lunes, 30 de noviembre de 2009

Cuando la excepción confirma la regla

Las historias de superación económica donde la superación individual es el paradigma –¿recuerda la película: En busca de la felicidad protagonizada por Will Smith?– no tienen porque justificar un sistema de exclusión social. Sus héroes son personas admirables que demuestran inteligencia y determinación. Su indiferencia política al buscar la aprobación del poder en vez de desafiarlo no es más condenable que la de cualquier otro ciudadano. Sin embargo, es necesario que existan también personas con conciencia de clase que gestionen políticas de equidad social, que piensen en el bien colectivo y de clase antes que en el personal. La oligarquía ama esas historias de superación pues legitiman el régimen de exclusión. Olvidan que estas son excepciones, excepciones que confirman la regla.

miércoles, 18 de noviembre de 2009

El agro colombiano: dilemas, intereses y propuestas

En respuesta al post: Los biocombustibles: otro capítulo dudoso de la estrategia agro-exportadora por Darío Fajardo. Publicado en Razón Pública.

Por fin alguien que pone la llaga en el dedo! Gracias Dario. No olvidemos tampoco que esta apertura selectiva se remonta al gobierno de Cesar Gaviria. Su continuidad se explica gracias al lobby de la industria azucarera y de palma. Recordemos que mientras el gobierno abrió el mercado de los granos, hizo una arbitraria excepción con la caña de azúcar aún protegida arancelariamente. La apertura benefició directamente a la industria cuya materia prima son los granos (maíz, soya, algodón, etc.). Muchas de ellas no eran industrias nacionales, sino multinacionales atraídas por mano de obra barata, pero no muy interesadas en subsidiar el agro nacional. Colombia renunció a su vocación agrícola con la apertura. Quizás en buena fé se intentó cambiar un modelo de protección arancelaria por un modelo subsididado por industrias emergentes que se esperaba producieran con mayor valor agregado y por ende rentabilidad. Hasta que punto fue exitosa esta política? vale la pena hacer un estudio al respecto. Si acaso se produjo más tributo tras el empujón que a la industria dió la apertura, la reactivación subisidiada del agro está en veremos. Prueba de ello es el hecho de que el agro que sobrevive actualmente en el país se reduce a dos modalidades: el primero con potencial exportador pero protegido arancelariamente, es decir, un modelo de exportación virtual, pues es subisidiado por el consumo nacional. A este grupo pertenece el azucar y los bio-combustibles. La segunda modalidad es la de productos cuyas condiciones físicas hacen que su exportación o importación se dificulten ya sea porque son altamente perecederos o porque su producción a gran escala es demasiado costosa. Estos productos gozan de relativa buena salud dentro del mercado interno. A ellas pertenecen la mayoría de frutas y hortalizas –existen excepciones a esta clasificación como lo es el banano y las flores–. A mi parecer, es perenne revisar el modelo económico y agrícola del país. En una economía globalizada e industrial, es bien sabido que el agro debe ser subsidiado. Colombia, a pesar del discurso neoliberal –tan caro en la última década del s. XX– y con contadas excepciones, no ha podido demostrar la autonomía económica del agro (fuimos más papistas que el papa). Es hora de que se revise el absolutismo neoliberal. Debemos fomentar la demanda interna no con medidas arancelarias que contradicen nuestros intereses por un mercado abierto, sino con una política que fomente cultivos con alto empleo por unidad de área. En esta última categoría entran precisamente las frutas y hortalizas. Esto sin desconocer que existen cultivos de "colonización" que permiten una provisional explotación de grandes superficies cultivables a relativo bajo costo –dentro de los cuales se encuentra la caña de azúcar, la palma y las especies maderables–. Debemos buscar una política tributaria que distribuya inteligentemente ambas vocaciones agrícolas a lo largo de la geografía nacional; asignando a la agricultura intensiva, tierras con mayor acceso a los centros urbanos y por ende con mayor demanda laboral y a la agricultura extensiva, tierras periféricas, lejos de los centros urbanos, pero de gran extensión como la Orinoquía. El gobierno no ha logrado distinguir entre estas dos vocaciones agrícolas y por ende la mayor cantidad de fondos se va para la agricultura extensiva en movimientos que a menudo esconden un interes especulativo de la propiedad raíz. Es hora de ser y exigir coherencia en las políticas agrícolas.

Otros artículos relacionados: El agro no florece (2008) por Mauricio Cabrera.

sábado, 7 de noviembre de 2009

Democracy, Liberalism and Capitalism: a Mysterious Trinity?

I believe the relation between democracy and capitalism should be revisited in account of the recent incorporation of democracy in the communist discourse –not to be confused with the discourse of social-democracy, unlike communists they accept capitalism with social oriented interventions by the state–. This new communist discourse is arising in electoral democracies (Chávez' Venezuela, Ahmadinejad's Iran, etc.) and their strategy is to attain power through the suffrage. I identify at least two origins for this new turn: an un-democratic discourse as the one held by traditional communism wouldn't have reception in a society which is not against democracy but against social discrimination. Another factor is the need to legitimate their power against the "international opinion", in particular to the coalition of western democracies which exerts not only economic power –through mechanisms such as the UN's power of veto or the IMF– but also military force –through the OTAN–. The literature exploring the relations between democracy and capitalism is ill-fated by the anti-communist propaganda having its biggest expression during the Cold-War, where still the combined model was more a flag than a real tradition. In view of this I encourage studying the relation between democracy and liberalism which has been explored in greater depth by contemporary authors such as Jürgen Habermas and Norberto Bobbio, and to later review the productive relation between liberalism and capitalism as accumulated by recent history –by productive I don't mean cheerful–. It is my impression that the relation between liberalism and capitalism hasn't been treated rigorously enough; often seen as obvious or natural. As a democrat, my call is to approach these relations without giving them for granted; the historical moment exposed is motive enough. As these communist governments attain power, they declare war on capitalism. Will real democracy survive in a communist regime? or will it become a mere ritual, an euphemism for autocratic regimes? –the latter question should also be answered by liberal economy–. Based on the historical evidence of illiberal democracies and of liberal nondemocracies, both concepts are seen as independent from each other [1]. Nevertheless authors such as Norberto Bobbio have emphasized their complementarity. The relation between democracy and liberalism has been approached in several ways. In contrast with Bobbio's synchronic approach, Fareed Zakaria shows a more diachronic version defending the thesis that liberalism is a historic precondition for democracy [2]. The latter thesis as defended by Zakaria even stands that a legitimate international policy for the coalition of western democracies is to promote liberal autocracies whenever there is a risk of an illiberal democracy. I believe that this is opposed to liberal ideals. In my opinion the sin of Zakaria and others alike is to overweight economic rights over civil rights in the liberal discourse. Democracy should be seen as an implication from civil rights; we cannot have civil rights without democracy. Because of this distortion we are giving the right to illiberal socialism to tag the defense of liberalism as a bourgeois enterprise instead of a humanist one. This doesn't means that we should find electoral democracy sufficient to legitimate power. I agree that electoral democracy don't have to engender real democracy. I refer to real democracy to differentiate it from electoral democracies, the latter characterized by the absence of many of the additional mechanisms necessary for the exercise of a democracy as suggested by its etymological interpretation: the power of and for the people. Most if not all of these mechanism are present in the liberal ideals. This is precisely what the complementarity between democracy and liberalism should stand for; democracy should be seen as an implication of civil rights while the whole of liberal rights and duties should be seen as the medium for real democracy. We should not fall again into the misleading conception where democracy does not longer aspire to be an act of demographic choice but an idea of what is good for the people, a misconception in which are prone the radical liberals, the communists and the neocolonialists [3]. Finally I advice that the goal of a synthetic definition of democracy cannot prescind from its analytical approach even at the risk of never achieving their ultimate components. To most if not all of these questions only the coming history will answer, but historical insight and serious debate should bring, either hope for heterodox democracies or prevent them from going too far in the wrong direction.

Related links and references: Liberalism and Democracy: Can't Have One Without the Other by Marc F. Plattner published by Foreign Affairs (1998). The Future of Freedom: Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad by Fareed Zakaria.

[1] Authors such as Fareed Zakaria see examples of liberal autocracies in monarchic England, current Hong Kong and even Pinochet's Chile. I believe that this examples show the prevailing conception where liberalism is equated with capitalism (the limitation of state power on economy) letting aside other characteristics of the liberal ideals such as the limitation of state power on civil rights.

[2] Zakarias takes England as the case example. What does he has to say about the French revolution where constitutional democracy and liberalism took place at the same time? perhaps it could be argued that political liberalism preceded constitutional democracy.

[3] Take for example the liberal autocracy preceding Iran's revolution. Despite the inner and external conflict released after the revolution, western democracies should keep pursuing a democratic agenda for Iran by supporting liberal initiatives and without giving a step back into the wrong direction; that of supporting allied dictatorial regimes.
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