Why is Latin America so poor?

The case of Latin America has always been one of the most extraordinary cases to analyze, both in its government, as in its policy, in its society and in its economy. It is, then, a land rich in almost all the resources that I can think of naming, but that at the same time, has enjoyed the correct administration and use of these only a few times, seeing some short "golden ages" where all the indicators go up, and then return to the common state of stagnation.

It is not necessary to study the history of the region too much to realize that the main cause of this is the State, or more than the State itself, which is quite non-existent in the region, the occupants of this, that is, the government. Latin America has been plagued by tyrannical rulers of all positions, of all kinds of disparate thoughts, and with ideas that are even contradictory to the very existence of the region.

These governments, which are practically the norm, usually put their hands full in the economy, preventing it from flourishing, taking over natural resources for purposes of little national interest, thus, the progress or development of the region is in the background giving priority to the permanence of a few in power.

Of course, as the State lasts over time, but governments don't, resources are never destined to anything other than to keep these in power, and the free market is totally interrupted, giving way to a dirigism of the economy with ends political or ideological rather than economic.

We could say that the Latin American people are victims, like all other peoples, although to a greater degree, of their government, as we could also say that the main problem in the region has been statist authoritarianism, regardless of its location on the political spectrum. Although these would be mere superficial observations, which although not entirely wrong, if to a large degree.

These statements would be wrong, first, because there is no people who have been victims of something alien to themselves, and second, because if any malaise is recurrent, both in a society and in the human, then it is not the problem, but rather it is the effect caused by the problem, which is the one that ultimately must be fixed.

Thus, if tyranny is recurrent in Latin America, it is not because this is the problem, but rather that there is something that is causing it continuously, and that must be changed, which is not unique to this region, although it is one of the areas where it is more prone, what I would call, citing Bolívar; the habit of domination.

Although to know about this malaise in the region, its meaning, and how it has really affected society, we must go back a few years back, from the origins of the republics.

For what we will use a story told by Bolivar himself on February 15, 1819, during the Congress of Angostura:

America, on becoming separated from the Spanish monarchy, found itself like the Roman Empire, when that enormous mass fell to pieces in the midst of the ancient world. Each dismembered portion formed then an independent nation in accordance with its situation or its interests, the difference being that those members established anew their former associations. We do not even preserve the vestiges of what once we were; we are not Europeans, we are not Indians, but an intermediate species between the aborigines and the Spaniards. Americans by birth and Europeans in right, we are placed in the dilemma of disputing with the natives our titles of possession and maintaining ourselves in the country where we were born, against the opposition of the invaders. Thus, ours is the most extraordinary and complicated case.

Moreover, our destiny has always been a purely passive one; our political existence has always been null, and we find ourselves in greater difficulties in attaining our liberty, since we were placed in a lower grade than servitude, because we had been robbed not only of liberty but also of active and domestic tyranny. Allow me to explain this paradox.

In an absolute regime, authorized power does not admit any limits. The will of the despot is the supreme law, arbitrarily executed by the subordinates who participate in the organized oppression according to the measure of the authority they enjoy. They are in trusted with civil, political, military and religious functions; but in the last analysis, the Satraps of Persia are Persians, the Pashas of the Great Master are Turks, the Sultans of Tartary are Tatars. China does not send for her Mandarins to the land of Genghis-khan, her conqueror.

America, on the contrary, received all from Spain, which had really deprived her of true enjoyment and exercise of active tyranny, by not permitting us to share in our own domestic affairs and interior administration. This deprivation had made it impossible for us to become acquainted with the course of public affairs; neither did we enjoy that personal consideration that inspires the shine of power in the eyes of the multitude, so important in the great revolutions. I will say, in short, we were kept in estrangement, absent from the universe and all that relates to the science of government.

This concept of "active tyranny" is vital when it comes to understanding the failure assumed by Latin America between its expectations and its results. While in other colonies such as those of the United Kingdom in Northern America it was enjoyed relative autonomy, in the American colonies of Spain this did not exist, and the rulers, viceroys, and every figure with a minimum of authority, preceded directly from the metropolis. So that even the local aristocracy, that is, the descendants of the conquerors, or the children of Europeans born in the new continent, known as "white creoles", remained in a position far from the government administration, and all the America was directed from the Iberian peninsula and its representatives, the "white peninsulars", who had the greatest imperial privileges in the region.

This is not due, as some modern rumors suggest, to that Spain colonized America to steal and take to the metropolis, while other empires like the British were "benign" and wanted to settle in a new land. Totally the opposite. By the time of the colonies, before there was any independent nation on the American continent, the south belonging to Spain was more prosperous and developed than the north belonging to the British and French, Mexico City or Lima had up to three times the population that any city of British America, and squares, buildings and infrastructures were erected everywhere. This is because Spain, unlike the United Kingdom, colonized the Americas hoping never to leave it, and trying to make the new continent, in the long term, an extension of the Iberian Peninsula.

From there to the Spanish sent all kinds of administrative authority of the same peninsula, and the lack of autonomy was mainly due to the coarse and centralized style that was characteristic of the Spanish empire. The Spaniards did not want at all that there were men capable of governing in the Americas and that they could try to challenge the King, because they wanted to establish themselves there for life, contrary to what happened in the United Kingdom, in which there were greater economic and administrative freedoms, and who did not care about dealing with such a large and new land, because they just wanted to capture the benefits.

Under these circumstances, the people of Spanish America became accustomed to tyrannical servitude, with its high levels of illiteracy, and with its complete lack of responsibility for both public and private matters.

This footprint has been imbued until modern times in the countries south of the Rio Grande; the people accustomed to being sheep are constantly looking for a shepherd to guide them.

After the independence of the South America nations, the lack of institutionality, stability, and knowledge about the public administration cost as much as the liberators themselves predicted. Civil wars followed one another in all nascent republics, and the people, loyal to men rather than to their country or to ideas, chose a tyrant to follow and for whom to give life. These fratricidal wars reduced the majority of the population, ended with confidence, prestige and any kind of international interest, and subjected all Latin American peoples to tyrannies of all types and colors.

Just to say that in my country, Venezuela, from 1830 (dissolution of the Gran Colombia) until 1903 (establishment of a solid government) there were around 166 armed revolts, which ended up with around 70% of the population, and that translates, if all the days of war were continuous, in 24 years of war (in a period of 73 years).

Until the middle of the last century, all Latin America lived under the rule of authoritarian rulers who, although they tended to declare themselves democratic, had a State that existed only because of their person, and as such, each time there was a political difference or each time that it was time for the death of one of these caudillos, the instability took over the nation, and the weapons were frequently raised again.

Despite the fact that today there is a representative form of democracy in the region, this pattern continues to be repeated. Just as in the past the caudillos were popular, in modernity the elected presidents are not less popular, but not less tyrants, and all vary their framework of action regarding their capacity to maintain the vote.

There is today, in Latin America, a democracy of tyrants, where people choose a man, and depending on their acceptance, this may or may not hold absolute power, this latter as long as it has a broad enough voter base that can ensure victory in any of the elections.

The laws, the separation of powers, universal human rights, all are dead and worthless ideas for these tyrants, because they have a group of people who unconditionally support them, and not to the country, or their ideas, so literally they can contradict themselves on numerous occasions, as has happened, and continue to count on the loyalty of their subjects.

So far, we have analyzed how a trace left in the times of colonization continues to affect the Spanish-American peoples, but this does not mean that the culprit of these problems is Spain, as many are accustomed to pointing out.

When the independence of the American nations was declared, all ties with Spain were cut, which means that it can no longer be responsible for the successes or failures of the new republics, that is precisely what independence is about, to not depend. Liberty was declared by the liberators, and sealed in the papers, codes and systems, but the people never accepted this liberty, and to this day, it continues to seek to imitate the ties with its former colonists in the form of any tyrant of turn.

The habits of domination and servitude are still present in the people, who actively support their oppressors. Latin America is not a victim of authoritarian tyrants, because it lives looking for them, on the contrary, it is a victim of itself, and of its love for servitude.

Independence was declared on paper two centuries ago, and Spain left the continent at that time, but the people have not wanted to assume their freedom, and until this happens, Latin America will not be truly free.

Bolívar, when he referred to Peru, saw the greatest problem in the region, since it was a country that had the two greatest enemies of freedom; gold and slaves, the first because it corrupts everything and the second because it is corrupted in itself. This malady does not suffer only Peru, but, as I said at the beginning of the post, all the countries of the region have their gold in differents natural resources that are capable of filling the vaults of each of them, and as I have also described throughout the article, they have slaves who don't want to be freed.

Men who have allowed themselves to be corrupted not only by their attitude of servitude and their harmful habits, but also by the countless riches that lie in their territory, is the reason why Latin America has not stopped living in chaos, and until the day their heart does not burn in the fire necessary to not only demand, but to take for himself the freedom that must be his own will, the Latin American people will remain tied to the same chains in their hands, and will be condemned to live in his future exactly the same as he has lived in his past.

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