What a brilliant piece of writing! As someone who was previously uninformed about the Guatemala belt of countries, this article provided a thorough understanding of the issues. Although it took me an hour to read, every second was enthralling. Thank you, Matt, for such an enlightening piece!
Notes on El Salvador
121–130 of 210 posts
Re: Notes on El Salvador
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you really disregard its imperialistic history here - the foundation of the American economy was built on slave labour and colonisation (even if it was a late player), and you wish to completely ignore the role of the early western settlers in America.
> the foundation of the American economy was built on slave labour and colonisation (even if it was a late player) I thought the slave states were significantly poorer than the free states, a major advantage of the North in the Civil War? I'm sure it's been examined, but would the South have been better off with paid labor of free people? Countries using that model do far better. Imagine someone trying to compete wit…
The North also had twice the soldiers which probably doesn't hurt.
Re: Notes on El Salvador
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think this reduction in crime is only temporary. You still have a poor country full of desperate people, and it's only a matter of time before the criminal enterprise vacuum gets filled by the next generation. The slate did get wiped clean, but the root cause is still there.
A protection racket fills a power or monopoly on violence vacuum. The current government would seem to be filling this vacuum today.
I mean an "economic surplus" vacuum. There's lots of money to be made doing human and drug trafficking and the whole market in a country just got wiped out. And the citizens there are still poor. So it's only a matter of time before a group fills the void.
Re: Notes on El Salvador
#124Anyone that is interested in the “too centralized power vs. safety” topic should really read Leviathan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)
I read the whole article and admittedly most of my knowledge of El Salvador comes from it, but I do think that the critics seem to not understand the concept of monopoly of violence, and how much of the democratic norms that keep the developed world in check are built upon this centralized authority.
Great article and I do agree with his basic conclusion: so far, it’s “been worth it”, but the cost may be future instability. I think a lot of people want El Salvador to turn into a typical western democratic state, but IMO I think their goal is to be something more like Singapore.
Re: Notes on El Salvador
#125This is a great article; I didn't think I would read the whole thing but AFAIK, its a reasonable thorough account on the rise of Bukele. As an aside, I find it incredibly amusing that the China-funded library is decorated with rather Western culture - Harry Potter, Star Wars, and even Mario. Even Chinese money is used to uphold American cultural hegemony.
Harry Potter is British and Mario is Japanese...
The Harry Potter movies were directed by an American, written by an American, published and distributed by an American studio. Today, the franchise is owned by an American company. Mario was named after an American and inspired by an American cartoon character
I know where these characters originated from, and their global presence is distributed by American cultural hegemony. Trying to one-up me by denying the American influence and amplification of these franchises is senseless
Re: Notes on El Salvador
#126> Rather, the best case against Bukele is that he has created severe systemic political risk in El Salvador by converting the government from a democracy to a de facto dictatorship then hes in a good place to introduce some kind of monarchy, or personal transfer of power, someday. people want him to be dictator for life and he seems to be loved enough to receive it. democracy doesn't deal with gangs well enough to ma…
> then hes in a good place to introduce some kind of monarchy
I'm quite skeptical that that's the case. The basic problem is that a monarchy has an entirely different source of legitimacy from a modern popular dictatorship like Bukele's. What examples are there of this transition happening successfully? I guess you could maybe count North Korea, but even they haven't actually declared a monarchy... I could perhaps imagine it happening there, but that's a real extreme special case. A much more ordinary case like Bukele, I don't see it.
Re: Notes on El Salvador
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you really disregard its imperialistic history here - the foundation of the American economy was built on slave labour and colonisation (even if it was a late player), and you wish to completely ignore the role of the early western settlers in America.
> the foundation of the American economy was built on slave labour and colonisation (even if it was a late player) I thought the slave states were significantly poorer than the free states, a major advantage of the North in the Civil War? I'm sure it's been examined, but would the South have been better off with paid labor of free people? Countries using that model do far better. Imagine someone trying to compete wit…
Yes, one way (and the best way, IMO) to look at the Civil War is that the industrialized part of a country overcame the non-industrialized part. Most of the industrial successes in oil, trains, steel, etc. had their roots in or were dramatically accelerated by the war.
Re: Notes on El Salvador
#128My friend from Central America got upset when nearly everyone at a London party took turns to do coke in the bathroom. He told me a pretty harrowing story of how his family had had their lives ruined by drug gangs. A colleague of mine was on a flight when balloon of drugs burst inside a drug mule. They died. Our appetites fuel a cycle of violence and depravity.
Read the article. El Salvador's gangs are not narcotics traffickers like in Mexico or Colombia. They mainly extorted.
Re: Notes on El Salvador
#129My friend from Central America got upset when nearly everyone at a London party took turns to do coke in the bathroom. He told me a pretty harrowing story of how his family had had their lives ruined by drug gangs. A colleague of mine was on a flight when balloon of drugs burst inside a drug mule. They died. Our appetites fuel a cycle of violence and depravity.
There is a dead comment pointing this out, but El Salvador gangs are not primarily drug gangs. The article goes into it further, but the short version is: the gangs there are/were focused more on extortion, with a consequence being that they are dramatically less wealthy than drug organizations in Colombia and Mexico.
Re: Notes on El Salvador
#130Great article, but I do have one quibble. The author says El Salvador was not an interesting country to visit to him. Based on my personal experience the countryside is beautiful, the beaches are great and the people are lovely. Yes, the cities are "ugly" but I didn't mind San Salvador at all. I'm not the type to seek out nightlife though. It would be a shame to miss it if you're in the area.
Honest question, what do you mean be “if you’re in the area?” Like near San Salvador or in Latam? Or what area
Traveling in Central America. For example, a lot of people go to Guatemala or to Honduran beaches but skip El Salvador out of apprehension