the basic idea
of what said "Golden Age" was/is/might-be.
On 1/13/23 9:33 AM, Gary Schiltz wrote:
Despite living here in the middle of the world, I'm afraid I don't
give these ideas enogh serious thought these days. I interact mostly
with people who are retired and avoid deep political thought, and with
locals who don't have the education or experience to see much beyond
the local community. I REALLY MUST make myself make it a priority to
start attending the VFriam meetings on Thursday. It might be valuable.
I wonder, does Merle ever tune in? She seems the most socially
concerned (maybe even hopeful?) person on the list.
By the way, I wasn't aware that there ever was a "Golden Age of Latin
America". Care to elaborate? My view (shaped perhaps too much by
reading "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" in the early 2000s) is
that Latin America has always been dirt poor, just like the more
developed world wants it to be. First under the thumb of the USA and
USSR/Russia, and now China. No wonder dictators thrive here.
On Thu, Jan 12, 2023 at 1:31 PM Steve Smith <[email protected]> wrote:
GaryS, et al -
I was recently trying to make a little more sense of the larger
sociopolitical situation across central/south America and realized
that your location in Ecuador might provide some useful parallax.
https://www.as-coa.org/articles/2023-elections-latin-america-preview
I was (not?) surprised to read that there was a renewed interest in
"regional integration". This article references Lula and Obrador
and several other Latin American leaders who might be attempting a
broader ideological (and economic) alignment/cooperation across the
region.
https://www.bloomberglinea.com/english/will-lula-achieve-regional-integration-in-latin-america/
With the unrest of the summer triggered? by energy/fossil-fuel
prices it seems like Ecuador has become (temporarily, modestly)
unbalanced which seems like an opportunity for change, whether for
better or worse. I see in the first article (Elections Preview)
that Lasso has a very low approval rating and the upcoming
(February) elections might include/yield a recall for him?
I lived on the border of AZ/MX as a teen in the early 70s and the
recent memory/residue of the Golden Age of Latin America was still
evident. The Mexican border town (Agua Prieta) still had moderately
grand facilities and institutions (e.g. A huge library with
elaborate fountains on the grounds, etc) even though they were not
able to support them in that grandeur... So I think I still have
an ideation that Latin America has many of the resources or (hidden)
momentum to achieve a resurgence of some sort.
These reflections are partly triggered by this interview/article
produced by WBUR/Boston and distributed via NPR:
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2023/01/11/8-billion-earth-population-rise-human
Which reminded me that while we *do* have a total-population problem
with our 8B and rising numbers (and 90+ % of land animal by mass
being human or human domesticates), the *distribution* of people,
and more to the point the demographic fecundity/fertility
distribution is very uneven and in fact seems to be inversely
proportional to various features of human civilization ranging from
GDP to education to technological development. Some (like DJT)
turn this into a judgement and a reason for resentment/fear (e.g.
S*hole country labels) but others have a more progressive view. An
excerpt from the WBUR interview/article:
Jennifer Sciubba: "We're moving toward this aging and shrinking
world, and we are worried because we can't sustain that same huge
level of economic growth in the past. And we do need to think about
what that might look like, so we can look relook at concepts like
retirement. We can look at concepts like what is work life. We also,
though, have to start thinking about family and marriage. And, you
know, we're talking about a paradigmatic shift.
"That means we have to look at the world through a completely
different lens than we've looked at the world in the past. But all
of our theories about the good life, our economic theories, our
political theories, those were all developed under conditions of
population growth and economic growth, as William said. So it's
really hard to get a paradigmatic shift and say, what if we try to
look at the world in a different way? Can we look at an aging and
shrinking society as a good thing? Can we look at growing older
individually as a good thing? We've not been good at that. And so
we're kind of taking that negativity and applying it at the societal
level."
This passage specifically references aging (individual and
population) but there are other references to economic/technological
disparities.
I also defer here to others who have an international POV (e.g.
Pieter in South Africa, Sarbajit in India, Jochen in Germany, and I
believe we have someone from Cuba, I think we lost (off the list)
Mohammed from Egypt a few years ago, etc.) as well. We are not a
very demographicly representative group here but still offer a
somewhat broad samplying by some measures.
I realize this is yet another of my rambly maunderings but I'd be
curious to hear what others are observing/thinking about these
issues in this current time of global flux.
- Steve
-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: 5/2017 thru present
https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: 5/2017 thru present
https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
-. --- - / ...- .- .-.. .. -.. / -- --- .-. ... . / -.-. --- -.. .
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe / Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom
https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
archives: 5/2017 thru present
https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
1/2003 thru 6/2021 http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/
