Of Evo and Ice Tea (for Christine)

An article in the Globe today announced that Bolivia’s Evo Morales is backing off in his plan to naitonalise thew nation’s vast mineral wealth. Morale’s states that his country simply does not have the funds to operate the industry without foreign investment, and will be forced, at least in the short term, to continue to allow international (sorry guys, it really is the most appropriate word) capital to exploit the mineral resources of the country. This is no small development; mineral exports in Bolvia topped $530 million dollars last year. That’s enough money for the Sultan of Brunei to buy 33 birthday concert performances from Michael Jackson, or to buy 530 million Arizona ice teas form the dollar store down from my house.

Hmmm……

Maybe I’ll go with the tea.

Anyway, what’s interesting here is the clear picture we get of the global political economy as a complex power matrix that limits the abilities of countries to provide their citizens with economic, human, and social rights. Now, don’t get me wrong here. I’m not speaking for the Comintern, and you won’t catch me handing out pamphlets with the UBC Trotskyists outside the student union builing (or the Spartacists for that matter, how did those guys manage ruin both my favourite historical figure AND Kubrick movie?). What I’m saying is that I don’t believe that a centrally planned economy, free from the fetters of foreign capitol, is necessary to safeguard a people’s rights (I would say Stalin pretty much proved that one wrong).

However, a country like Bolivia is extremely wealthy in natural resources, and yet a depressingly large proportion of its population have little education, access to medicines, economic and political autonomy, etc. And yet hundreds of millions of dollars leave the country every year. A quick read through Galleano’s Open Veins shows how money that could be used to promote this type of social welfare are funnelled into the developed world while a small fraction of it goes to placate a domestic elite. I think Bolivia is a good example of this, and in order for Bolivia to garantuee basic rights to its people it needs to exercise greater control over how it’s resources are used, or at least demand a greater cut from multinationals. However, the realities of the global political economy mean that those who have all the capitol, have all the leverage. And those that have all the leverage, get all the Arizona ice tea.

Or thirty-three Michael Jackson concerts.

If that's what you really want.

Love

Bob J. Neubauer

last301