Professor offers a Critical Look at the New Left in Latin America

April 13, 2007

On Thursday, April 12 the Latin American Studies Department at Grand Valley State University hosted University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor Patrick Barrett who presented on the topic of "The New Latin American Left: Utopia Reborn?" Professor Barrett is part of the New Haven Center and is involved with the Midwest Social Forum.

To put in perspective what the speaker meant about the New Left in Latin America he began with a quote from Jorge Castaneda's book Utopia Unarmed, which for all practical purposes was saying that the left in Latin America by the early 1990s was pretty much dead. The pro-business, pro-US politicians pretty much had control of the region and Neo-liberalism was triumphant. However, that same year began with the EZLN uprising in Mexico, with a totally different message than what Castaneda had written. Professor Barrett stated that:

"Today, there are new political leaders, social movements, and particularly indigenous movements throughout the region. There are also new economic models and innovative economic redistribution programs. Now ethnicity, gender and culture are part of the formula, again particularly around a sensitivity to indigenous issues. What I believe is that there is not a new Latin American Left, but lefts - many different fronts. This is all happening now, so it is difficult to say where it is going, but we can identify its origins and achievements."

The origins of the New Left come out of the end of the Old Left demise, which culminated with the electoral loss of the Sandinistas in 1990. This also coincided with the growth of poverty and low wage work and a crisis amongst the academic liberal establishment, where the traditional Leninist Vanguard came under increasing scrutiny. There were four main factors in the rise of the New Left. 1) The economic consequences of Neo-liberal Policies, which were increased poverty and inequality. This disparity was exposed with the 1994 Zapatista uprising. As a result of this increased poverty, New Left governments also grew in places like Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, and Venezuela. 2) There was an emergence of new social factors like revitalized labor, campesinos, landless people and indigenous movements. 3) There was greater discontent with all political parties...Que Se Vayan todos - which means, "throw them all out!" This statement reflected that social movements were not happy with any of the existing political parties. 4) There has been a revitalization of the New Left on a global scale, evidenced by the Anti-WTO action in Seattle, the World Social Forum http://www.wsf2007.org/, and the growing opposition to the US war in Iraq.

The search for an alternative to Neo-liberalism has generated intense debates throughout Latin America. The dilemma is defined by fact that the same reasons that swept political parties out of power have been inherited by the new left governments. Brazil is a good example, with Lula coming to power in 2002. Some capitalists left the country, which caused problems, but Lula's predecessor took on a huge loan from the IMF, which furthered the Neo-Liberal plan. Lula, caught in this dilemma, appointed economic conservatives to positions in government to oversee these IMF policies. So, the difficulty is how to promote an alternative? The New Left Agenda in some ways takes for granted market forces while calling for social reforms, thus the outcomes are very limited change. One consequence is that the new left governments are being pressured from forces on the left and right. Professor Barrett felt that "In many ways Latin America is sort of a laboratory to see how possible it is for significant social change to take place."

There are some encouraging small-scale changes with greater community control of resources in countries like in Bolivia. On a national level there has been a change to greater nationalization of resources and an emphasis on South/South relations, meaning trade amongst each other and under the terms dictated by countries in the South, not by the US. Venezuela is also proposing an alterative to CNN for the South as a means to present news and information from a Latin American perspective.

Professor Barrett next addressed the various players towards social change - social movements, Political Parties and governments. Of these three, social movements are the most important. They provide a primary impetus for social change, through labor organizing, farmers and campesino groups, and indigenous movements in places like Bolivia and Ecuador. Where political parties have been most successful, they have relied on social movements - countries like Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina. The EZLN has had the biggest impact with their idea of taking power without taking state power. Others argue that the EZLN view surrenders too much of the state to the political right. In other words, the state should be seen as a strategic terrain, with the hopes of democratizing the state in such a way that it is more vulnerable to movements from below. Struggle over the state have been very intense with constitutions being re-written, like in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia. There is also recognition of democracy not being limited to representative democracy, with an increase in more participatory forms.

Political parties can serve this change by being a political arm of the social movements. They can also provide the state with a strategic direction. However, the imperative of winning elections is inherently in conflict with the demands of social movements. When parties assume office they generally want stability even if it means betraying social movements that got them elected. The Lula government is a good example of this since they have separated themselves from the workers party that got Lula elected. In Mexico, there is a division between the electoral left and the social movements. Even in Venezuela, where Chavez wants to create a broad political party, the problem is that Venezuela does not have strong enough social movements. The best scenario is that social movements push political parties, which if in office create more opportunities for greater social change. This is sort of the case is Bolivia, but in most cases there is too much division and fragmentations. A New Left movement will depend on what level the various sectors will participate in and collaborate with each other to make lasting change. Professor Barrett concluded by stating that it is to early to tell what the outcome will be and things are changing so fast that anything is possible.

After the lecture, Media Mouse had a chance to interview Professor Barrett and discuss other aspects of the New Left in Latin America. Listen to the interview on the audio section of the site.