Read more about InAlienable.
Support Quixote Center’s InAlienable program!
InAlienable
Daily Dispatch
November 11, 2019
Net migration rate is a measure of the number of people arriving in a country minus the number of people leaving the country per 1,000 residents. If the rate is negative, more people are leaving than arriving. Bolivia’s net migration rate has been steadily approaching zero over the last 17 years from -1.47/1,000 in 2000 to -0.5 in 2017. There are still more people leaving than arriving, but when adjusted for population, the rate is one-third the rate in 2000. Though the trend was in place prior to Morales’ election, net migration has continued to narrow at a significant pace since 2006 - falling over half in that time. This is one of the lowest rates in Latin America. One of the reasons is that Bolivia has witnessed extraordinary economic growth over the past 13 years.
The Center for Economic and Policy Research released a study in October on Bolivia’s economic reforms. From the summary:
- By 2018, real GDP per capita had increased by 50 percent above its 2005 level. While the region overall has experienced a sharp slowdown over the last five years, Bolivia’s per capital GDP growth was the highest in South America. Since 2006, Bolivia’s real per capita GDP has grown at double the rate for Latin America.
- In the first eight years of the Morales administration, national government revenue from hydrocarbons increased nearly sevenfold, from $731 million to $4.95 billion. Most of the increased revenue resulted from nationalization and associated policy changes, including a doubling of production by 2013. These revenues were central to allowing the government to achieve macroeconomic stability and accomplish most of its other goals.
- Bolivia’s unemployment was nearly halved (from 7.7 percent to 4.4 percent) in 2008, and has continued at roughly around that level through 2018.
- Bolivia has recently held investment at very high levels as compared to the past, with investment averaging 21.8 percent of GDP annually in the past five years (2014–2018).
- Public investment has increased with the growth of Bolivia’s economy, even during periods of unfavorable terms of trade. Bolivia has had the highest public investment, as a percent of GDP, in the region.
- Starting in 2010, Bolivia’s Central Bank has applied unconventional monetary policy through a quantitative easing program, in order to purchase financial instruments issued by state-owned enterprises as well as government bonds. In December, 2018, almost half (44 percent) of the Central Bank’s balance sheet was invested in domestic assets (up from 12 percent in 2010).
The paper also notes that “significant challenges remain,” in diversifying Bolivia’s export markets and products and reducing current account and public sector deficits, but that Bolivia’s public debt is fully sustainable.
CEPR notes that part of Bolivia’s success was ending formal agreement with the International Monetary Fund, eschewing the neo-liberal formula that has wreaked havoc in much of the rest of Latin America.
Yesterday this experiment with a mixed economic model, and the plurinational political coalition that made it possible, was seriously ruptured as the result of a coup d’etat. Evo Morales was forced to resign amidst threats from the military, leaving the country without a clear constitutional path forward. Whatever happens next, we can be assured of serious economic disruptions, and if the last two weeks is any indication, escalating violence from right-wing forces seeking to re-consolidate their grip on the country. This means an exodus of people.
The argument here is not that migration out of Bolivia is the concern, but that increased migration will be the unavoidable symptom of a structural crisis brought on by this effort to destroy what was otherwise a reasonably effective experiment in social democracy. Morales government was not perfect - what comes next, however, will be a debacle of human rights if this coup is allowed to stand.
What brought this on (in the short term) was a controversy over election tallies in the October 20 election. The reported vote gave Morales a large enough margin of victory to avoid a run-off. No one is arguing he didn’t receive the most votes - he clearly did. The accusation is that the tally was manipulated to ensure there would not be a run-off. This does not seem to be true. An analysis of the election results from the Center for Economic and Policy Research demonstrated that a late surge in votes for Morales was geographically determined, and consistent with previous elections, as more heavily pro-Morales precincts reported later in the process.
Nevertheless, the OAS seized on the narrative of vote manipulation - without ever providing evidence of such manipulation - to press for an overturning of election results. With the OAS pressing, demonstrations expanded dramatically, and ultimately the army took sides - against Morales. As Mark Wesbrot from CEPR noted, the OAS "never did find any evidence of fraud in the October 20th election, but the media repeated the allegation so many times that it became 'true,' in this post-truth world."
What happened in Bolivia yesterday was a coup d’etat, make no mistake about it, and the United States government is the biggest cheerleader. From Mark Wesbrot in The Nation last week.
Hours before the OAS press statement, and even longer before the votes were counted, Senator Marco Rubio stated falsely, “In #Bolivia all credible indications are Evo Morales failed to secure necessary margin to avoid second round in Presidential election.” He also alleged, without evidence, that there was “some concern he will tamper with the results or process to avoid this.” Trump administration officials followed with similar statements.
The potentially violence-promoting claims of the OAS, which echo those of Rubio and the Trump administration, have driven much of the media’s coverage, and serve as an anchor for those who want to discredit the election.
And so, we have another coup in Latin America, one supported by the United States, and one that will certainly lead to an explosion of violence, economic immiseration and dislocation if allowed to stand. Regime changes are not simply about replacing individual rulers, or institutional frameworks. They destroy lives. Foreign policy is immigration policy. Time after time the United States government makes clear that its conduct of foreign policy has nothing to do with democracy or human rights, but enforcing the law of market domination. They just did it again.