Bolivia

by iosaf - 5th international Fri Feb 14, 2003 17:00 barcelona

Bolivia is a bolivarian republic of Latin America.
Its socialists, communists, anarchists, trade unionists have already expressed fraternal support for the Bolivarian Revolution and its present percieved popular leadership in Venezeuala and Brazil.
The people of Bolivia must now trust in the strength of grassroot movements and co-operation between all political elements of the Left and Liberation Theologists of the RC Church in the difficult times ahead which may bring military rule or food shortages.

by Mike Fri Feb 14, 2003 18:25 stepbystepfarm at shaysnet dot com

Else we will not be able to understand WHY some of these governments choose to obey the IMF.

National states are sovereign powers. They do not have to make these awful deals with the "bankers" and they can always choose to simply cancel the back debts. BUT THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES.

Essentially the "money lenders" know that they may at any point have to "write off" their loans to one or more debt ridden countries. So ask yourselves WHY do these countries not more frequently "default". The answer is NOT "they don't care about their people".

The sad truth is that the "bankers" CAN effectively retaliate. And they WILL retaliate so that any who do not submit can serve as an object lesson to others. It's very simple, they will simply not lend to the defaulting country for a decade or two. No matter what. In other words, no matter how many children starve as a result, etc.

What this means is that only a few debt beleagered countries CAN afford to say "forget it". That would be those which are in debt trouble not because what they consume costs more than what they produce but from some other "temporary" circumstance (say they lost a war or suffered a tmeporary environmental disaster).

STOP! This is occuring within the context of capitalism, but we should not be too quick to assume that doing away with capitalism will solve the problem. Thus it is possible that the people of one socialist country will choose to freely lend to another, or should I say "give" to another (because it's the "basket cases" which are in the worst fix). But this is NOT certain. After all, democracy only promises that decisions will be according to the will of the people, not that these will be "good" or "humanitarian" decisions. It is perfectly possible that the people of a better off socialist society will choose NOT to give up some of their goodies to keep people in another from starving.