Crikies, this article misses the point and creates wrong points all at the same time. Let’s say you were discussing this article with a friend who felt angry about the injustices of the “free market”, what angle would you take to increase the chances of their getting a little perspective?
I hate it when people think there can be a free market for an industry. There is only THE free market. So what they deregulated the water industry, have they done the same in other areas? The South Americas are radically socialist country so I don’t see this being true.
What injustice is there here? How many communities in mankind’s history have had to leave for greener pastures due to drought? The free-market assures that resources will be put to their most efficient allocation, that does not mean that the status-quo everywhere will improve for there are places, and industries that will have to be abandoned so that resources can be allocated to far better uses. When you can see “glimpses of raindrops above the foothills in the distance” move there, and don’t expect any sympathy from me when you’re living in a drought because you’ve chosen to live there. The free-market does not promise utopia, it doesn’t promise a lot of things, it merely provides humanity with the optimal system of improving one’s material living condition.
Hey man dont put all of us in the same category!
There are a lot of libertarians believers in free market, private property and individual rights in Latin America, its just the socialists bark louder.
That comment makes me pity Professor Salin’s situation in France.
“its just the socialists bark louder.”
state socialism has always been a welcomed improvement over the status quo for most people in brazil and venezuela. most people prefer humane slavery to state capitalism. real libertarians must admit that “free market reforms” that took place in eastern europe and south america were a sham. neoliberalism has not been welcomed anywhere in the world. we must make it clear that we dont associate with pinochet, yeltsin and reagan. what free marketeers have to do is show them that our world is not the one characterized by dickens, steinbeck and marx
Citizens no longer able to grow celery in sand dunes. World outraged at free market. News bulletin at 6.
Reminds me of the Soviets wiping out one of the largest bodies of water on Earth by attempting to grow rice and cotton in the Karakum.
Government-planned property rights can have the same failures as any other form of government planning.
I disagree. When the alternative was to be a slave to a marxist nightmare of misery and famine you would be surprised how many people welcomed free market and liberty. Off course I can only speak of my direct experience with the chilean case.
well im speaking from my experince as an eastern european.
Then you know the damage communism done.
people dont think, they feel it on their skin. under state socialism they had a decent standart of living, welfare and full employment. for a vast majority of russians neoliberalism meant misery. im not saying your wrong, im saying the general feeling of those nations.
This is a good point. When only one industry is privatized, it’s not a genuine free market because the industry is still affected by all the other government interventions in the market.