Bolivia: Morales's Victory

Here is an excellent article and analysis of Morales's decisive (62% of the vote), yet not overwhelming victory in the Bolivian referendum. He now has a clear mandate, but still has his work cut out for him in terms of land reform and nationalization, particularly in Santa Cruz (though he won over 40% of the vote there, surprisingly). The wealthy, predominantly white minority will continue to block moves by Morales to grant some measure of social progress and equity to the overwhelming, impoverished indigenous majority.

I'm not an expert on Bolivian politics, but suffice it to say claims that Morales is a "leftist" are overblown melodrama - yes, he favors state control over some aspects of the economy, especially natural resources and some financial services/heavy industry - but these are policies that have worked to generate government revenue and provided the impetus for industrialization in South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, and India. For that matter, land reform was a key aspect of generating an agricultural surplus in South Korea, Taiwan, and China as well.

Private enterprise is all well and good, but there needs to be sufficient government capital to provide social programs (e.g. education and basic health care) and public infrastructure. There also needs to be some sense of equal property distribution, at least to the point where there is enough demand to generate local consumption and ensure a market for locally-produced goods. Latin American Gini coefficients typically range from 0.6-0.7, compared with Asian and European Gini's in the 0.3-0.45 range (lower = more equal). Capitalism doesn't work without the prerequisites for a market, even neoliberals recognize that, and public control of commodities and finance can be an effective way of jump-starting industrial development - as the East Asian Miracle has demonstrated. Privatization, whether or not we like it, frequently needs to come later on in the process. Sometimes, what seems a "lefist" policy in an American context is simply pragmatic policy in another context (especially a development context).

Myanmar: The Ongoing Fiasco

Once again, I seem to be the harbinger of bad news - but one of the key reasons why aid workers, especially US aid workers, remain barred from Burma is that the junta is currently holding a "constitutional referendum" in "response" to the protests in September. The good news: Elections scheduled for 2010. The bad news: the document "guarantees a quarter of parliamentary seats to the military and bars from public office the detained leader of the country's pro-democracy movement, Aung San Suu Kyi" (see this article in the Guardian, and a second article in the UK Telegraph).

Oh, and did I forget to mention? Over 100,000 could be dead and 2.5 million remain without aid - according to the Red Cross and UN. Just as disturbing is the fact that, due to the Cyclone's timing, farmers in the Irrawaddy Delta may have missed the harvest and require aid to replenish seed, fish, and livestock destroyed by Nargis (see this article in the NY Times).

As devastating as this immediate situation is, let me make a suggestion: The Telegraph article above suggests a few large organizations to donate to (Oxfam, Save the Children, Christian Aid, etc.). These are all organizations that do good work, but they also have a large funding stream from major foundations and don't focus on Burma. If you really want to help this country, which is one of the saddest cases in development - a closed-off country in a region that has performed very well and seen significant improvement in the past twenty years - go to the US Campaign for Burma. They're a relatively small but effective NGO, and the main organization fighting for international action against the junta. I also know a number of people who have worked with them, and their founder is an American University alum.