Latin America's Struggle For Prosperity, Stability, And Security: A Historical Essay.

Latin Americans, like everyone else, want prosperity, stability, and security. Yet, many Latin American countries rank as some of the most poor, unstable, and insecure places in the world. Since the 1930s, many Latin American governments have sought to bring prosperity, stability, and security to their countries, but largely failed to achieve their goals. Only a minority of Latin Americans can fully enjoy the products of modernity and Globalization. Write a historical essay discussing why Latin America has been unable to achieve the standards of living and security that Western Europeans and North Americans have long enjoyed over the twentieth century, and what impact this continues to have on the region. (Make sure to discuss the promises of populism, the impact of the Cold War and guerrilla insurrections, the role of the United States and the Dirty Wars, Democratization, Neoliberalism, Human Rights, the Cocaine trade, and migration flows).

The History of Latin America

Latin America still suffers from an unaccountable and destabilized social, economic and political structure as compared to the rest of the United States and other parts of the world. The democracies of most Latin American countries are threatened today, mainly due to major historical implications, increasing risks of populism, unstable cultural and equality powers, social and political problems related to corruption and government accountability, and a number of economic challenges. It is not easy to understand this lack of social and economic structure in Latin America and why most of these countries haven’t been able to reach the benchmark of advancement, globalization and open trade relations with countries from different parts of the world. As compared to the Western European and North American countries, Latin America faces a major crisis. Such problems can be traced back to the unfavorable history, where Latin America has suffered from negative influences of the Cold War, migration from other countries, drug-wars, drug trade, and more (James Wood, Problems In Modern Latin American History, 310). This essay explores the history of Latin America to trace the origin of problems that continue to impact the social, political, and economic structures of Latin American nations and why these countries are unable to enjoy the same amount of freedom, enjoy their rights, and head towards globalization and better external and internal security.

Problems for Latin America primarily began between 1945 to 1980, after World War II. While the economies of most countries in America and outside grew and fostered in the postwar era, Latin America’s share in total world production, trade relations, and per capita income, declined considerably, which isolated Latin America from its share of democracy. Latin American countries were brought into the limelight by the media, which then resulted in unsuccessful movements like military dictatorships and the popular Marxist Revolution. The shock and aftermath of the Cold War affected led to the implementation of stronger and rigid economic and social policies. After 1945, efforts were put into strengthening trade policies and better economic integration. Such economic reforms took place in the form of land reform policies, standardizing and subsidizing imports, and attain a greater economical scale. However, these reforms mainly fostered the growth of Intra-Latin American trade and focus on removing as many trade barriers as possible. Panama and Brazil were a few of the countries that witnessed remarkable economic and social growth during this period, along with countries like Venezuela, Mexico, and Costa Rica. There was also a boom seen in narcotics and drug trade, where Colombia was the main export of cocaine and also marijuana during the 1970s, along with nontraditional commodities like flowers and raw materials (Chasteen, Born In Blood And Fire, 128).

While the economic game was going strong in Latin America, an increase in the provision of public health services result in huge population growth across different countries. This problem of ‘populism’ continues to have an impact on the social and economic conditions even today. With the introduction of social security systems and advancements in school education, the same when combined with the problem of growing populism led to an increase in social inequality that persists in Latin America till date (James Wood, Problems In Modern Latin American History, 178). Gradually, restructured land reforms led to the poor suffering greatly due to high inflation rates in countries like Brazil and the Southern Cone, especially at a time when there was extensive land distribution taking place in Bolivia and rich agricultural communities were favored as compared to the poor or peasant community. This was another reason behind the increasing gap or equality in the social status of different Latin American nations. Thus, the patterns of economic and social growth amongst Latin American nations resulted in restricted and limited taxation of fiscal policies and programs (James Wood, Problems in Modern Latin American History, 198).

Latin America during the Cold War

The postwar era saw Latin American countries highlight dependent on the United States’ provision for loans, grants, trades, and investments. During and after the Cold War between the United States and USSR, Latin American countries were found to be more inclined towards the US, despite the level of negligence from the US government and communism threat risks from Asia and Europe (James Wood, Problems In Modern Latin American History, 271). As a part of structured land reforms, the step taken by Jacobo Arbenz during his rule in the Guatemalan government from 1951 to 1954 of attacking the United Fruit Company in support and cooperation of local communists. This was seen as a major threat to Central America when the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) started using its influence in a number of Central American countries at the time. The year 1973 saw powerful U.S. vendettas that overpowered and economically harassed such countries, e.g., Nicaragua (Chasteen, Born In Blood And Fire, 212).

During this century, Cuba was clearly the most advanced and developed countries in Latin America; and thus, the impact of the Cuban Revolution cannot be shaken off till date. The Cuban Revolution was again one of the biggest challenges to the social and economic stability, along with freedom of human rights and democracy of Latin American countries. The ruling of Fidel Castro saw major involvement between Cuba and the Soviet Union, making it one of the first communist states of the United States. Though the Cuban Revolution greatly improved education and healthcare structures of the society, a serious productivity decline was observed owing to Castro’s authoritarian dictatorship in Cuba (Thomas Wright, Latin America Since Independence, 146). This model of defense from Cuba towards the United States was looked at as a model for other Latin American countries, leading to a number of guerrilla movements. Such movements led to the establishment of leftist parties, resulting in terrorism threats, greater social and political instability, political repression and more guerilla conflicts. Thus began further influence and interference from the United States to counter guerilla conflicts across Latin America and attempts were made on land reforms aided by the Alliance for Progress under the then U.S. President John F. Kennedy (Thomas Wright, Latin America Since Independence, 98). However, not many countries could sustain the Cuban model that they were attempting to follow, and the Cuban Revolution ultimately lost its foundation with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Once aid from the Soviet Union was cut and Cuba ended up losing its chief ally, the country experienced acute shortages and unstable social and economic structures due to Castro’s unruly policies and management (Cristina Henri?quez, The Book Of Unknown Americans, 156).

Increasing populism is another historical problem evident from the history of Latin America. It started with the protection of social interests and the implementation of social programs by Juan Peron of Argentina. This special interest in social policies and benefits led to a movement of oligarchy and populism. The same was followed by the President of Brazil Juscelino Kubitschek who wished to promote social services, which in turn led to populism increase throughout Latin America over time. In efforts to counter leftist guerilla conflicts, Christian Democratic parties with their presence in countries like Venezuela, El Salvador and Chile received tremendous support from the US government and Alliance for Progress and resulted in Salvador Allende’s victory as the president of Chile. During his rule, there was violence and dissatisfaction amongst middle and upper-class Chileans, with short-term benefits provided to the working class in the midst of an ongoing populism problem (James Wood, Problems in Modern Latin American History, 114). This example shows the way in which authoritarian and dictatorial rules had slowed down the economic and social structures of Latin American countries like Chile, El Salvador, and even Cuba, where the economy was plainly run by populist. Common people and military personnel were often denied basic human rights’ and were subjected to great degrees of harshness, violence, leading to a ‘bureaucratic authoritarianism’ (Thomas Wright, Latin America Since Independence, 231).

Increasing Populism

By the end of the 20^th century, a number of Latin American countries started looking highly at neoliberal approaches to uplift their social structures and economies. Even countries like Cuba started opening its door for liberal trade and international relations with other countries, implement democratic procedures, and showing more interests in cash flows and trade and investments and related policies throughout Latin America. Neoliberal approaches have greatly helped to improve the Latin American economy, for instance, the Chilean model that was primarily responsible in freeing and democratizing Chile in 1990 by removing trade barriers and regulations, improving foreign and domestic policies for trade and investments, and privatization of enterprises. Another example of neoliberal approaches to improve the economic conditions of Latin America includes Mexico’s association with Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. This also helped other countries like Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay to open its trade relations for improving the economy by privatizing and prioritizing social security systems (Thomas Wright, Latin America Since Independence, 176). However, such reforms were to be conducted with the limits of the pertaining bureaucratic authoritarianism systems where countries like Mexico and Venezuela were restricted from privatizing their state oil firms, despite the countries being the highest oil producers at the time. Thus, the new economic policies still kept Latin America vulnerable to the open and international trade markets, causing a rather volatile social and economic status at the global level. The end of the 20^th century saw only six percent of the world’s total exports belonging to the Latin American region, as compared to the much higher numbers at the beginning of the 20^th century. Such rigid reforms also created a debt crisis for the region, even with two countries being the world’s highest petroleum producers. The amount of debt was extremely high, which eventually become difficult to repay. Aggressive and tactical policies were implemented by financial institutions to urge and pressurize Latin American governments to borrow more in order to safeguard their financial interests, leading to more than 1000 percent increase from 1970 to 1980. Except for Colombia, a number of Latin American countries had to face bad fiscal conditions with the rise in interest rates in the United States, making it difficult to reduce inflation and curb other economic and social security issues persisting in the region (Thomas Wright, Latin America Since Independence, 155). Hyperinflation was observed in countries like Argentina and Brazil, slowing social and economic growth in most parts of the Latin American region. Latin America thus, remains unfamiliar and unknown to the dynamics of international trade relations and world markets.

Conclusion

The modern history of Latin America has shown some unfavorable consequences over the social, economic, and political structure of most countries in the region. Even developing nations like Cuba, Chile and Venezuela were unable to sustain and appropriately practice neoliberal policies that could improve the condition of the region. However, with the region’s awakening after the 20^th century, social issues like life expectancy and literacy rates have rescued as compared to the figures during the 1950s. The issue of populism in Latin America has been curbed to an extent, although population rates have varied with different parts/countries of Latin America. Improvement in road transportation, international trade, the rate of globalization and social transformations like exposure to television has helped Latin America become less isolated from the world. Apart from social security and globalization trends, even gender relations and protection of minority groups have improved a lot, directing Latin American countries to a more realistic, democratic, and better future (James Wood, Problems In Modern Latin American History, 223).

References

Wood, James A. Problems In Modern Latin American History. 4th ed., Latin American Silhouettes. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014, p. 323.

Wright, Thomas C. Latin America Since Independence. Latin American Silhouettes. Lanham, Boulder, and New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017, p. 324.

Chasteen, John Charles. Born In Blood And Fire. 2nd ed., Latin American Voices, New York: W.W. Norton, 2016, p. 329.

Henri?quez, Cristina. The Book Of Unknown Americans. 2nd ed., Vintage Contemporaries, 2015, p. 285.