Ciao!: Back in Bolivia

Back in Bolivia

02.22.2005

Things heat up again in Bolivia. Figures. The Aguas de Illimani story’s making rounds again, especially since the government may not be able to follow through on its knee-jerk, populist bluster about kicking out the French-owned company. JSB sent me this Times article. Here’s a reaction to said Times article from the lefty-but-honest Blog from Bolivia.

The key problem one must honestly look at it is: How to do all the things one wants a state to do (i.e. provide basic services to its citizens) w/o foreign money (e.g. the majority of Bolivia’s public spending comes from foreign aid). Globalization may be unpopular for some of its excesses, but globalized charity keeps Bolivia alive.

Here’s a related post by MABB. See, it sounds great to just raise the anti-globalization banner of “foreign capitalists out!” But what next? Those foreign capitalists bring billions of dollars into the economy, which means jobs. You kick enough of them out, the rest pull out on their own. And then it doesn’t matter how much gas reserves you have, if no one’s willing to come & drill them out for you (or you end up using outdated, environmentally unfriendly, and wasteful & corrupt infastucture to “do it yourself”). Right?

John Galt left Bolivia a long time ago.

Posted by Miguel at 07:39 PM

Comments

Jim Shultz says: "Ultimately, if Bolivians are going to get real access for water it's going to have to be subsidized and it's going to have to be subsidized in some form of foreign assistance."

I'm usually all for privatization, but where it fails, it fails. If we consider restoring basic water services to the tsunami victims villages an urgent need, worth of 100's of millions of dollars in charity, I'd have no problem doing the same in Africa or South America. Think of the productive time you would free up from the folks who get ill, or who have to transport water all the time, etc... These people could be more productive for their economies. Down the road, the communities and eventually individuals through rates could pay for the maintenance of these systems. But, as Jim mentions, the installation is where the upfront big time bucks prevent folks from tapping in. Let's just do it.

Am I being naive?

Posted by: j.scott barnard at February 23, 2005 02:13 PM

I don't think you're being naive. And we may have to ultimately subsidize Bolivian people's water (I'd view it, like you, as a long term investment in global economic prosperity). But I'd also like to see more gratitude to the help, and not this knee-jerk reaction against it. It's like giving a beggar a dollar as you walk by, and then having the beggar spit on you. After a while, you just don't want to put money in their cup anymore.

Posted by: Miguel at February 23, 2005 04:05 PM