Evolving Social and Economic Inequality
Income and social inequality is a major plague in Latin America especially as compared to other countries, this is discussed in both the Fukuyama and Kaufman readings. Both articles cite from the fact that this inequality in both the standing of the people and the current gap in income throughout the classes, is due to the founding of the countries. Extreme inequalities have existed in the countries of Latin America since their colonization, their peoples were not able to establish democracy for themselves which made them susceptible to continued undemocratic and unequal ways. This is compared to America and Europe, who both had mostly democratic beginnings and who currently also have lower Gini coefficients. While some of these countries have had times of economic prosperity because of their major gaps between the rich and poor and social instability, these prosperous times are cut short with protests, conflicts, and political crises.
In “Poverty, Inequality, and Democracy: The Latin American Experienced”, Fukuyama accepts that if a Latin American country were to rapidly increase in wealth, it would positively impact poverty. However, it often makes the inequality in said country much worse. A world example of this would be China because even though as China has become a more affluent nation and has reduced poverty, the height of its richest still grows higher and their Gini coefficient rose from .41 to .47 in 2004. A Latin American example of this is Chile, who has had extreme economic success in exports in the past couple of decades but who struggles and had the highest Gini coefficient in the world and currently has one of the highest. Now Chile faces a president with a 15% approval rating because of numerous scandals/protests and a poverty rate that isn’t decreasing as the country’s wealth increases (at least according to ECLAC and Chile’s 15% poverty rate that hasn’t decreased since 2011). The Fukuyama article was written in 2008, pre-worldwide recession that would impact Latin America for years to come, but it argues that higher education and CCTs would have a strong impact on the stability of democracy and equality. These programs and ideas, that while at the time were useful, did not have the long term impacts or effects that were needed. Latin America has struggled with economic and social inequality since it was colonized, whether that be class struggle or race struggle. Even though most, if not all, Latin American countries are under some form of a democracy their peoples still struggle with being represented when the top percent of people hold all of the country’s wealth.
I like that you bring up colonization in your response. Personally, I blame colonization for Latin America’s poverty and inequality. Inequality was significant in the development of the Americas and when the Spanish invaded the continent, they exposed it to poverty by extracting their natural resources.
As we’ve talked about in class, the Gini coefficient is not always an accurate measure of equality. While it is true that Chile suffers from poverty, I can attest to the fact that most Chileans are pretty well off. Also in Chile, especially in Valparaíso, there is a university at almost every metro stop, not even 10 miles away from each other. I was very surprised when I learned that a yearly tuition in Chile costs around $5,000, something that some Chileans struggle to afford, but a lot of them also benefit from performing little acts on the street, metro, restaurants etc. in order to bring in some extra income.
I would disagree with Fukuyama about CCTs strongly impacting social and economic equality because like we’ve also learned in class, it would be hard to measure educational achievement and it would only act as a temporary solution to what seems like a never ending problem. I also think that most democracies in Latin America are corrupt and it’s going to take a long time to fix the economic instability, perhaps a few presidential terms, because it’s not something that can be fixed overnight.