The recently reelected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is widely seen as part of the potentially dangerous surge of the left in the region. But Chavez is more caudillo than leftist, and his popularity is propelled by people's desire to see quick fixes to age-old problems, rather than a special affinity for specifically leftist solutions. And though Chavez would like to ape his mentor Fidel Castro and become president for life, the parallel is limited: the Cuban dictator dwarfs Chavez in savvy and foresight.

Public opinion polls show that most Latins have pragmatic concerns: more and better food and housing, jobs with higher incomes, serious education for their kids and equal opportunities and security under impartial law. However ideal Hispanic civilization may be in some ways, for centuries the vast majority of its leaders, parties, ideas and institutions have failed to respond to these popular needs and aspirations. The failures have stoked immense popular frustration, now often leading to massive demonstrations that topple governments or electoral victories for probably well-meaning, yet scapegoating demagogues like Chavez and his foreign acolytes.

Latin America Leans Left?

Calling Latin leaders and movements "leftist" explains little. Yes, members of socialist-type parties and fronts are now presidents in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Peru. But their economic policies, with their emphasis on monetary stability and market growth, owe far more to Milton Friedman than to Karl Marx.

Most Americans who are concerned about the region point to what is usually called the "new left", inspired by old leftist Castro, now led by Chavez. But while Chavez can con and sometimes actually help some of the poor of Venezuela-and elsewhere-he and his followers lack Castro's savvy when it comes to dealing with the world. Fidel had no grip on economic realities, but he had a coherent game-plan and could think ahead and follow through. Chavez, by contrast, displays more ambition and spleen than coherent ideology and judgment. He has risen in the region because of Venezuela's vast oil wealth, an advantage Fidel never had, and because he has made himself the noisiest spokesperson for Latin America's current wave of frustration and anti-Americanism.

Hating America

Chavez and his Latin American acolytes tend to be demagogic, improvisational, super-nationalistic, advocating populist/fascist economic policies that failed in the past and will fail in the future. And they are anti-American, which in Latin America has always been common both on the left and right.

We are an obvious target. We have long been the dominant economic, political and sometimes military power in the Americas and while some of our impact has been positive, some has not. Like others, we have often taken advantage of the enduring structure of Latin civilization, where the real development problems lie, and used it to our own advantage. We supported dictators during the Cold War and trade arrangements that history suggests largely benefit the elites.

Today one must add that anti-Americanism is obviously rampant throughout the world, both a reaction to our hyper-power status itself but also to how we use our influence and military power, particularly to what most consider arrogant and counterproductive wars in Iraq and against drugs. To many, these and other actions seem to confirm what Castro, Chavez and many others call the self-serving, predatory nature of "U.S. imperialism." 

The Feel-Good Cop-Out.

This brings us to one of oldest and most debilitating characteristics of many Latin Americans, namely the compulsion to blame their problems on someone else. Kishore Mahbubani, a prominent diplomat in the little powerhouse of Singapore, once drew up a list of commandments for countries that want to develop. The first: don't blame others for your past failures. Doing so guarantees that a country will never objectively analyze its past and thus will repeat it. 

Scapegoating has long been a national pastime in Latin America. In the twentieth century, the United States was usually the scapegoat of choice. We still are, though as China's economic contacts expand in the region, Latins in some countries increasingly blame the Chinese too for their problems. 

The wisest thing Bolivian President Evo Morales has said is that inequality in Bolivia dates back hundreds of years. But while he is right that the foundations of inequality are long-term, cultural and institutional, he still demonizes the United States. Most recently, while visiting Havana he said Latin America should form a "grand alliance with the countries of the Middle East in order to break with North American imperialism." But here he slips into the cop-out mode. If one believes that the root of Latin America's economic failures is mainly in its Iberian heritage, why have so many generations of Latin American leaders and people failed to break free? That isn't mainly America's fault.

Chavez's Impact in the Americas

Alvaro Vargas Llosa is correct in saying that Evo Morales was "made in America" because he became known in Bolivia for his opposition to U.S. drug policies. But Morales also received a major electoral boost from his association with Chavez. Chavez's later involvement in other Latin elections had mixed results. His favorites won in Ecuador and Nicaragua and they did well but lost in Peru and Mexico, where many voters responded negatively toward the Venezuelan involvement. Still those losers may win next time if current leaders seem to fail to satisfy, which is likely.

In Bolivia, Morales followed Chavez's lead in forcing foreign oil companies to renegotiate energy contracts so that they give far greater control and earnings to the national government. Ecuador and other countries have flirted with "nationalization." Such is the scramble for energy worldwide that almost all companies, from Brazil's state-owned Petrobras to private foreign firms, have ultimately accepted tougher Venezuelan and Bolivian terms. In the short run these policies will bring in more money, though they make further investments less attractive, particularly if the price of energy should significantly decline.

Chavez hates "Devil" George W. Bush, but like Fidel, his real enemy is the United States generally. If Chavez is prepared to have a completely different relationship with a Democrat in the White House, particularly one named Clinton, as "senior Venezuelan diplomats privately admitted" to BBC in early December, then the superficiality of his analysis knows no bounds. Chavez has told China that Venezuela will provide 20 percent of its oil import needs in the future, though Venezuela could not possibly accomplish that until long after Bush is out of office. Unless Chavez's critique of "U.S. imperialism" is an absolute travesty, he intends to eventually cut us off from Venezuela's massive oil and gas reserves, whomever is in the White House. Indeed, to the degree that he is successful in promoting a global movement against us, his real hope is to cut us off from the world.

Chavez's main immediate challenge to the United States is his stirring up and focusing latent, potentially explosive anti-Americanism in the region. And he is rapidly arming the nation on the grounds that the United States intends to invade, acquiring Su-30 fighter planes, Mi-35 assault helicopters and 100,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles from Russia, much of which is not needed for national defense.

The best way to reduce the appeal of Chavismo is to expand trade and other ties in the region and broaden our interests beyond our current narrow security concerns of terrorism, drugs and immigration. And patently obviously we must greatly reduce our dependence on the oil that gives all this clout to thuggish regimes all over the world. 

In the end, however, Latin America will continue to generate Castros and Chavezes, no matter what we do, until its people demand and get real change. Some "old leftists" and "centrists" are trying today, with limited success. But ever more Latins are again looking for miracles from messiahs, for quick fixes from Chavez-type caudillos. Nothing will really transform Latin America, however, except good leaders with broad popular support implementing sound, pragmatic political, economic and educational programs over the long term. And that, alas, is not yet happening in much of the hemisphere.

Far too many in Latin America are still chasing the horizon. I am reminded of a poem from Stephen Crane's "The Black Riders" collection.

I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never -- "

"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.

 

William Ratliff is a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and an adjunct fellow at the Independent Institute. He is co-author, along with Roger Miranda, of The Civil War in Nicaragua: Inside the Sandinistas (Transaction Publishers, 1993) and of The Law and Economics of Development (Hoover Press, 2000), with Edgardo Buscaglia, and a number of other books.