Handicapping the Gap (Latin America)
Datelineóabove the garage, Portsmouth RI, 22 April
Reference: "Latin America Losing Hope In Democracy, Report Says," by Warren Hoge, New York Times, 22 April, p. A3.
A stupid headline, based on weak analysis of a poorly designed poll. The UN Development Program polls 18,000 and interviews several hundred opinion leaders across Latin America. Basic upshot? Just over half the people say that economic development is more important than maintaining democracy. Can you believe it? People prefer eating over voting!
Gosh, what will the UN think of testing next? Democracy versus cancer?
Wonderfully stupid quote: "This shows that democracy is not something that has taken hold of people's minds as strongly as we had thought it would," so sayeth Mexico's UN ambassador, clearly forgetting about the people's stomachs.
Betcha he eats just fine.
Latin America underwent a wave of democratization starting in the early 1980s, but that alone isn't enough to ensure broadband economic development. Go figure! And when people in the region still suffer from abusive police, weak judicial systems, and widespread corruption in their governments, roughly half are open to having more order and less injustice. My guess is that the international financial community would welcome it as well, along with a radical revamping of existing laws regarding property ownership, which historically have been biased toward the needs of the upper elite who ó not surprisingly ó basically own all the property.
Democracy emerges when a lot of other good things are already in place and working. That sort of freedom sits fairly high on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You've got to take care of the body itself before you can worry about the body politic. You have to provide for it (physiological), keep it secure (safety), allow for connectivity to bloom (love) and personalóusually economically expressedóambition to be reach (esteem, aka the middle class), then we're talking the self-actualization of democracy. You remove any of the pillars below that top one, and it can easily come tumbling down in terms of people's expectations, devotion, and willing to sacrifice for it.
Democracy is not a means, but an end. We cannot shrink the Gap until we start understanding the pathways realistically involved for those whom we would help. You want to help democracy in Latin America, propose a Free Trade Area of the Americas deal that Latin American states can live with! Open up America for more member states!
Show them the money and the love connection . . .