Chapter 10 neoliberalism

Neoliberal governments started after all the failure provided by the nationalistic dictatorship previous government. The neo Liberals appeared to be the salvation of the moment; they emphasized free trade, export production and comparative advantage.  Neo Liberals were not nationalist at all, they embraced all the free market ideas, like privatize state corporations and social services, also reduced subsidies on basic foodstuff.

A lot of countries in Latin America were already in debt since the 1980’s, which created high oil prices and also countries were refinancing their debts. The external debt was rising, Brazil and Mexico external debts were the highest.  Obviously the IMF was a huge supporter of Neo Liberalism policies, since they were the provider of huge quantities of money to poor Latin American countries.

The neo liberal leaders were able to tame problems like inflation in Brazil and Argentina. , create some trade agreements and cuts in social spending. This was the real problem; consider the idea of hyperinflation and social cuts in the same government, the poor suffered the most with these policies.  Also the neoliberal policies really hurt the producers, there was no creation of employment within the local industries and the majority of the people from lower classes did not benefit from the neoliberal policies.

There were also the Maquiladora which, was almost like exploitation in my opinion, were women had to work assembling imported parts in Mexico. These workers which like I said were mostly women, had little rights and got paid very little. Obviously they chose to have the maquiladoras in Mexico because it was just cheap labor and little regulation.

Basically the neoliberal policies were not beneficial at all to the lower classes, since providing the basics like water and electricity to the people was not considered profitable many governments just did not care.

One of the most important movements created against the neo liberals policies was in Mexico; the Zapatistas rebelled and demanded land reform. The Zapatistas were also focused on helping the indigenous communities that also suffered with the lack of investments and opportunities.

The changes started in Latin America with the election of leaders like Chavez, Lula, Morales and etc. that had nationalist roots, turning into more socialist economic policies to help the people.

Chapter 8: Revolution

During the post war Latin America industrialization slowed down and there was this idea that a revolutionary change was necessary.  There was also a growing of nationalism and the idea of US imperialism, so populist leaders took advantage of this moment of political conflict to get elected and manipulate the people.

The populist leaders, took advantage of mass politics and attracted the working class votes by promising to improve the living conditions, they also avoided any type of class warfare to keep the support from the middle class which is very interesting. The main concern of the populist leaders was to be popular among the working class, so they use all types of political tactics like mass rallies and radio.

There were a lot of problems due to the post war, all the Latin America countries had deep social inequality, falling internal markets and also some resentment with the United States and its policies.

In Argentina there was Peronism, was a nationalist that gained strong support among the working class, he was elected by the majority and was very popular. He sought to nationalize most of the foreign companies and also turn a lot of the industrial workforce into union and he also expanded social services. He was married to Evita Peron that also became very popular as a beloved icon for Argentine workers. In Brazil Vargas ousted the military in 1945 and in 1950 he won the presidency.

Like I said there was some resentment between Latin America and the US, especially because the US started the Marshall Plan to help European countries, and Latin America had hopes to receive some type of aid from the US.

The Cuban Revolution rose with a Marxist perspective, it was a great critique of the American imperialism and also the capitalism policies that were not appropriated to Latin America realities. These capitalist policies created injustice within the society and the only natural solution to it was a revolution.

The revolution was commanded mainly by Castro and Guevara. Che believed that the countries of Latin America needed to get together to fight imperialism. Castro was a Cuban nationalist revolutionary, he was from a wealthy family, but he was deeply inspired by the nationalist student movements from Cuba. Fidel Castro, Raul Castro and Che Guevara led guerrilla actions to free Cuba from Batista. Cuba became the focal point of US resistance. Cuba is still a symbol of resistance to US power, and Cuba also achieved many social improvements like increased literacy, medical care for all the people and housing. The restrictions are still part of the Cuban people’s lives, like no freedom of speech or the impossibility to travel outside the country without the consent of the government.

Chapter 7: Nationalism

Latin America pushes to a new nationalist cultural and economic agenda, the defined idea of diversity, the racial mixing and nativism challenging the ideas of Europeans. The nationalists were the urban middle class of mixed race; they did not benefit so much from the export boom so they challenged the superiority of the European Culture. There was also a critique related to the constant foreign intervention and military intervention.

In Mexico the nationalists took power through the Mexican Revolution. The revolution, directed by Zapata, transformed Mexico lands were redistributed and there was public education initiative.

Also industrialization also became central to nationalism. There was economic activism, protective labor laws and manipulated exchange rates. Mostly the larger markets were benefitting from industrialization, the poor and rural population did not see much of this phenomena.

In Brazil for instance, industry was much more profitable than agriculture.  During the Vargas presidency there was also an overproduction of coffee that caused a crisis in the industry. Nationalism was in fact very good for Vargas, it really helped maintain his popularity since there was the creation of a lot of government agencies, the national steel company, national motor factory and etc. Vargas also organized labor works and protected the workers.

Nationalism was also great to promote Brazilian culture, from Gilberto Freyre, promoting Brazilian heritage to Carmen Miranda promoting Brazilian music in the US.