Economic perspective of People's Daily: What happened to Latin American economy?
The root of poor economic stability in Latin America lies in excessive foreign debts. Latin America can be said to be the hardest hit by neoliberalism. In 1980s, debt crisis and economic crisis broke out in Latin America. At this point, neoliberalism took advantage of it. From 65438 to 0985, the United States put forward the Baker Plan based on neoliberalism on the grounds of solving the debt crisis in Latin America. The plan requires Latin American countries to privatize state-owned enterprises, further open the domestic market, relax restrictions on foreign investment and realize price liberalization. By the early 1990s, the US government, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank even used the additional conditions of loans to force Latin American countries to carry out neo-liberal economic reforms, that is, to promote the "Washington Knowledge". The momentum, scope and influence of neo-liberal economic reform in Latin America are unprecedented in Latin American history. Some people call it an "economic coup" in Latin America. Although this reform has achieved some results, for example, some countries have changed from a closed import substitution model to an export-oriented development model, and hyperinflation has been controlled to a certain extent. But on the whole, the "reform" action is big and the development effect is small. Moreover, the neo-liberal reform in Latin America has brought a series of serious problems, such as the privatization of state-owned enterprises, which has concentrated some industries on private capital and foreign capital, and the unemployment problem has become more serious; The problem of unfair income distribution is becoming more and more prominent, and polarization and poverty are very serious; National enterprises are in trouble; The function of the state is obviously weakened, and the coordinated development of society is seriously ignored; Financial liberalization has led to financial crises, such as the Mexican financial crisis of 1994, the Brazilian currency crisis of 1999 and the Argentine debt crisis of 200 1. It is not difficult to see from the analysis that before and at the beginning of the reform, the economic growth and social development of Latin American countries were relatively stable, but with the implementation of neo-liberal policies, the situation deteriorated obviously. It is understood that Argentina, whose GDP once ranked ninth in the world, has become a poor country in the region. Of course, there is a great debate on this issue in academic circles: some think that the Argentine crisis is the inevitable result of neo-liberal reform; Others believe that neo-liberal policies led to the Argentine crisis, but this is not the only reason. But if they don't implement the neo-liberal reform, it won't lead to the crisis. With the implementation of neo-liberalism, Argentina has implemented a drastic privatization reform of state-owned enterprises, making foreign-funded enterprises occupy a dominant position in the national economy, so that it is difficult to borrow from foreign financial institutions because they cannot find state-owned assets that can be mortgaged in the economic crisis, resulting in the closure of a large number of national enterprises, and the unemployment rate in some cities is as high as 15-20%.