Picking Up the Pieces: Currency Crashes, Political Crises, and Latin Americas Turn to the Left

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Picking Up the Pieces Currency Crashes,
Political Crises, and Latin Americas Turn to the
Left
Manuel Pastor UC Santa Cruz LALS 1. Introduction
to Latin American Latino Studies
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Starting With Mexico . . .
Just as NAFTA is adopted and modernity promised,
the country explodes and the currency melts
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Mexican GDP and Inflation, 1980-95
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WHAT LIES BENEATH

• Any positive change is laid on a very unequal
  starting structure and a tremendous accumulation
  of wealth at the top because of early gains.

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Whats the Lesson?

• Mexican economy is fundamental transformed in
  ways unexpected by left

• But the situation is very challenging for the
  poor and deeply-rooted problems remain

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Thinking about Argentina . . .
How did the market success story become the
basket case of the region?
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Argentina Becomes Poster Child for Reform

• Economic management gets past tequila shock

• Consumption spending on the rise
• Argentines contemplate a future as the financial
  services capital of Latin America

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The Sky is Falling, the Sky is Falling

• Government, seeing meltdown, imposes a bank
  freeze

• The middle class joins the poor in being upset
  with economic policy

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Protest and Presidents

• The country goes through five Presidents in two
  weeks

• A new president found his power limited and the
  IMF, once supporters, hostile to new policies

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Underemployment
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What Now for Argentina?

• Presidential elections bring Nestor Kirchner to
  power in 2003

• The International Monetary Fund and the U.S.
  remain wary Kirchner popular

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The Left Also Rises . . .
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What is the Future for Neoliberalism and the Left
in Latin America?

• The record is decidedly mixed, with results
  pleasing to neither right nor left

• The fundamental challenges of inequality remain
  central to the continental dilemma

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Social spending rose slightly over the period
(until the 2002 collapse) but targeted spending
declined.
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