Social & Economic inequality…education reform focus

When you look at the overall stability of countries around the world, one must question why some nations are more stable than others.  Social and economic inequality are two main internal factors that determines the level of stability a country has.  In Latin America, many countries are incapable of delivering a stable life to the majority of its citizens.  Francis Fukuyama’s published article in the Journal of Democracy, The Latin American Experience, mentions that many countries in Latin America suffer from the so called “birth defect.”  My take on the “birth defect” is that many people are born into unfair and harsh economic conditions that limit people’s potential to increase the gap between the rich and the poor.  It has been a long and hard process for true democracies to flourish in Latin America and because of social and economic inequality is still a major problem.  Democracies cannot flourish under social and economic equality situations because usually a sector of the population follows antisystemic social movements that lead to violence and chaos.  Political systems fall apart because the citizens don’t have the necessary tools to live a safe a secure life in order to contribute to the elections.  One example of this is the 1930 military coup in Argentina.  The mass population in Argentina was under the poverty level which lead to the rise of the working classes to use force to in order for political action to take place.  Weak countries that have high amounts of social and economic inequality lead to a rise in populism.  Populism is a dangerous term because populism could lead to corruptive populist leaders such as in the example of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela when coups took place.  To combat this problem of populism a country must reform its education system particularly secondary education opportunities for the poor population.  Fukuyama brings up the example of the rise of educational achievement percentages in Colombia, Peru, and Ecuador.  At the same time as educational opportunities were increasing so was electoral participation.  The governments in Latin America must be held accountable for not allowing “social exclusion” to occur with political participation.  It is essential to educate the population in order for them to understand the political issues within their government.  “Social exclusion” occurs in Latin America because the political institutions fail to create a strong court system, universal education, law enforcement, and health care programs.  Political institutions are more so obligated to listen to the upper classes than the lower classes because money talks.  In general, there are so few highly educated citizens in Latin America which creates limitations on their ability to compete in the global market.  Low quality infrastructure and high levels of poverty do not allow for skillful domestic manufacturing.  This is another incentive for countries to increase the standards for secondary education opportunities for the poor community.  The argument that Fukuyama makes about the problem of education reform is a solidifying argument.  However, I disagree with his argument to some degree because any form of higher education that is offered to a suffering population will make some sort of difference in the large scheme of things.  His argument goes into detail about individual administrators and teachers’ interests about job security more so than actually doing their jobs to educate young people.  The opportunities to even receive secondary education will improve on the horrific living conditions on those who are being educated.  The foundation of education must be solidified in order to increase the gap of social and economic inequality.  Smarter leaders and more political participation as a result of education will create a more stable democratic system of government than those that are currently weak and fragile in many of today’s Latin American governments.