Democracies can stop predatory financiers – Argentina and Bolivia are showing how
While Europe forces yet more privatisation on Greece and Spain under the Orwellian name of "liberalisation", Latin America in 2012 is challenging the orthodox view that private always is better than public. On 1 May Bolivia seized the Spanish company that controlled its electricity grid, just after Argentina, on 14 April, effectively renationalised YPF, its main oil company, expropriating 51% owned by Spanish firm Repsol. Both critics and supporters have understood Cristina Fernández Kirchner's and Evo Morales's actions in terms of energy nationalism and populist demagoguery. But we should see both instead as responses to the failures of privatisation and its toxic connection to complex forms of financial speculation.… Seguir leyendo »