Maybe no other Democracy is evolving more than Latin American Democracy.
A few months ago I told you about Latin America turns to left and I said
that It could be a case of emergence. Process seems to be
consolidating, during the last month two left presidents were reelected
and a new one was elected. But in my opinion there are other features
more important behind left presidents phenomena. It's not as simple as
'apparition' of populist candidates or isolated leaders, in fact in
some countries there is a consolidation of solid left democratic
parties. But not only are appearing or emerging left parties, members
of traditional Liberal and Conservator parties are conforming the right
party. It's a very interesting feature of the new Latin American
democratic tendency. Maybe is an irony, but left could finally
consolidate Democracy in Latin America because political power is no
more exclusive of the same white families whom had been dominating
politics along two centuries.
Right politics tends to deny it, but political debate in Latin America
turns around property, is a debate over social classes. Left parties
consider necessary to replace current economical model. This region is
consider the most inequitable of the world and neoliberalism is
increasing it. Huge unemployment, huge subemployment, population with
unsatisfied basic needs are pushing. Unfortunatelly, I think left will
not return job to people because modern production systems have changed
and robots, smart software and biotechnology have replaced the worker.
In my opinion It's the biggest obstacle for left consolidation and of
course common people just claim for job. Probably left governments will
be obligated to appeal to drastic measures. Maybe they are considering
two or three strategies: recover by expropriation totally or partially
the property of strategic companies recently sold by neoliberal
governments, or agree with these foreign companies a redistributions
of profits. Of course, land property redistribution claimed since 60's
could be implemented. In fact, It already started to occur in two
countries and is generating tensions with a couple of developed nations.
But those developed countries are unable to invoke to traditional
intervention because are not treating with a lonely sheep out of the
flock. And it's other important feature: democratic left is creating a
block in the region.
Phil Henshaw wrote:
Marcus wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
In my experience those societies that have some homogeneity also are
the most tolerant and therefore diverse ideas do emerge. Sweden and
even Poland.
Make the group like the individual and vice versa and then
self-preservation is group-preservation, and vice versa.
It risks making the group slower moving, but a collective
cognition is a
potential economy of scale. Does one want to optimize for
diverse ideas
or strong execution on a few ideas? The latter can be very
profitable
and have excellent survival characteristics, especially in the United
States.
I think the developed world is a really remarkable new thing on earth.
It's huge, but still doubles in size and complexity approximately every
20 years. Clearly one of the things it prospers from is an incredible
tolerance and need for all different kinds of skills and interests.
When you earn money, you have no idea what your customer will do with
the product you give to them and neither do they know what you'll do
with the money you're paid. It's a marvelous and essential fact of how
things work in an economy, that every exchange essentially has no
purpose, because the next person in the exchanges of the usual
'earning-spending chain' is entirely free to do whatever they like with
what they take away from it. What it does produce is the kind of well
oiled machine that no one in a billion years could possibly design, or
even actually understand.
What takes a while to see is that we are actually in danger of loosing
that, because of a certain intolerance built into the other form of
economic exchange, the 'saving-investment chain'. That's the one with
exponential strings attached to each transaction that form a rigid
behavioral requirement for the recipients. You must add a percent to
the pile if you're to remain in business.
It may well be that settled and cohesive societies that have low social
barriers and general tolerance for individual differences, treating
everyone as an equal, will more readily respond to change and
successfully answer threats to their survival. I think I observe
something of the kind in the response of the low crime areas of New York
City to the crack epidemic in the 80's. The curves clearly show that
they responded much earlier and much more effectively to the scourge
that overtook the 'wild cowboy' neighborhoods of East New York,
Brownsville, Harlem and the South Bronx.
Social structure does matter, but 30 doublings, a reasonable estimate of
the multiplication of wealth since the modern age of growth began, is
more than the acceleration of a meter per second, a nice slow walk, to
the speed of light. The plan for the earth is to keep doubling the size
and complexity of our own lives and impacts on the planet every 20 years
or so, forever. We call it 'stability'. The question is, what sort
of mind notices such curious things? Is it an efficient one, skipping
all the non-essential tasks? Is it one that's comfortable with the way
things are, is tolerant and helps people get along? Or is it one with
a habit of poking around and shaking things up? I observe nature is a
mix, and if you don't know all three of those ways of getting along,
you're not up to speed.
David Breecker wrote:
If Paul is correct, this is fascinating. Perhaps there is some
minimum threshold of confidence in the integrity of our
"self," beyond
which we can afford to be tolerant of the "other"
Not just integrity of self, but more-seriously the reliability of the
leadership of the collective. There's no point in serving an ideal
that isn't individually beneficial if the ideal it serves has been
compromised by corruption. It seems to me a society (or
organization)
with sufficient wealth to nurture the development of complex
skills, and
a culture that valued full utilization of the individual,
could be very
healthy and still protect itself from competing strategies. However,
it's not clear that psychological health and performance are tightly
correlated. I mean, even if corporate workers are miserable, it
depends whether they are operating at 20% or 80% mental efficiency
compared to their peers in a more Utopian system.
Self-esteem is very hard to come bye sometimes, and it's equally
difficult for others to nourish in an individual that is an unknown
commodity. My 19 year old son is in that in-between world, where
there's relatively very little evidence of his taking charge, so that
his parents are apt to leap at any small sign. It certainly helps to
remember that I was a lot worse, though, so I also sympathize with the
parents who were prodigies and have normal kids. 'Finding one's self'
is not an efficient process, and steadily doubling the amount of
learning required for basic functioning in the 'collective' is
problematic. I think the 'leadership of the collective', as Marcus
puts it, is showing a peculiar negligence in this regard. We're simply
not making a world that's possible to operate in a huge variety of ways.
Our leaders today are the kind who drive the ship of state off an
obvious cliff and then crawl out of the wreck on the barren canyon floor
talking confidently about how they're finally getting the knack of
steering. It could almost make one intolerant...
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
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============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
