There is a whole lot of cyber ink being spilled concerning recent elections and upcoming elections in Latin America. You can keep up with all the hubbub at Publius Pundit and Babalu Blog. The picture they paint is not a pretty one. But neither is the picture I would paint of the political realities of our fellows to the south.

I have lived, loved, traveled and worked among them for 14 years. My summation of the governing competence of Latin Americans is as follows:

Corruption is as common as the sun. The State exists to serve the whims of an elite whose visions seldom extend beyond pelt and pelf. Constitutions are scarcely worth paying attention to—and few do. Law is just another commodity, like soap or automobiles—the more money one has the more law one can purchase. Taxation is arbitrary and confiscatory. Government regulations are multitudinous and Byzantine. Poverty is rife and obvious. The police rely upon avarice and bribery. Militaries are used to control the citizenry. Ignorance and illiteracy are manifest. The ‘presidents’ south of the Rio Grande resemble bit players in an opera bouffe.

Mob politics is the usual style of governance. Statist socialism is the usual style of economics. Mendacious propaganda is the usual style of politicians. Riots are the usual style of protests.

In short, Latin America is as it has always been. One unarguable fact of the universe is that Latin Americans have no demonstrated talent for running economies or governments. The political culture of Latin American would never allow any man with such talents to assume power. Pick up any history book about Latin America and you will see what I mean.

It is an odd curse that some of the finest people on earth inhabiting some of the most stunningly beautiful land imaginable live under a governing elite that is purely extractive and exploitative, without any purpose save self-aggrandizement.

And it does little good to blame everything on the United States, as the Latin Americans tend to do. Latin America’s problems were similar under the Spanish Empire—they existed long before the United States existed. There is simply no escape from this argument.

Consider the following condition of a nation: Life expectancy less than 50 years, civil war, foreign invasion, worthless currency, savage rebellions and guerrilla war on the frontier, economic dislocation, military incompetence, malarial swamps, polluted water supplies, weak government, abysmal public health services. Your typical Latin nation you say? Not at all. It describes the United States of America in 1776.

Americans rose above their problems and defeated them. Latins are still mired in them, wallowing in self-pity and tossing blame about at anyone but themselves. Witness the riots that arise whenever an American president visits any Latin capital. The purpose of such street theater is exactly…what?

But do not listen to this Mexican-gringo half-breed. Consider the following from Cuban-born Carlos Alberto Montaner. He takes a look at the leadership of Nicaragua, Venezuela, Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile and Brazil. He is not happy with what he sees.

The people of Latin American are victims not of a stubbornly corrupt ruling class but of their own tolerance toward those who violate the laws and of their own indifference toward the breakdown of standards.

The old dictum that says people have the government they deserve almost always contains a bitter truth. If we don’t mind electing rogues, we have no right to complain.

Such bitter truths about Latin American politics run through the writings of Latins themselves. You might see Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot, Liberty for Latin America and The Other Path.

The common theme among these Latin American writers is this: What cripples Latin American economies and governments is the centrally-planned state—in short, socialism. The greater the size of the state the greater the opportunities for corruption. This has always been true wherever one looks in history.

The solution is simple to write, horrendously difficult to put in place. Socialism must end. It must be replaced with capitalism. And let us not pretend that what capitalism is what some cheap Marxist says it is. Read here what the Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto thinks of it.

The genius of capitalism is that it allows the formation of a class that exists not at the whims of the state but outside the state, a class that excels through competition, ambition and enterprise. It is the opposite of how Mussolini—himself a woeful example for Latin American leaders from Perón to Haya de la Torre to Chavez to Morales—described his own version of socialism, “Everything in the State. Nothing outside the State. Nothing against the State.” It is capitalism that is a direct threat to every socialist dream of state control.

That is the reason why it is so attacked south of the Rio Grande. The ruling classes of Latin America would be swept away in any capitalist revolution. And that is the reason why so many Latins admire Castro. He alone has accomplished what they dream of in their heart-of-hearts, the absolute domination of a nation and her people by the State. And that is the reason for such strident anti-Americanism. America is the pre-eminent capitalist power. And she opposes Castro—yet another reason to hate America.

I will end with a joke told to me by an Argentine friend:

A Latin senator and an American senator were in the United States. They discussed the varieties of corruption in each of their nations. The American pointed to a bridge. It was grand and beautiful. The Latin was duly impressed. The American then slapped his pocket and said, “Fifty percent!” The next year both senators were in the Latin’s country. The Latin told the American to look at a grand and beautiful bridge. But the American senator saw nothing. The Latin senator then slapped his pocket and said, “One-hundred percent!”

Questions?