More Hugo and His Plan for LA

Writing in the Hoover Digest where he hangs his hat William Ratliff uses W's tour of LA as an excuse to assess Hugo's vision for LA:

Polls in Latin America have found Bush slightly more popular personally than Chávez, but many Latins nonetheless resonate in varying degrees to much of what the Venezuelan has to say, and much more so now than 10 years ago. He has eagerly taken the role Fidel Castro held for decades as the region’s foremost anti-American purveyor in chief of false hope. If one flushes out the incessant ad hominem attacks on Bush and other American leaders, Chávez’s message can be boiled down to three points:

1. Most of Latin America is plagued by seemingly intractable poverty and inequality.
2. The United States and entrenched domestic elites and institutions are responsible for this.
3. Chávez’s “twenty-first-century socialism” is the hope for the impoverished masses who seek a free and prosperous future.

He is dead right on the first point, partly right on the second, and dead wrong on the third.

On to our friend Hugo:

Chávez is a newfangled old-fashioned caudillo who is far more inclined toward faith than objective analysis. That faith is in Himself, the new messiah whose gospel is twenty-first-century socialism. Chávez talks of socialism, but his style is left-fascism; his sermons and actions lead to authoritarian paternalism, and not the nurturing sort. Its essence is simple: “Go home, gringo, and leave Latin America to Latins—and to Me.”

This is the earthly salvation offered by every Chavista messiah in Latin America today. But tragically, Chávez’s gospel is just corked wine in a new bottle. Twenty-first-century socialism is an aggressive and globalized rehash of the type of rule that caused and sustained Latin America’s underdevelopment over the centuries. It is the latest adaptation of the late fifteenth-century Iberian view of God, man, and institutions that over many centuries made and kept Latin America the most unequal region on earth.

Stop for a second..."most unequal region on earth." Is it really more unequal than Africa? It's not that I don't believe him but give me a stat or a footnote.

So what does LA need?

Thus Latin America’s real needs now, as in centuries past, are precisely the opposite of Chavista authoritarian socialism. It needs greater pluralism, economic liberalization, truly free trade, much higher-quality governance, greatly expanded and improved education, and more opportunity under impartial law. These policies must be put into practice in individual countries by their own leaders with popular insistence and support. Latin America is not likely to have reforms in an “Asian” mold, for those have often relied on superior leaders combining vision, realism, and patience who have not turned up often in the Latin world. Up to now, most Latins have been unwilling, which is their choice, or unable to significantly modify traditional cultural or institutional norms that prevent their societies from growing like the Asian “tigers” and “dragons.” Thus, much of Latin America is rapidly falling behind other parts of the developing world, particularly Asia.

As for our role, it is not so well defined in this piece -

Although U.S. policy itself cannot erase this Latin tradition of avoiding responsibility, it can foster reform, if Latins want it enough to sacrifice for it. Such reform also would serve U.S. interests. Besides changing some of the counterproductive U.S. policies toward Latin America, which no recent president yet has been able to do, there are other steps we can take.

President Bush’s newly discovered interest in social justice and other issues at the top of Latin agendas is a big step in the right direction. His 2007 trip was far more effective than the one to the APEC forum in Santiago, Chile, in late 2004, when he struck out with Latin public opinion while a much more personable Chinese President Hu Jintao was hitting a home run.

Finally our focus should not necessarily be on Chavez but the rest of LA:

Despite his links to Iran and Russia, Chávez is primarily a threat not to the United States but to the well-being of Latin Americans. His “socialism” will further reduce their chances of prospering or even surviving in the modern world—and that is what collides most seriously with the interests of the United States. Thus our strategy in combating him and his ideas is more constructive attention to the region as a whole, not direct combat with Caracas.