Tuesday, August 9, 2016

teleSUR — Ecuador's Correa: 'Neoliberalism Has Failed, Not Socialism'

Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa rejected the notion that the leftist and revolutionary governments in Latin America have failed and instead posited that the real failure in the region has been the neoliberal economic model.
“Inequality in a poor country means misery, generalized misery. We must seek out other forms of developing ourselves that are distinct from those fantasies of trickle-down theories,” said President Correa in an interview Sunday.
For Correa the negative press regarding Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador—all led by governments that are proponents of socialism—is partly driven by the political agenda of private media outlets, which have been historically hostile to leftist regimes.…

“Growth is important … but not just any kind of growth, it must be quality growth, growth that favors the poor, growth with social justice, growth with equity,” said Correa.
For the president, the successes of socialism of the 21st century can be seen in the reduction of inequality and poverty experienced in the aforementioned countries.…

4 comments:

Kaivey said...

Unless the poor and ordinary people get good wages capitalism, can't work. You can have a harsh capitalism if you want red raw in tooth and nail, which brings out invasion through competition, but you would need to have a basic income too. Then people can hop in and out of capitalism as they please.

Very clever people can battle it out in the market place designing fantastic products. It would be easy for them to take risks because they will have the basic inside to fall back on. But there might have to be a rule that they can't get a loan based on their basic income. This is to protect it.

Ignacio said...

Yes, but excessively centralised socialism also fails. Neoliberalism has this trait, is socialism for the rich through corporate welfare (that's why it's failing).

Unfortunately there is no push for more market-socialism oriented approach with more power for local govt and business (this would have been also more in-line with the vision of some of the foudners of USA). Only those areas which benefit really from centralisation and coordination at national level or economies of scale should be centralised, but as much as possible only relying on planning, not on management of assets and operations. And when done it shouldn't be from a dogmatic position, just approach the problems pragmatically, if the solution doesn't work drop it and do not stick to it because "-ism".

Stupid complicated policies which do not work would have to be dropped. Take Venezuela, their failure is of their own due, they don't have the resource scarcity most of the West has (compared to their consumption at least), they should have no problems organising and providing supply, but instead the central government has implemented an extremely complicated and stupid exchange system that produces the kind of paradoxes that make the system fail.

The problem is always the same, an stupid self-righteous and entitled elite who wants to gather power and control instead of trying to improve on others.

Matt Franko said...

" But there might have to be a rule that they can't get a loan based on their basic income. "

How would you then handle the savings? Or are you suggesting people would not save if they had a BIG? I think people would STILL save...

Then what?

Peter Pan said...

Place an expiry date on money kept as savings. That would take care of unnecessary hoarding behavior.