Ignored by the West at its peril, dismissed as a unique case of both Islamist and regime viciousness, Algeria can also be viewed as a warning to the comfortable West of things to come: Algeria the neo-liberal showcase. Continue reading
Category neo-liberalism
Peruvian Protests Against Mining Pollution Expand
Neo-liberal Crisis Threatens Peru
Crisis threatens Peru, with presumed populist Humala taking a corporatist stand. Rhetoric is hardening on both sides, and no one appears able to define the struggle between the rural poor and international gold mining interests in a positive-sum manner.
This delightful video shows the natural beauty of the Cajamarca region.
Since taking office a year ago, Humala has introduced a minimum monthly pension for the elderly poor and grants for students while augmenting programs for infants and families in poverty. He said the number of the people enrolled in some of the programs would double during his term. Humala’s approval rating fell to a fresh low of 40 percent this month, according to pollster Ipsos, after a crackdown on protesters opposed to Newmont Mining’s $5 billion Conga project in the northern region of Cajamarca that killed five people this month. [Reuters7/28/12.]
Humala’s Theoretical Error: Screwing the Lid on Tight Makes the Pot Boil Over
As a man of the people, Humala must know better, but once in office, he began to think he was, if not above the law, at least above the people. He has, as a result, discovered that top-down decision-making imposed upon the people, without gaining their buy-in generates exactly the chaos leaders want to avoid. By failing to show that residents would benefit from a new gold mine in their backyard, by failing to ensure that they would retain clean water, and most importantly of all by avoiding the short-term inefficiencies of democratic decision-making, he has provoked a deepening national crisis reminiscent of the decade-old Cochabamba water war against Bechtel Corporation and a Bolivian leader who made the same mistake…and turned Evo Morales into a national hero. More, he has thereby contracted a severe case of instability plus long-term counter-productivity, weakening himself both domestically and internationally while undermining his policy of befriending international mining corporations to boost Peru’s economic prospects. Political processes are not linear: what works for a day may be the cause of failure by the weekend.
Humala had to play a two-level game (to simplify his reality), dealing with the international gold mining corporation and dealing with his countrymen. On the foreign policy side, he negotiated; in terms of domestic governance, he attempted a centralized decision-making process…thus landing, for this policy, solidly in the tricky blue arena where behavior toward domestic partners clashes with behavior toward international partners. Playing tough guy in the red arena of force might make a leader feared; playing nice guy in the green arena of conciliation might win a leader moral stature. Playing in the internally inconsistent blue arena makes a leader look like a push-over to foreigners and like a sell-out to those who voted for him.
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