WEBVTT - Bolivia: The World's Worst Coup 0:00:01.760 --> 0:00:07.760 All Media. Welcome to you kadapp here a podcast that 0:00:07.880 --> 0:00:10.920 is groaning under the oppression of whoever keeps changing the 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:15.800 stupid zoom interface. It's different every time. It always gets worse. 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:17.880 It never gets better. Please stop. 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:23.160 We had trads for zoom zoom layout. 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:27.320 Just get it, get it one time, put the recording 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:29.680 thing on the stupid panel on the bottom, and then 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:34.839 never change it. It simply never gets better. Yeah, this 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:38.760 is be a who's extremely annoyed at zoom with me? 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.559 Is James yep also extremely annoyed at zoom high just 0:00:42.640 --> 0:00:44.599 in solidarity with Mia fuck him? 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:49.159 Yeah, and also also extremely annoyed. Right now is the 0:00:49.280 --> 0:00:53.640 man stages the world's worst coup? Ask to report to prison. 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:57.080 I don't think we can call it the world's worst coup. Mia, 0:00:57.360 --> 0:00:59.920 that's a bold claim. You're forgetting silver Core. 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:04.360 No, so okay, here's the thing about Silver Court, right, 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:08.039 The guys who defeated Silver Court had guns. 0:01:08.760 --> 0:01:11.440 But Silver Corp didn't. They had b B guns. 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:15.520 Yeah, but here's the thing, right they they those guys Again, 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:18.000 those guys did not have real guns, defeated by guys 0:01:18.000 --> 0:01:21.120 with guns. These guys had guns. They had a lot 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:25.200 of guns. They were defeated by people with. 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:29.639 Flags Yeah yeah, and a guy standing in a doorway 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:31.760 being like, no, you can't come in, go home. 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:35.440 You know, so we we are. 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:38.399 I genuinely believe this is the worst cup I've ever 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:39.399 seen in my entire life. 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:41.440 And you know, we lived in Venezuela. One. 0:01:41.480 --> 0:01:44.880 I distinctly remember stepping out of a post office and 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:47.800 checking my phone and getting eighteen messages from my friends 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:48.640 that said, do. 0:01:48.640 --> 0:01:49.160 You do you? 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.520 What do you know about the coup and Turkey? That 0:01:51.680 --> 0:01:55.400 was a terrible coup. Was they they could have they 0:01:55.440 --> 0:01:57.600 could have just saved us all this trouble of shot 0:01:57.640 --> 0:01:59.880 aired wh douf a jet fighter, but they didn't. You know, 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:02.080 there's there's been plenty of bad ones. There was that 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:04.160 that coup recently in the Democratic public of the Congo 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:08.560 to the fiasco. Yeah, hilariously, This coup Oblivia recovering today 0:02:08.639 --> 0:02:12.320 happened exactly one year and three days after the the 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:13.520 march of the Wagner Corp. 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:18.960 Oh yeah, I've gotta forgot about that one. What if? Wow? Yeah, 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:20.320 well we wanted to try it. 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.400 Guys, if you believe you can achieve, give it a 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:25.639 go to a coup. If you want to why not 0:02:25.720 --> 0:02:28.120 it's gonna trump paye try one did what very well? Yeah? 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:30.600 Yeah, I mean we really I also, I mean, we 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:33.680 can't forget January ninth, even the. 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:35.200 The well, I don't. 0:02:35.240 --> 0:02:38.120 I don't because January sixth was already farce, but like 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:40.920 we forgot the farceest, farst version of it in Brazil. 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:46.120 Yeah even there. Yeah, yeah, they owed a building coup. 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:51.000 Yeah, lots of lots of very stupid cues, but this 0:02:51.000 --> 0:02:53.880 this is probably the worst one. And so we're going 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:56.519 to be explaining sort of what happened. But the thing 0:02:56.560 --> 0:03:00.239 about this coup is that in order to understand what's 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:05.840 happening with this coup, we have to get through, I 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.480 think a part of Bolivian history that has not been 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:14.280 really well understood or talked about on the left, which 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:16.720 is effectively what happened in Bolivia. 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:19.520 After the coup in twenty nineteen. 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:23.160 I think I think people sort of know that there 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:27.840 was a coup and that got overturned, but coma that 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.760 was sort of the point at which which the sort 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:33.400 of Anglo media and like the sort of press that 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:36.480 hits the left here kind of just took off. So 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.320 you have your sort of twenty nineteen coup. The place 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:41.960 where sort of everything getting lost kind of starts is 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:45.480 that so there's this coup. The left sort of response 0:03:45.520 --> 0:03:49.280 to the coup is not very strong because the sort 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:52.280 of social movements have been hallowed out by the sort 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:56.320 of incorporation into the Bolivian state, so they sort of 0:03:56.360 --> 0:04:02.000 just don't have the juice to really kind of you know, 0:04:02.560 --> 0:04:05.080 roll this coup back. This is this is this is 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:07.480 makes basically this is the twenty nineteen coup, not the 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:08.520 twenty twenty four coup. 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:09.680 Yeah. 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.440 And you know the thing about the twenty nineteen coup 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:13.920 that makes it very different from this one is that 0:04:13.920 --> 0:04:16.280 that one was you know, there was a broad base 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.440 of support for this right in this sort of in 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:21.440 this sort of like far right out of Santa Cruz 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:23.760 and also out of sort of like like more moderate 0:04:23.839 --> 0:04:27.680 center right factions. So you know, there there are sort 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:30.240 of large street with favor of this. This is not 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.040 true if those recent. 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:34.680 One yeah, absolutely not. 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:39.040 Yeah, but you know in by by by twenty twenty, 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.680 as twenty twenty is sort of progressing a Anya's's coup 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:46.080 government is a fiasco. Their management of COVID is just terrible. 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:48.360 Enormous numbers of deaths. I mean, actually I mean not 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:52.520 by American standards, I guess, but you know, really really mismanaged. 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.559 I mean, my I have friends there who were talking 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:57.640 about how if you were going to the hospital and 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:00.719 you needed to use like a piece of medical equipment, 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.480 you had to buy the medical equipment or a part 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:05.159 to fix a machine and then show up to the 0:05:05.160 --> 0:05:07.320 hospital with the part because they couldn't order it. 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:08.320 Yeah. 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:10.920 I've yeah, I've seen that in a few places in 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:12.279 the world. It's never, never a good time. 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:14.800 Yeah, it's it's not good. It was a real shit show. 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:19.280 And by by sort of I think about September early 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:23.400 September twenty ninth of twenty twenty, there are the left 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:25.400 has sort of gotten it shipped together and there are 0:05:25.440 --> 0:05:29.400 these this massive set of roadblocks. Bolivian Blivion social politics 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:32.880 tends to sort of be about roadblocks because you know, country, 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:34.960 a lot of mountains, a lot of roads you can 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:37.719 very easily block off and then prevent anything from you know, 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:42.159 for example, entering a city, yep. Idea. So they're they're 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:45.279 able to just basically shut down the Blivion economy. The 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:48.200 government is once again on the Vergia collapse and once again, 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.440 and we'll get to the first time this happened, but 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:53.720 even Morallies once again sort of pulls the supporters off 0:05:53.800 --> 0:05:55.840 of the barricade so you can go win an election 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:59.680 rather than you know, attempt to just bring down the 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:03.760 sort of coup government. So you know that eventually happens. 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:07.440 The government is forced to hold elections because you know, 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:12.000 they've they've lost control of the country, and them as Takes, 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:15.480 you know, wins this election by overwhelming margins. The MAS 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:18.040 is even Morales's party, it's the sort of like party. 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:21.080 Of the oblivion left. But yeah, the guy comes to 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:21.920 the power. As Lewis R. 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:25.960 Say, he's an interesting figure because he is kind of 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:28.640 We're going to get more into sort of what the 0:06:28.760 --> 0:06:32.560 MS is in a bit, but he is from a 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:35.599 kind of right wing of the party that's not talked 0:06:35.600 --> 0:06:36.559 about very much. 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:38.440 Yeah, he he is. 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:41.360 A you know, he's not a guy who comes from 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.320 the social movements in the way that sort of Morales did, 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:46.040 like he was. Even Morales was a guy from the 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:48.400 the he was like the president of the coca growers union. 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:52.360 Arsay is a banker. He's an an economist and a banker. 0:06:52.560 --> 0:06:55.440 He comes out of the the Central Bank of Bolivia, 0:06:56.040 --> 0:06:59.440 and he he has had been kind of the guy 0:06:59.600 --> 0:07:03.200 running living economic policy. But but he is from the 0:07:03.240 --> 0:07:05.640 developmentalist wing of the party, which means he is effectively 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:09.480 from the wing of the party that are the kind 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:13.760 of like center left capitalists that the social movements kind 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.000 of allied themselves to under Moralees in order to do 0:07:16.040 --> 0:07:18.800 this sort of national economic development policy. So these are 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.040 a lot of these are a lot of minding sector guys. 0:07:22.560 --> 0:07:26.239 These are a very specific sort of cadra of these 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.120 central bank guys, you know. 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:30.520 And and I think this is the part. 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.280 The thing about the MIAs that's kind of relevant here 0:07:34.320 --> 0:07:36.680 is that it usually also has a base support among 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:38.280 people you wouldn't expect. I mean, there's a lot of 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:41.520 small business owners who support them, because, you know, the 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:44.600 Maas really did for most of the time they've been 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.520 in power preside over sort of astonishing economic growth. They 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:49.720 sort of did this by marrying these social movements to 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:53.640 this kind of national bourgeoisie developmentalist faction. 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:54.520 Yeah. 0:07:54.600 --> 0:07:57.080 And the other thing that that the MAAS sort of 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:59.480 does in the period between when they come back to 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:03.280 power in late twenty twenty one and now is they 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:05.480 do they actually go after the people who did the coup? 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:05.760 Right? 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:08.280 And yes, who was the previous president is just in 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.040 prison for helping you do the coup. The the other 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:15.960 big person who's been arrested is Luis Fernando Camacho, who 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:19.720 is a man who, in one hundred percent complete seriousness 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:26.120 calls himself Bascho Camacho. So that's that's a sign, Yeah, 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:28.000 that that's an oication of who this guy is, which 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:34.359 is he is a really fanatical, really fanatical Christian nationalist. 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.040 He's playing a very similar role to I mean, actually 0:08:38.200 --> 0:08:39.800 I think even even in a lot of ways sort 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:43.480 of more radical role to what Bolsonaro played in Brazil, 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.839 where Camacho in Bolivia is this kind of he he's 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:50.559 the guy who's rallied both sort of Evangelicalism and Catholicism. 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:54.800 Althose rallied both of them into this sort of virulent 0:08:54.960 --> 0:09:00.280 and and and specifically in Bolivia anti indigenous sort of 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:04.640 political force. The the twenty nineteen coup is seen in 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:07.600 very very explicitly is seen in religious terms. 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:08.240 Both ideas. 0:09:08.320 --> 0:09:11.120 Kabacha talk about how like the Word of God is 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.959 back at the Capitol and the wheel, but like all 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:16.120 of the sort of indigenous various indigenous stuff is just 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.880 never going to come back. So Kabacho gets arrested in 0:09:19.960 --> 0:09:22.880 twenty twenty two for you know, doing this coup, and 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:26.000 this sets off so he, by the way, like is 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:28.760 the governor of the state of Santa Cruz. And this 0:09:28.800 --> 0:09:32.280 sets off a bunch of like a right wing general strike, 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:35.120 a bunch of riots, like hundreds of people are injured 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.319 in street fighting between his sort of fanatics and everyone 0:09:39.360 --> 0:09:42.400 else in the country. It does an enormous amount of 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:46.160 economic damage. It sets off at a roadblocks the government, 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.200 I mean Kamacho I think also is still in prison, 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:51.800 but it kind of you know, the government's kind of 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:53.960 forced to make concessions. 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:53.960 To these people. 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:58.559 So, you know, the whole the whole sort of are say, 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.760 government is kind of on shaky footing from the beginning. 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:06.560 And all of this is before the Bolivian economy really 0:10:06.640 --> 0:10:10.400 hits the ship. But before before we get to the 0:10:10.440 --> 0:10:12.800 Bolivian economy. Do you know what else hits the ship? 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:15.280 Oh uh? 0:10:15.480 --> 0:10:19.160 Is it the meal kit preparation delivery service that we 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:24.680 are not allowed to mention for legal reason. It is, yes, yeah, yes, yeah, 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:26.760 you'll be pooping your brains out, don't do it. 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.160 We are back. So let's talk about the other thing 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:41.360 that's popping in Bolithya. 0:10:41.720 --> 0:10:42.760 Well, okay, see other. 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.640 Thing, the one of the four other things that's reppening 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:50.119 in Bolivia, and that. 0:10:50.120 --> 0:10:54.840 Is the real sort of collapse of the Bolivian economy. 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:59.880 So the Bolivion economy Oblivia has been kind of different 0:11:00.080 --> 0:11:02.840 from the rest of the sort of kind of left wing, 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.640 pink tied governments that were elected in the in the 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:09.000 in the sort of two thousands era sort of anti 0:11:09.000 --> 0:11:13.840 globalization politics. Most of those countries' economies imploded a long 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.880 time ago, like Venezuela sort of obviously the most famous case, 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.400 but all of these economies fell apart because these were 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:21.800 all economies based on the commodity boom. We've talked about 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:24.880 this in some of our Brazil episodes. But the very 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:27.120 short version is that a lot of a lot of 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:29.920 countries that produce sort of primary commodities, so like you know, 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:35.560 your copper, your sort of your natural gas, you know, 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:37.920 I mean things like soybeans to kind of fall in 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.800 this category, you know, so you're you're you're sort of 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.000 mining stuff or you're some some of some of your 0:11:43.040 --> 0:11:48.360 farming stuff. All of these sort of industrial input primary 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:52.800 commodity stuff all got you know, massive price spikes in 0:11:52.880 --> 0:11:55.960 early two thousands because the Chinese economy had integrated into 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:58.760 into the rest of the world economy fully by you know, 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.720 joining the joining the World Trade Organization, and this set 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:06.199 off this massive industrialization boom in China, and you know, 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:10.040 the Chinese. The levels of sort of demand that this 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.280 induces is unbelievable because Chinese economic growth in that period 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:16.800 is unreal, and it's it's economic growth that is unreal 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:19.000 in a country with a billion people in it. So 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:23.160 this produced a kind of shock of demand for all 0:12:23.160 --> 0:12:27.080 of these sort of mineral resources that was not entirely 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:31.840 unprecedented but enormously large, and also allowed all of these 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:36.360 sort of social democratic economies to you know, kind of 0:12:36.400 --> 0:12:39.800 paper over the inherent contradictions of their base being both 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.720 capitalist and also a bunch of like unions by there 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.480 just sort of being enough state revenue from all of 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:48.960 these all of these exports to just kind of buy 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:53.120 everyone off of paper everything. Clantalism, yeah, yeah, and that 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.760 stops working when the economy goes under. But Bolivia's economy 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.280 does a lot better than the rest of the economies 0:12:59.360 --> 0:12:59.960 in the region. 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:01.560 There are There are a lot of reasons for this. 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.320 Part of it is that, you know, are say, who 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.160 is running the economy of Bolivia in the sort of 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:09.720 the period like post two thousand and eight period, when 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:13.480 everyone else economies are collapsing. He is genuinely doing some 0:13:13.520 --> 0:13:18.920 pretty interesting macroeconomic stuff. Also, the other thing that's going 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.679 on is that Bolivia main expert and people. Okay, so 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:24.760 people in the US tend to think of Bolivia as 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:28.320 a country that produces lithium. That's not true. That might 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:30.959 be true maybe thirty years in the future that will 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:34.599 be Bolivia's primary export. But Bolivia's primary export for the 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:39.120 last two decades has been natural gas, and natural gas 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.440 prices didn't quite do the same thing that sort of 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:44.640 oil prices did that kind of imploded the Venezuelan economy. Yeah, 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.160 and so through through sort of like economic management and 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:54.400 these sort of political alliances and you know, the high 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:57.320 price in natural gas, the Bolivian economy has sort of 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:00.560 been fine. Unfortunately, what's happening right now is that Bolivia 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:03.120 is running out of natural gas. And because it's running 0:14:03.120 --> 0:14:06.199 out of natural gas, and also because their economy is 0:14:06.200 --> 0:14:08.160 an export based economy based on natural. 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:11.920 Gas, not so good nutsge good vibes. Yeah, it's very bad. 0:14:11.960 --> 0:14:15.280 The entire economy is falling apart because you know, this 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.319 is this is a very very classic kind of economic crisis, 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:21.280 you know, the economic crisis are having. I'm not seeing 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:23.520 it described as a balance of payments crisis, but that's 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:26.560 what it is, which is that the blivid economy works 0:14:26.720 --> 0:14:30.160 on buying things with American dollars. So you know, like 0:14:30.160 --> 0:14:31.960 a lot of the businesses in the country involved are 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:34.720 sort of import businesses, right, you know, I mean I 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.360 know people who run businesses like this in Bolivia where 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:43.560 you know, you're importing shoes or like motors, yeah, stuff 0:14:43.600 --> 0:14:45.240 like that, and you buy them with American dollars and 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:46.760 you sell them in Bolivia. But the thing is this 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:49.440 requires a constant supply of American dollars to go buy 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:53.000 good manufacture goods from other places. Because Bolivia's manufacturing economy 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:54.960 is effectively is a joke. And this is something that 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:57.680 was true of all of these economies. I mean, Bolivia 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:02.400 never they kind we've tried to industrialize in the seventies, 0:15:02.400 --> 0:15:04.000 but they've never got as far along with it as 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:06.360 a country like Brazil or country like Venezuela. 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:06.680 Did in the seventies. 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:09.120 And the other thing about these all these sort of 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.400 pink Tai governments is they all took power in economies 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:14.000 that have been completely deindustrialized maneoliberalism. Right. 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:15.320 We talked about this with Brazil. 0:15:15.400 --> 0:15:18.000 Brazil went from a country that was a kind of 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:20.160 like effectively a first not quite a first, right, but 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:23.960 maybe a second tier a large, a powerful second tier 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:28.040 industrial power to a country whose economy is almost entirely 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.960 based on sort of primary commodity production and farming bullshit. 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:33.400 So they've they've moved down that they've moved down the 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.240 value chain. They've been manufacturing less stuff. They're producing shit 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:38.880 that's on the bottom. They're getting less value from the 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:42.480 value added bullshit moving up the chain. And this is 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:44.360 this is also the problem with the Blivion economy. And 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:47.200 because the natural gases is drying up, they don't have 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:49.920 enough dollars coming into the economy for people to use 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:54.520 to buy things. And the Bolivian currency is also pegged 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:56.800 to the dollar, right, so there's supposed to be an 0:15:56.800 --> 0:15:59.160 official exchange rate at which you know, x amount of 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:03.080 money worth x amount of dollars and that's all falling apart. 0:16:03.120 --> 0:16:06.880 People are sort of running around in the streets trying 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:11.440 to find people who will exchange like their currency for dollars. 0:16:12.240 --> 0:16:13.480 This is this is you know, so this is this 0:16:13.520 --> 0:16:15.880 is a classic short of balance of payments. Yeah, well 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:17.280 it's kind of because it's kind of like kind of 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:19.840 a balancing, but they're having a giant dollar shortage. This 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:24.080 is really really messing up. No, I mean not just 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:26.840 the economy, but the entire political system is really kind 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:32.440 of coming apart under this Now, okay, I I I 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:35.680 talked about things kind of coming apart there there there 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.600 is another thing that is coming apart in Bolivia, which 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:42.320 is the m A S is shattering, Yes, shattering, it's 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:46.040 it's it's splintering in two. So what is the m 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.760 A S. So the m AS is this part? Oh okay, 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:52.800 So it has a slightly weirder history, which is that 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.160 So the m A S was a completely random, actually 0:16:55.280 --> 0:17:00.480 kind of kind of right wing political party, but it 0:17:00.560 --> 0:17:05.240 had electoral status. So it's a party that was taken 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:07.800 over by the social movements at the end of the 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:09.720 sort of stuff we're going to get to in order 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:12.000 to be able to run like in order to be 0:17:12.000 --> 0:17:14.679 able to run candidates for office. But this means that 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.720 because again because it was literally it was an existing, legal, 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.160 registered party that was taken over from the outside, and 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:23.880 because of how it emerged, it's always been seen as 0:17:24.320 --> 0:17:26.680 sort of a movement party, right, it's supposed to be 0:17:26.760 --> 0:17:28.960 like the assembly of Oblivia, sort of left. 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:29.840 Wing social movements. 0:17:30.640 --> 0:17:32.919 And these left wing social movements are the movements that 0:17:33.560 --> 0:17:35.439 emerges isn't quite the right word, but there the movements 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:37.919 that solidified and began to sort of exert their power 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:40.679 from two thousand and two thousand and six and in 0:17:40.760 --> 0:17:45.080 this enormous sequence of social uprising against sort of Bolivia 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:47.240 and neoliberalism. Of the most famous of these are the 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:51.200 water and gas wars, which are these fights against water 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.280 privatization and the sort of gas line. 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:55.800 And this alliance of. 0:17:55.840 --> 0:17:59.720 Peasant unions sort of the traditional sort of urban urban 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.880 sort of proletariat like traditional sort of like urban left. 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:08.280 These these new street movements, coca growers unions, miners unions, 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:10.600 and a whole array of indigenous groups that we frankly 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:12.280 do you don't have time to get into here because 0:18:12.640 --> 0:18:17.199 the politics there are extremely the philosophy is extremely complicated. 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:18.280 I don't know if I've talked about this on the 0:18:18.320 --> 0:18:21.960 show before, but one of the I mean we're talking 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:25.480 about like like they have like philosophical constructs that I 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:29.640 don't understand. It's this philosophical construct that's like a dialectic, 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:32.040 but there's three parts of it, and they don't it 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.720 doesn't resolve. They just all kind of grind intension with 0:18:34.760 --> 0:18:37.000 each other, right, So like, Okay, we're not really going 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:39.600 to get into that. Yeah, yeah, it's outside the scope 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:41.760 of the show of If you're more interested in this, 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:46.040 read rhythms of the Patchacuti or get a doctorate. 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:51.480 I guess, yeah, yeah, we returned to grad school. Your 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:52.560 options are limited. 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:54.720 But you know, so there's this coalition of of all 0:18:54.760 --> 0:18:58.920 of the kinds of unions, these rural unions, urban unions, 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:03.200 urban street moves, real straight movements, gathered together, gathered their strength, 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:06.800 set up a million roadblocks, and just. 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:09.040 Smash the neoliberal right. They are. 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:14.359 The Bolivia's right is basically completely destroyed from the period 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:18.240 of two thousand and six until twenty nineteen's that was 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:20.080 the first time they ever took power. They did it 0:19:20.200 --> 0:19:24.720 in a coup and they held power for about one 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.320 year before they were kicked out of power again, so 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:34.120 they basically completely reshaped all of politics in Bolivia. Those 0:19:34.200 --> 0:19:37.360 the second round of roadblocks very nearly destroyed the Bolivian 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:39.800 state until as I sort of allated to earlier even 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:42.040 where Allies pulled his supporters out the barricade in order 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:44.240 to get an election in two thousand and six. And 0:19:44.280 --> 0:19:47.879 this is the election the MAAS one. And to understand 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:49.960 the kind of seismic change of this, right, the MAAS 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:52.399 is the first party in the history of Bolivia to 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:54.680 win a majority of the season of the Parliament by itself, 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:59.200 first party ever. It completely destroyed the existing sort of 0:19:59.240 --> 0:20:01.960 political system. And again this this, this was supposed to 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:04.120 be a sort of a sort of new kind of party. Right. 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:06.680 The theory of the m AS is is the organization 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:10.640 of social movements. Former vice president and sometimes Marxist Garcia 0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:16.119 Leneira described it as quote, there's a dialectical relationship between 0:20:16.160 --> 0:20:18.800 the social movements and the party. Now this is a lie. 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:25.280 Or more precisely, if this is a dialectic, it is 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.440 not a Hegelian or a Marxist dialectic, where the subplation 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:31.760 of two parts creates a concrete totality or a whole 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:33.520 that is neither of the things that as for it. 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:36.840 This is a Maoist dialectic where two sides face off 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:38.520 each other with each other and one of them hits 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:40.119 the other side of the help with a hammer until 0:20:40.119 --> 0:20:40.680 it dies. 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:42.159 It's just a conflict. 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:45.040 It's just there are two three people and they both 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:47.600 want to control the thing. 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:52.360 So it's just that's that's what ends up happening, right, 0:20:52.400 --> 0:20:55.159