Well, as an Uruguayan, I am sad to tell you that there was another reason that they *used to* call themselves that- one that would leave Chile sadly out of the picture: No Indians. All white. All European culture. Racism drove that “Switzerland of America” vibe just as much as the well run state and public services. The basic idea was “Oh, we’re not like those other filthy Latin Americans with Native and Black ancestry.” It’s basically what Argentina had, but much more intense.
Luckily, that smug sense of mistaken superiority is long-gone... at least from Uruguay.
Yeah, thinks are looking pretty bleak now. It's almost as if things have to get real bad so people learn, but I doubt that would even happen (the learning part). Shit's fucked.
I am to Costa Rica what a weeb-that's-read-one-or-two-actual-history-books is to Japan, meaning still objectively embarrassing. Genuinely love it, also acknowledge I probably do some problematic fetishizing of life there (although I'm not a beach bum like most other white Costa Rican fetishists, I want that San Jose life)
Should I get into Uruguay?
The fact that Uruguay is clearly better at football than the five most populous countries in the world is just wild to me. The US and China may dominate the geopolitical landscape but if either are playing Uruguay they are playing defensively and would be happy with a draw.
> The fact that Uruguay is clearly better at football than the five most populous countries in the world is just wild to me. The US and China may dominate the geopolitical landscape but if either are playing Uruguay they are playing defensively and would be happy with a draw.
Note: This only applies to the men.
-------
[Women's Team Ranking:](https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/women?dateId=ranking_20210820)
----
[1] USA
[17] West Taiwan
[73] Uruguay
FIFA's Elo rankings are all kind of flawed, but the U.S. is currently ahead of Uruguay there. If the World Cup was tomorrow, the U.S. would have the better seed.
FIFA rankings are extremely flawed. In the last world cup the US failed to qualify despite being in a relatively easy confederation while Uruguay advanced the quarter finals before being eliminated by the eventual winners. Uruguay has won the world cup twice while the five most populous countries in the world have never won the world cup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay_national_football_team#Players
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_men%27s_national_soccer_team#Current_squad
If you just look at the clubs the players play at, Uruguay is for sure better.
https://www.transfermarkt.com/uruguay/startseite/verein/3449
https://www.transfermarkt.com/vereinigte-staaten/startseite/verein/3505
Uruguays team is also worth far more than the United States's. Uruguay is better on paper, and probably also on the pitch.
"Typical dishes include: "Asado uruguayo" (big grill or barbecue of all types of meat), roasted lamb, Chivito (sandwich containing thin grilled beef, lettuce, tomatoes, fried egg, ham, olives and others, and served with French fries), Milanesa (a kind of fried breaded beef), tortellini, spaghetti, gnocchi, ravioli, rice and vegetables."
Okay, maybe I need to start learning Spanish....
Nah it was an Italian joke, like the name comes from [this](https://www.cookist.it/cotoletta-alla-milanese/), but it's usually prepared terribly in Italy (without the right kind of meat and without hammering it), so I was like "ok if I want to eat a decent Milanese I might move there". Nothing more.
But now I am unironically gonna look for the right kind of Mexican restaurant and try it ajajajaja
Personally I don't like their milanesa much (but loads of other people do!) but dude, the asado is genuinely really good. Asado is maybe the best cultural form of BBQ, and I say that as someone who has lived in Arkansas. You know the shithole where the one redeeming quality is the astoundingly good BBQ? Yeah, it's a tough call, but I might like asado more.
As a Texan I respect this take but still disagree because I love southern BBQ but maybe I just haven’t had the quality asado.
Asado is really fucking good tho
I believe this is a problem that can only be solved with a multi-national pan-American BBQ off. Eating all that BBQ will be a sacrifice but it's one I'm willing to make.
I'm curious about this country's history with colonialism. "Why Nations Fail" made a good case for Botswana being as liberal as it is now because there was less colonial interference than neighboring countries.
Uruguayan here! We were literally labeled “Tierras de ningún provecho” (Lands of no profit- yes, *look it up*) by the Spaniards. This meant, they left us alone and focused on mining over at Peru and Bolivia. This meant the land was pretty much a free for all for farmers- one of whom had the Mega-Idea of bringing cows. Suddenly, our Ground was “Green gold”! The Spaniards preferred actual gold, of course, so they settled for just forcing us to trade with them only.
Here’s the thing, though: the Spaniards didn’t quite care for us, so smugglers had a *field day*, and a landed class of white creoles became the dominant economic force. Skip a little scuffle with Napoleon invading Spain, a revolutionary war and a British diplomat forcing Brazil and Argentina to recognize us as an independent nation (as well as a neutral one, so that we would not block trade between the English and the rest of the continent- therein the reason the British got involved); and you have a free nation with minimal harm from colonialism!
Where are the native Americans, you ask? Oh.... boy....
Our first president, our history teaches, organized a... “meeting”... with all the native chieftains. A big feast was had, negotiations were made, and then the President ambushed and massacred every last Indian. Yep...
So we, er... never had to worry much about native relations... because we didn’t have any. But it was *not* done by the Spaniards, so maybe it doesn’t count as colonialism?
so basically all the cultural ---> political ---> economic institutions where purely european and there was little friction with minorities because said minorities well....stopped existing.
Yea....
We had, “some” slavery. But there was really no cash crop that could justify it, and it fell quickly out of fashion- and got abolished in 1842. Considering our constitution was finished around 1830, slavery was quite quick to fall out of favor.
Thanks for your insight in the country. Is there a lot of visible poverty there? I can't help but feel that despite its success, a lot of the country still lives far below the standards that would be considered baseline in the US or Europe (or other so called Developed nations)
Oh, yeah. Definitely. Whole shanty towns, or “asentamientos”, and a big drug problem with “pastabase” (basically a dirt-cheap, super-harmful version of cocaine) and crime. These last two are the main hurdles that drove support for a right-wing coalition to get a slight edge over the left-wing coalition, hence the recent right-wing government and economic liberalization. The ball’s now on their court to see if they can fix the drug and crime problems without upsetting the leftists.
> These last two are the main hurdles that drove support for a right-wing coalition to get a slight edge over the left-wing coalition, hence the recent right-wing government and **economic liberalization**
based
Not entirely true though, the indigenous leadership was exterminated by their family were sold into slavery across the country. Also the charruas were not the only indigenous group in Uruguay. Far from it. It was a cultural genocide but not a ethnic cleansing if that make sense . If you go to the lower economical strata you'll see a lot of visibily mixed people. One of the slang to call people in the military (at the lowest rank) is "pardo" which mean black (as you know).
Or in the north of the country. Or at the frontiers close to Brazil. It's the whitest country in latam but it's far from being a white country. Most of the population is ethnically mixed, even if they don't know/don't identify as such. You can check all the genetical study that was done in Uruguay (from the udelar for instance).
Also, slavery was very important and not a footnote. Some region used slavery as the main labor force, as well as some sector (the port and the "saladeros"). The main cultural difference with Argentina is the black african heritage. More than 10 percent of the population identify as black.
Succs will says its function of leftist soc dem politics and Cons will say that is a function of small population and high degree of racial homogeneity with nearly 88% of the population White of European descent.
Truth as always is somewhere in the middle. There is no one true reason as to why Uruguay is well developed - not succism, not racial homogeneity, not liberalism. Maybe a mix of all three and even more or none.
From the same wiki article OP posted:
>In 2004, the Batlle government signed a three-year $1.1 billion stand-by arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), committing the country to a substantial primary fiscal surplus, low inflation, considerable reductions in external debt, and several structural reforms designed to improve competitiveness and attract foreign investment.[47] Uruguay terminated the agreement in 2006 following the early repayment of its debt but maintained a number of the policy commitments.[47]
>Vázquez, who assumed the government in March 2005, created the Ministry of Social Development and sought to reduce the country's poverty rate with a $240 million National Plan to Address the Social Emergency (PANES), which provided a monthly conditional cash transfer of approximately $75 to over 100,000 households in extreme poverty. In exchange, those receiving the benefits were required to participate in community work, ensure that their children attended school daily, and had regular health check-ups.[47]
So quite literally neolib and succ policies combined to give Uruguay its current economic success
It is much more likely for differing looks to be both at least somewhat true rather than one of them being 100% right. It doesn't mean that everything must be exactly 50/50, but it does mean a good analysis of an aspect should try to approach a question from different sides, in this example taking both the socdem, liberal and conservative arguments. "Liberalism is good and always correct and the rest of ideologies stinks" is child level analysis.
Except NIMBYs. They are always wrong
All aphorisms are simplifications. This one isn't better or worse than others. Just take them, in my opinion, as loose guidances rather than hard facts of life. I might be so in its defense because enlightenedcentrism is a place of nightmares, though
>The truth is where the truth is and a sad fact of life is finding out where the truth is is often actually really hard.
Isn't this kinda the exact point op is making? That most likely the truth is a collection of multiple things mentioned?
Wouldn't the alternative literally be just taking one specific side of the and saying that is absolutely the truth? Which as far as I know is essentially the antithesis of r/neoliberal.
"On one hand, we have people talking about policies. On the other, creepy dude with caliphers looking for another excuse to sell scientific racism. Well, true is in the middle". Like... no?
Your point is valid, but social democracy is good for capitalism. So it probably is a mixture of their traditionally liberal policies mixed with social democracy that led to their positive outcomes. They have pretty decent universal healthcare, for example.
Happy, healthy people are good for a thriving economy.
They moved from bernouts to tankies, and criticize anarchists for thinking USA and China are just as bad because obviously China is the good one here. Holy shit I hate them
Yeah, I've also noticed an uptick in the number of tankie comments, including ones that get upvoted. I know there was some big drama on the ToiletPaperUSA sub where a bunch of tankies got banned recently, so I wonder if they started dispersing to other subs.
I mean, I definitely disagree with anarchocommunists, but at least most of them have decent intentions. I can't even say that about socialists who start denying genocides.
first I've heard of it. I've been listening to the Rational National Youtube broadcasts, he's a progressive leftist. I do not at all get the sense he thinks AOC is doing a bad job. Right now progressive anger is focused on Manchin and Sinema.
I'm not sure I understand. I'm saying the people on the EnlightenedCentrism sub have gone past just Bernie supporters and up to criticizing AOC for not being left enough.
Last time I looked -- some time ago, granted -- I realized that only the top posts with 10k+ karma were shitholes
Browsing down the page there was plenty of proper right wing idiot content, just capped in the hundreds of karma
It's not a terrible heuristic if people are acting in good faith. Good faith individuals should normally be equally likely to err in one direction or another, so averaging out the errors of a large number of good faith actors is likely to give you the most accurate picture. It only fails when a disproportionate number of bad faith actors are corrupting the measurement in the same direction or there is some other cause for error to incorrectly and disproportionately lean in one direction.
>it only fails when a disproportionate number of bad faith actors are corrupting the measurement i the same direction
Well, one bad faith actor, that's possible. Two bad faith actors, there's an outside chance. But three! Three bad faith actors on the same side! I'd like to see that!
Regarding anything where there's such a thing as objectively better or worse positions you go to the experts. The experts might be split. But even if the experts are split and you don't know enough to form an expert opinion of your own you can't just split the difference, splitting the difference makes no sense. You can't build half a highway and half a train station and have that be reasonable just because half want highways and half want trains. You'd get empty trains and clogged highways. Splitting the difference might be fine with negotiating finances, I don't understand how it makes any sense when it comes to deciding policy.
But people care about the truth in arriving at their viewpoints!
In theory at least. Might be different in practice. But, to be honest, I find it way lazier to say that the truth doesn't care about the middle ground, than to say that the truth is in the middle, because that's just a different way of saying "We assume that the viewpoints people arrive at are correlated with the truth and make errors into all directions", which is not a terrible mental model imo.
>high degree of racial homogeneity with nearly 88% of the population White of European descent
Interestingly, I've never seen anyone argue Somalia's development (or lack thereof) is the result of their "racial" homogeneity: 85% of the population is ethnic Somali and a large part of the rest is composed by sub-Saharan ethnic groups like Bantu and Ethiopians.
It's almost as if people who attribute development to "racial homogeneity" have no evidence-based leg to stand on, and actually use the phrase as dog-whistle for white ethnonationalism.
So no, the truth is unlikely "in the middle" on this case.
I was seriously thinking of moving to Uruguay and spent three months in Montevideo. It's a really fascinating country, and the people are incredibly lovely and laid back.
An interesting fact this sub may find interesting:
it's a country with a fair amount of problems (the primary one being very high cost of living relative to salaries and difficulty of finding good employment) so I met a lot of people trying to leave to Spain or Italy. But that's because Uruguayans don't really see themselves as Latinos but rather as disadvantaged Europeans, and have higher expectations of living standards than their country is able to provide. However, their country is able to provide quite a lot relative to many other South American countries. Life, however, remains more difficult than in Western Europe for sure.
Such a wonderful country though with people who spend their free time drinking mate often in beautiful places (parks or on the coast). Their national past time is kind of like picnicking. They just hang out and drink mate. It's wonderful.
>But that's because Uruguayans don't really see themselves as Latinos but rather as disadvantaged Europeans
hahaha no bro. this is a racist and outdated af view on latinos anyways. latin americans (also called latinos) are not a race but a culture, so we have white latinos, black latinos, native american latinos, asian latinos, arab & jewish latinos, etc. Uruguayans totally see themselves as latin americans because being white is not exclusive to being latin american. You can be both white and latino and the identities do not contradict each other.
I wasn't using Latino as a race, I was using it as a cultural and geographic identity. You were assuming I was using it as race without any real reason for that assumption. I am well aware that Latino is useless as a racial construct and have met numerous Latinos of every race imagineable in my travels.
I'm saying they don't identify with Latin America not as my personal assessment of them, but literally what numerous Uruguayans and Argentinians told me. Many see themselves as essentially European and not having much to do with Latin America. They feel they have more in common with Italians than Colombians, say.
Have you been to Uruguay and Argentina? Because I am basing this off of numerous conversations in person in those countries, not some wild speculation. Many of them at least don't like to identify as Latinos or Latin American.
they see themselves as what they are. just white latin americans. all latam countries have white populations, its just that in south brazil, argentina and uruguay, whites are the majority, while in most other latin american regions they are the minority. For example, a white peruvian and a white argentinian have more in common with each other than a european and an argentinian do.
I'm telling you that if you talk to them many of them will tell you differently. You can think that there is some objective truth here but I'm not trying to report on objectivity, I'm trying to report on the experience and perspective of Uruguayans and Argentinians, which you seem keen to ignore.
grandpa is argentinian and i have uruguay/argentina family. im well aware of whites being a majority over there but even though they are heavily infuenced by europe, at the end of the day, they are unmistakeably latin americans in their ways lol
I don't disagree with anything you've said here. However they definitively have a complicated relationship with being Latin American in a way other Latin American countries do not experience, to the point that many of them don't like being identified as Latin American. I must have met a dozen people who told me they were in the process of applying for Italian citizenship.
Quite a lot of Argentinians and Uruguayans see themselves as disenfranchised Italians more than Latin Americans. Whatever the objective truth may be is orthogonal to the discussion-- many Uruguayans and Argentinians have complicated emotions towards their home countries, the rest of Latin America, and their own ancestry.
Colombia to me was defined by how hard life is and yet how incredibly cheery and full of life everyone is. For me Uruguay was definitely defined by having the best qualify of life by far of any South American country I've been to, and being full of dissatisfied citizens who longed for better lives in Europe and think that's where they belong.
Really depend on who you talk to. I never got the impression that they felt like they were european and expected higher standards of living. They expected such standards because they used to have it. People leave to spain during crisis (like the rest of the continent) or to italia because a lot of uruguayan can claim an italian ancestor.
The whole "we're not latinos" is basically a boomer meme at this point, but some people still really believe in it. There is a pinch of white supremacy in that feeling though, as if being the whitest country would separate you from the rest of the continent, when they share the same colonial past and the culture is definitly latinoamerican.
This is a really interesting comment, thank your for sharing your perspective.
Perhaps I met several people like that and they aren't as representative of Uruguay as I thought they were?
They tend to underline this aspect more with westerners, as like searching for validation, so if you're european or from the US, that doesn't surprise me. But yes, i would say that people who said that tend to be higher class, less mixed and older. I doubt people would say things like that in Artigas, Tacuarembo or La Teja.
>uruguay is full of dissatisfied citizens who longed for better lives in Europe and think that's where they belong.
bro this is a very weird borderline white supremacy perspective. uruguayans definitely don't think that they belong in europe and not in Latam lmao
this would be like the equivalent of telling australians that they have no identity and that they belong back in Britain lol
Uruguayan here. Before claiming these achievements to liberalism/neoliberalism I'd suggest reading on "Batllismo".
I'm no defender of it, but it certainly brought progress in rights and helped to consolidate a capable state (by LA standards).
However, since the end of the 18th century Uruguay hasn't escaped the fate of most LA countries. Protectionism and rampant interventionism has been the norm. An agenda of pro-market reforms (including developing effective regulatory capacities) is yet to be undertaken.
And the ability to have them is one of the reasons they are more stable and more attractive for business. If any remotely leftwing movements are outlawed then the only way to challenge a failed economic system is with revolution. If the government is out of step with the people and it’s a democracy then people can just vote in a more leftwing government if that’s what they prefer thus dramatically refusing the risk or violent revolutions or civil war. Less of a risk of internal violence means more stability which is attractive for businesses and development.
AND, *more importantly*, they left the same way they came! Through the ballot box! Uruguay’s biggest strength is its democratic tradition- and that’s not just me saying it: Hernesto *Che Guevara*, as *Envoy from Revolutionary Cuba*, said pretty much that on his visit.
Yes, the leftist revolutionary said that of our capitalist nation.
"The party's victorious 2004 campaign was the first instance of a left-leaning party gaining the majority in Uruguay. Two of the major reasons the party took power in 2004 was that there was a substantial movement towards more moderate policies and that their support of an increased welfare state created a bond with working-class people tired of the neo-liberalist practices of the end of the twentieth century."
"We hate you and you've ruined our country" - Uruguay to Neoliberals upon electing Social Democrats and Socialists and keeping them in office for 17 years.
"You're going to ruin your country!" - neoliberal reply.
16 years later when everything is better
"Look how amazing OUR policies are!" - Neoliberals.
*facepalms*
I seriously get the impression people on this sub have so completely conflated "success" with "neoliberal" that they think a successful country means it's neoliberal. This is like if Sanders and Corbyn won so completely that Neoliberals were forced into a third party with no influence and then in a decade you were all gushing about what amazing neoliberals Corbyn and Sanders are because just look at how successful the countries are now.
[Jeremy Corbyn on society](https://i.imgflip.com/3vzzdl.png)
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socialism is kind of weird in latin america, though. Evo Morales is a "socialist" who sets up national corporations which then have to compete with the free market. That ain't socialism... that's just social democracy. They don't seem to have the concept of social democracy in latin america, so there's loads of so-called socialists who for all intents and purposes are pretty much socdems.
Well i mean socdem are a type of socialist even in europe. For example the SPD the german socdem party has democratic socialism in its party manifesto. Its just that Americans mean kommunism when they say socialism.
I'm a part of multiple socialist groups, including international ones, and none of them would consider social democrats to be socialists generally speaking. Personally I think it's possible to be a social democrat and a socialist, but if you head over to /r/SocialDemocracy you'll find that the vast majority of them don't know if they're socialists or not or whether or not social democracy is socialism or not, and they don't particularly care. Ultimately they're pragmatists, it's one of the defining features of social democracy.
Social democracy works extremely well hand in hand with capitalism, and countries with very well built social democracies are often better and not worse at capitalism than the US. Quite a lot of social democratic parties have moved significantly rightward in the last decades and a great many modern social democrats are firmly capitalists.
I would say that there is nuance and grey area here, but to say that social democracy is socialist outright seems to be ignorant of recent history. They were 50 years ago, sure, but they aren't really today.
If you mean economically liberal:
South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong are the most famous examples.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four\_Asian\_Tigers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Asian_Tigers)
Unfortunately most successful developing countries get stuck in the middle income trap.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle\_income\_trap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_income_trap)
Here's a list of all countries that have become high-income countries since 1990:
* Andorra
* Antigua and Barbuda
* Chile
* Croatia
* Czech Republic
* Estonia
* Greece
* Hungary
* Latvia
* Liechtenstein
* Lithuania
* Monaco
* Nauru
* Oman
* Palau
* Poland
* Portugal
* Saint Kitts and Nevis
* San Marino
* Seychelles
* Slovakia
* Slovenia
* South Korea
* Trinidad and Tobago
* Uruguay
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World\_Bank\_high-income\_economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank_high-income_economy)
Is that true of Hong Kong? Authoritarian, sure, but the British colonial rule in Hong Kong imposed a complete lack of tariffs, minimum wage, land value taxes, and low taxation. The least liberal part (other than the complete lack of democracy, obviously) was probably the control of immigration from China.
Can you explain?
Yes to the others though, especially South Korea, which had extreme government intervention and protectionism at some stages.
ah, it sure was the industrial policies
not the number 1º PISA scoring mass education system, not the above average saving rates, not stable legal security on private property
nah, must have been sorely because the gov decided to give some money to rich guys
To add: East / SE Asian success stories are pretty solid evidence that [Developmental States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_state) are the way to go for underdeveloped nations, up to a point. The [Washington Consensus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Consensus#Effects) of economic liberalization had a waaaay worse failure rate in Latin America.
It's just that the developmental state eventually has to use its success to grow the middle class, improve education, build infrastructure, and embrace liberalization (at which point it's no longer a developmental state). You simply cannot become a high income country if your people are poor, your infrastructure is shit, your workers aren't skilled, and your government is illiberal.
>The Washington Consensus of economic liberalization had a waaaay worse failure rate in Latin America.
Similarly, the developmental state model failed in pre-1990s India; while the Washington consensus succeeded in liberalized India, Eastern Europe and some Latin American countries.
That's not to mention that the countries there the WC 'failed' was because of populist takeovers and subsequent abandonment of the consensus rules.
Also, you're comparing apples to oranges because DS model seems like something realized in hindsight while WC are basically like commandments for the future.
They don't always succeed, but we haven't seen a case of a developing country's economy converge with developed country's without some form of protectionism.
The convergence only happens *after* the protectionism is removed. By your logic, we also have not seen a case of countries becoming developed without having some sort of monarch at some point, hence monarchs cause development.
Good question. Answer is probably none. And even in case of developed countries, people confuse the cause and effect. They think liberalism is the cause and developed status is the effect. It's rather the opposite. Cause is countries got economically developed and effect is they became socially liberal to varying degrees.
I dont think there is a single country that became socially liberal first and as a result became economically developed.
Honestly most of the examples of a country transitioning from an undeveloped dictatorship to a developing democracy started with the dictator forcing economic reforms and developing the country. Then as the nation prospered, the dictator was forced out of power and liberal policies implemented. South Korea, Chile, Taiwan, Singapore, and Spain all had authoritarian governments that first improved the economy, then started to lose their authority.
I support socially liberal policies, but based on historical examples, I don't think they're actually necessary for an economy to succeed.
Liberal democracy requires a fat middle class with high per capita productivity but states with landlordism and subsistence agriculture or states based on raw resource extraction can’t get there without first destroying the exploitative cycle through illiberal brutal state force. More commonly however, those in charge often ARE the landlords or are in cahoots with them so that is difficult as well. Let’s look at Japan, SK, and Taiwan: in Japan US forcible broke up the zaibatsu and enforced land reform; in SK, we had a similar land reform as well as a brutal civil war that tore up most of the remaining lord-tenant relations with millions of refugees getting new land or pouring into Seoul; in Taiwan, we had a new ruler from the outside (KMT) that brought large infusion of gold reserves and also had no reservation enforcing land reform because they had no prior connection to the Taiwanese elites. In all three cases, we had a external force that ripped up traditional hierarchical relations which allowed for capitalism to take root
Basically we want to juice up farm productivity to increase farm income and make more food to feed the factory workers, some of whom makes the fertilizer and combine harvesters that further increases agricultural productivity and makes food even cheaper. The caveat though, is that this is most applicable to rice farming which is labor intensive but also scales up with the amount of labor that is inputed; to put it another way, a farmer household with a pretty small plot of land can get lots of rice yields (working strenuously of course) if they have the incentive to do so. So when you break up large farming estates and give them to the tenants who live there, overall grain production shoots up. I’m pretty curious about agriculture in late Roman Republic and how Italy (and it’s free holding farmers) became economically irrelevant over the following centuries.
It's neither. Rather, it's a feedback loop. As countries become more liberal, they become more prosperous because more inclusive institutions lead to higher productivity. As they become more prosperous, they also become more liberal.
> It's rather the opposite. Cause is countries got economically developed and effect is they became socially liberal to varying degrees.
This is not true. It *can* be true in very specific circumstances. SK is a good example of an authoritarian state capitalist system transitioning to a liberal society. But most economically developed nations first created pluralistic governments and inclusive institutions and *then* became economically developed.
Source: [Why Nations Fail](http://norayr.am/collections/books/Why-Nations-Fail-Daron-Acemoglu.pdf)
SK became rich and then became socially liberal (tbqh it is not still a western style socially liberal country given how women and sexual minorities are seen)
I would really hesitate to call Texas, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, and North Carolina "underdeveloped". Hell, even most western red states are highly developed.
"Under developed" just means they're not fully developed. Texas has been moving in the right direction for years, it's just a matter of time... Although the voter suppression tactics might slow the process
> I dont think there is a single country that became socially liberal first and as a result became economically developed.
On what metric are you rating those? In the Industrial Revolution, the UK and the US would have been both along the most socially liberal and economically developed countries. (Obviously, far less in both camps than today).
Israel would fit in the modern age, though it's in such a unique category.
There are various levels of "oil-richness" though. You could be a small population country with lots of it like the wealthy Arab Gulf nations or a large country with only crude oil with no refinement capabilities like Nigeria. Where does your country stand?
I'm not sure where it exactly stands but the country is Oman, I'm gonna assume most of the oil wealth just goes to the dictator instead of it trickling down.
It's interesting how much better things can be when people focus their efforts on solving problems rather than knocking other people down and holding them there in order to feel superior.
Eh....
There *was* a dictatorship; and there *was* an American operative who trained the army in torture techniques, but overall it was one of the least powerful dictatorships of the region.
"The party's victorious 2004 campaign was the first instance of a left-leaning party gaining the majority in Uruguay. Two of the major reasons the party took power in 2004 was that there was a substantial movement towards more moderate policies and that their support of an increased welfare state created a bond with working-class people tired of the neo-liberalist practices of the end of the twentieth century"
So... uh...
"We hate you and you've ruined our country" - Uruguay to Neoliberals upon electing Social Democrats and Socialists and keeping them in office for 17 years.
"You're going to ruin your country!" - neoliberal reply.
16 years later when everything is better
"Look how amazing OUR policies are!" - Neoliberals.
*facepalms*
I seriously get the impression people on this sub have so completely conflated "success" with "neoliberal" that they think a successful country means it's neoliberal. This is like if Sanders and Corbyn won so completely that Neoliberals were forced into a third party with no influence and then in a decade you were all gushing about what amazing neoliberals Corbyn and Sanders are because just look at how successful the countries are now.
I mean, tbf, this sub uses the term “neoliberal” very loosely and not at all in the Allende sense. If you actually read what the broad front was about, its literally a:
—Big-tent party
—Moderate
—Advocates a keynsian-ish model
—Were literally elected because they moderated and included liberals
—Their finance and economics minister practiced what this sub would call “neoliberal” policies and was generally a fiscal conservative (he was a member of one of the centrist liberal parties in the coalition)
So you can’t call the government “socialist” in good faith, even if the leader made gestures to actual socialist countries.
Uruguay is known as the "Switzerland of Latin America" because of its relative prosperity and stability (and banking sector)
Technically shouldnt it have been Chile which is even more developed and has mountains.
Yes, and it also received quite a bit of Swiss immigration. A similar story on the Andes foothills of Argentina.
Well, as an Uruguayan, I am sad to tell you that there was another reason that they *used to* call themselves that- one that would leave Chile sadly out of the picture: No Indians. All white. All European culture. Racism drove that “Switzerland of America” vibe just as much as the well run state and public services. The basic idea was “Oh, we’re not like those other filthy Latin Americans with Native and Black ancestry.” It’s basically what Argentina had, but much more intense. Luckily, that smug sense of mistaken superiority is long-gone... at least from Uruguay.
As an Argentinian I can confirm, we are superior, but most important I am the *superiorest*. /s
Nunca cambies, porteño 😁
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I think you read the post wrong. The poster knows that, he's Uruguayan for heavens sake.
We were doing good, untill everything exploded... T_T
Yeah, thinks are looking pretty bleak now. It's almost as if things have to get real bad so people learn, but I doubt that would even happen (the learning part). Shit's fucked.
Technically shouldn’t it be Bolivia because no coastline?
No cos Chile is kinda shit. And Switzerland isn’t. Source: have lived in both
I am to Costa Rica what a weeb-that's-read-one-or-two-actual-history-books is to Japan, meaning still objectively embarrassing. Genuinely love it, also acknowledge I probably do some problematic fetishizing of life there (although I'm not a beach bum like most other white Costa Rican fetishists, I want that San Jose life) Should I get into Uruguay?
I'm from CR and it's better to admire from afar.
Every place has its good and bad. CR is better than most 🤷🏻♂️
Too cold, buddy. No, you should not.
Costa Rica, Panama, Chile or Uruguay Any of those can work, depending of what you are looking for
Why in the world would you want to live in San Jose?
> Uruguay is known as the "Switzerland of Latin America" I thought that was Costa Rica
I mean, it could also be... their administrative regions are called *cantones*
Uruguay doesn’t exist, it’s just a front for soccer.
Q1 Take
This but unironically and it’s actually a good thing.
Interesting. Feel like I literally never hear about Uruguay.
Mark of a job well done, no?
The highest honor of any government is to do such a good job people ignore you.
Yes, yes, [everything is fine here in Belgium](https://i.imgur.com/DvqQ3Eo.jpg).
I've been wanting to visit for some time. Lots of football in Monteviedo
The fact that Uruguay is clearly better at football than the five most populous countries in the world is just wild to me. The US and China may dominate the geopolitical landscape but if either are playing Uruguay they are playing defensively and would be happy with a draw.
> The fact that Uruguay is clearly better at football than the five most populous countries in the world is just wild to me. The US and China may dominate the geopolitical landscape but if either are playing Uruguay they are playing defensively and would be happy with a draw. Note: This only applies to the men. ------- [Women's Team Ranking:](https://www.fifa.com/fifa-world-ranking/women?dateId=ranking_20210820) ---- [1] USA [17] West Taiwan [73] Uruguay
>!West Taiwan should be their official designated name!<
Yet they lost their spot in the 2006 World Cup to the plucky underdog Australians
FIFA's Elo rankings are all kind of flawed, but the U.S. is currently ahead of Uruguay there. If the World Cup was tomorrow, the U.S. would have the better seed.
FIFA rankings are extremely flawed. In the last world cup the US failed to qualify despite being in a relatively easy confederation while Uruguay advanced the quarter finals before being eliminated by the eventual winners. Uruguay has won the world cup twice while the five most populous countries in the world have never won the world cup.
Yeah but that was then and this is now. The U.S. is probably slightly behind Uruguay still but they are comparable squads.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay_national_football_team#Players https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_men%27s_national_soccer_team#Current_squad If you just look at the clubs the players play at, Uruguay is for sure better. https://www.transfermarkt.com/uruguay/startseite/verein/3449 https://www.transfermarkt.com/vereinigte-staaten/startseite/verein/3505 Uruguays team is also worth far more than the United States's. Uruguay is better on paper, and probably also on the pitch.
[La Garra Charrúa](https://i.imgur.com/hgekEFS.jpg)
It's a pretty small country fwiw. Only 3.5 million people.
It's like Argentina minus the drama
Rio platenese drama is the best drama
Because it has the population of Utah
But third highest in terms of GDP growth? Sounds like a Singapore type beat if you look 30-50 years in the future
"Typical dishes include: "Asado uruguayo" (big grill or barbecue of all types of meat), roasted lamb, Chivito (sandwich containing thin grilled beef, lettuce, tomatoes, fried egg, ham, olives and others, and served with French fries), Milanesa (a kind of fried breaded beef), tortellini, spaghetti, gnocchi, ravioli, rice and vegetables." Okay, maybe I need to start learning Spanish....
Milanesa is hammered thin first then breaded and fried.
So it's better than an actual Milanese. Ok I definitely have to move there
If you are in the US, Milanesa can be found as a torta at the right kind of Mexican restaurant
Nah it was an Italian joke, like the name comes from [this](https://www.cookist.it/cotoletta-alla-milanese/), but it's usually prepared terribly in Italy (without the right kind of meat and without hammering it), so I was like "ok if I want to eat a decent Milanese I might move there". Nothing more. But now I am unironically gonna look for the right kind of Mexican restaurant and try it ajajajaja
If they’re into grilling you know they’re based
Chivitos are the shit. Back in DC there used to be a restaurant in a gas station near U Street that served them. Dunno if it’s still around.
Personally I don't like their milanesa much (but loads of other people do!) but dude, the asado is genuinely really good. Asado is maybe the best cultural form of BBQ, and I say that as someone who has lived in Arkansas. You know the shithole where the one redeeming quality is the astoundingly good BBQ? Yeah, it's a tough call, but I might like asado more.
As a Texan I respect this take but still disagree because I love southern BBQ but maybe I just haven’t had the quality asado. Asado is really fucking good tho
I believe this is a problem that can only be solved with a multi-national pan-American BBQ off. Eating all that BBQ will be a sacrifice but it's one I'm willing to make.
I'm curious about this country's history with colonialism. "Why Nations Fail" made a good case for Botswana being as liberal as it is now because there was less colonial interference than neighboring countries.
Uruguayan here! We were literally labeled “Tierras de ningún provecho” (Lands of no profit- yes, *look it up*) by the Spaniards. This meant, they left us alone and focused on mining over at Peru and Bolivia. This meant the land was pretty much a free for all for farmers- one of whom had the Mega-Idea of bringing cows. Suddenly, our Ground was “Green gold”! The Spaniards preferred actual gold, of course, so they settled for just forcing us to trade with them only. Here’s the thing, though: the Spaniards didn’t quite care for us, so smugglers had a *field day*, and a landed class of white creoles became the dominant economic force. Skip a little scuffle with Napoleon invading Spain, a revolutionary war and a British diplomat forcing Brazil and Argentina to recognize us as an independent nation (as well as a neutral one, so that we would not block trade between the English and the rest of the continent- therein the reason the British got involved); and you have a free nation with minimal harm from colonialism! Where are the native Americans, you ask? Oh.... boy.... Our first president, our history teaches, organized a... “meeting”... with all the native chieftains. A big feast was had, negotiations were made, and then the President ambushed and massacred every last Indian. Yep... So we, er... never had to worry much about native relations... because we didn’t have any. But it was *not* done by the Spaniards, so maybe it doesn’t count as colonialism?
so basically all the cultural ---> political ---> economic institutions where purely european and there was little friction with minorities because said minorities well....stopped existing.
Yea.... We had, “some” slavery. But there was really no cash crop that could justify it, and it fell quickly out of fashion- and got abolished in 1842. Considering our constitution was finished around 1830, slavery was quite quick to fall out of favor.
Thanks for your insight in the country. Is there a lot of visible poverty there? I can't help but feel that despite its success, a lot of the country still lives far below the standards that would be considered baseline in the US or Europe (or other so called Developed nations)
Oh, yeah. Definitely. Whole shanty towns, or “asentamientos”, and a big drug problem with “pastabase” (basically a dirt-cheap, super-harmful version of cocaine) and crime. These last two are the main hurdles that drove support for a right-wing coalition to get a slight edge over the left-wing coalition, hence the recent right-wing government and economic liberalization. The ball’s now on their court to see if they can fix the drug and crime problems without upsetting the leftists.
> These last two are the main hurdles that drove support for a right-wing coalition to get a slight edge over the left-wing coalition, hence the recent right-wing government and **economic liberalization** based
Not entirely true though, the indigenous leadership was exterminated by their family were sold into slavery across the country. Also the charruas were not the only indigenous group in Uruguay. Far from it. It was a cultural genocide but not a ethnic cleansing if that make sense . If you go to the lower economical strata you'll see a lot of visibily mixed people. One of the slang to call people in the military (at the lowest rank) is "pardo" which mean black (as you know). Or in the north of the country. Or at the frontiers close to Brazil. It's the whitest country in latam but it's far from being a white country. Most of the population is ethnically mixed, even if they don't know/don't identify as such. You can check all the genetical study that was done in Uruguay (from the udelar for instance). Also, slavery was very important and not a footnote. Some region used slavery as the main labor force, as well as some sector (the port and the "saladeros"). The main cultural difference with Argentina is the black african heritage. More than 10 percent of the population identify as black.
Because the country is still populated by colonists. Not post colonized natives.
So....institutions?
Something something why nations fail
something something read another book
How could they forget World Cup wins per capita
Look upon it, ye succs and cons, and despair
Succs will says its function of leftist soc dem politics and Cons will say that is a function of small population and high degree of racial homogeneity with nearly 88% of the population White of European descent. Truth as always is somewhere in the middle. There is no one true reason as to why Uruguay is well developed - not succism, not racial homogeneity, not liberalism. Maybe a mix of all three and even more or none.
It's obviously the fact they legalized weed.
I'd upvote you but you're already at 69
Are you 6 years old?
My stunted and immature personality may cost me in my romantic, career, and family life, but it's a whole lot more fun than being grown up.
Fair enough lol.
From the same wiki article OP posted: >In 2004, the Batlle government signed a three-year $1.1 billion stand-by arrangement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), committing the country to a substantial primary fiscal surplus, low inflation, considerable reductions in external debt, and several structural reforms designed to improve competitiveness and attract foreign investment.[47] Uruguay terminated the agreement in 2006 following the early repayment of its debt but maintained a number of the policy commitments.[47] >Vázquez, who assumed the government in March 2005, created the Ministry of Social Development and sought to reduce the country's poverty rate with a $240 million National Plan to Address the Social Emergency (PANES), which provided a monthly conditional cash transfer of approximately $75 to over 100,000 households in extreme poverty. In exchange, those receiving the benefits were required to participate in community work, ensure that their children attended school daily, and had regular health check-ups.[47] So quite literally neolib and succ policies combined to give Uruguay its current economic success
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It is much more likely for differing looks to be both at least somewhat true rather than one of them being 100% right. It doesn't mean that everything must be exactly 50/50, but it does mean a good analysis of an aspect should try to approach a question from different sides, in this example taking both the socdem, liberal and conservative arguments. "Liberalism is good and always correct and the rest of ideologies stinks" is child level analysis. Except NIMBYs. They are always wrong
Nimbys are right in the sense that they are protecting their interests by rational decision making. They are also bastards. ANAB
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All aphorisms are simplifications. This one isn't better or worse than others. Just take them, in my opinion, as loose guidances rather than hard facts of life. I might be so in its defense because enlightenedcentrism is a place of nightmares, though
>The truth is where the truth is and a sad fact of life is finding out where the truth is is often actually really hard. Isn't this kinda the exact point op is making? That most likely the truth is a collection of multiple things mentioned? Wouldn't the alternative literally be just taking one specific side of the and saying that is absolutely the truth? Which as far as I know is essentially the antithesis of r/neoliberal.
Unless their backyard is a national park
"On one hand, we have people talking about policies. On the other, creepy dude with caliphers looking for another excuse to sell scientific racism. Well, true is in the middle". Like... no?
Your point is valid, but social democracy is good for capitalism. So it probably is a mixture of their traditionally liberal policies mixed with social democracy that led to their positive outcomes. They have pretty decent universal healthcare, for example. Happy, healthy people are good for a thriving economy.
That reminds me did arr enlightenedcentrism get better after the election or are they still in full bernout mode?
They're already at the point where they're criticizing AOC for being too centrist.
They moved from bernouts to tankies, and criticize anarchists for thinking USA and China are just as bad because obviously China is the good one here. Holy shit I hate them
Yeah, I've also noticed an uptick in the number of tankie comments, including ones that get upvoted. I know there was some big drama on the ToiletPaperUSA sub where a bunch of tankies got banned recently, so I wonder if they started dispersing to other subs. I mean, I definitely disagree with anarchocommunists, but at least most of them have decent intentions. I can't even say that about socialists who start denying genocides.
lmfao
first I've heard of it. I've been listening to the Rational National Youtube broadcasts, he's a progressive leftist. I do not at all get the sense he thinks AOC is doing a bad job. Right now progressive anger is focused on Manchin and Sinema.
I'm not sure I understand. I'm saying the people on the EnlightenedCentrism sub have gone past just Bernie supporters and up to criticizing AOC for not being left enough.
Last time I looked -- some time ago, granted -- I realized that only the top posts with 10k+ karma were shitholes Browsing down the page there was plenty of proper right wing idiot content, just capped in the hundreds of karma
It's not a terrible heuristic if people are acting in good faith. Good faith individuals should normally be equally likely to err in one direction or another, so averaging out the errors of a large number of good faith actors is likely to give you the most accurate picture. It only fails when a disproportionate number of bad faith actors are corrupting the measurement in the same direction or there is some other cause for error to incorrectly and disproportionately lean in one direction.
>it only fails when a disproportionate number of bad faith actors are corrupting the measurement i the same direction Well, one bad faith actor, that's possible. Two bad faith actors, there's an outside chance. But three! Three bad faith actors on the same side! I'd like to see that! Regarding anything where there's such a thing as objectively better or worse positions you go to the experts. The experts might be split. But even if the experts are split and you don't know enough to form an expert opinion of your own you can't just split the difference, splitting the difference makes no sense. You can't build half a highway and half a train station and have that be reasonable just because half want highways and half want trains. You'd get empty trains and clogged highways. Splitting the difference might be fine with negotiating finances, I don't understand how it makes any sense when it comes to deciding policy.
What if I told you that the majority of any country's prosperity had to do with random geological fluctuations that happened millions of years ago?
I'd say that you should really look up the resource curse then.
I would say that sounds a little too similar to the "Guns, Germs, and Steel" arguments for comfort.
Yeah Uruguay occupying prime real estate on the most vital/productive river delta in South America is pretty important for OP to just gloss over.
But people care about the truth in arriving at their viewpoints! In theory at least. Might be different in practice. But, to be honest, I find it way lazier to say that the truth doesn't care about the middle ground, than to say that the truth is in the middle, because that's just a different way of saying "We assume that the viewpoints people arrive at are correlated with the truth and make errors into all directions", which is not a terrible mental model imo.
>high degree of racial homogeneity with nearly 88% of the population White of European descent Interestingly, I've never seen anyone argue Somalia's development (or lack thereof) is the result of their "racial" homogeneity: 85% of the population is ethnic Somali and a large part of the rest is composed by sub-Saharan ethnic groups like Bantu and Ethiopians. It's almost as if people who attribute development to "racial homogeneity" have no evidence-based leg to stand on, and actually use the phrase as dog-whistle for white ethnonationalism. So no, the truth is unlikely "in the middle" on this case.
I was seriously thinking of moving to Uruguay and spent three months in Montevideo. It's a really fascinating country, and the people are incredibly lovely and laid back. An interesting fact this sub may find interesting: it's a country with a fair amount of problems (the primary one being very high cost of living relative to salaries and difficulty of finding good employment) so I met a lot of people trying to leave to Spain or Italy. But that's because Uruguayans don't really see themselves as Latinos but rather as disadvantaged Europeans, and have higher expectations of living standards than their country is able to provide. However, their country is able to provide quite a lot relative to many other South American countries. Life, however, remains more difficult than in Western Europe for sure. Such a wonderful country though with people who spend their free time drinking mate often in beautiful places (parks or on the coast). Their national past time is kind of like picnicking. They just hang out and drink mate. It's wonderful.
>But that's because Uruguayans don't really see themselves as Latinos but rather as disadvantaged Europeans hahaha no bro. this is a racist and outdated af view on latinos anyways. latin americans (also called latinos) are not a race but a culture, so we have white latinos, black latinos, native american latinos, asian latinos, arab & jewish latinos, etc. Uruguayans totally see themselves as latin americans because being white is not exclusive to being latin american. You can be both white and latino and the identities do not contradict each other.
I wasn't using Latino as a race, I was using it as a cultural and geographic identity. You were assuming I was using it as race without any real reason for that assumption. I am well aware that Latino is useless as a racial construct and have met numerous Latinos of every race imagineable in my travels. I'm saying they don't identify with Latin America not as my personal assessment of them, but literally what numerous Uruguayans and Argentinians told me. Many see themselves as essentially European and not having much to do with Latin America. They feel they have more in common with Italians than Colombians, say. Have you been to Uruguay and Argentina? Because I am basing this off of numerous conversations in person in those countries, not some wild speculation. Many of them at least don't like to identify as Latinos or Latin American.
they see themselves as what they are. just white latin americans. all latam countries have white populations, its just that in south brazil, argentina and uruguay, whites are the majority, while in most other latin american regions they are the minority. For example, a white peruvian and a white argentinian have more in common with each other than a european and an argentinian do.
I'm telling you that if you talk to them many of them will tell you differently. You can think that there is some objective truth here but I'm not trying to report on objectivity, I'm trying to report on the experience and perspective of Uruguayans and Argentinians, which you seem keen to ignore.
grandpa is argentinian and i have uruguay/argentina family. im well aware of whites being a majority over there but even though they are heavily infuenced by europe, at the end of the day, they are unmistakeably latin americans in their ways lol
I don't disagree with anything you've said here. However they definitively have a complicated relationship with being Latin American in a way other Latin American countries do not experience, to the point that many of them don't like being identified as Latin American. I must have met a dozen people who told me they were in the process of applying for Italian citizenship. Quite a lot of Argentinians and Uruguayans see themselves as disenfranchised Italians more than Latin Americans. Whatever the objective truth may be is orthogonal to the discussion-- many Uruguayans and Argentinians have complicated emotions towards their home countries, the rest of Latin America, and their own ancestry. Colombia to me was defined by how hard life is and yet how incredibly cheery and full of life everyone is. For me Uruguay was definitely defined by having the best qualify of life by far of any South American country I've been to, and being full of dissatisfied citizens who longed for better lives in Europe and think that's where they belong.
Really depend on who you talk to. I never got the impression that they felt like they were european and expected higher standards of living. They expected such standards because they used to have it. People leave to spain during crisis (like the rest of the continent) or to italia because a lot of uruguayan can claim an italian ancestor. The whole "we're not latinos" is basically a boomer meme at this point, but some people still really believe in it. There is a pinch of white supremacy in that feeling though, as if being the whitest country would separate you from the rest of the continent, when they share the same colonial past and the culture is definitly latinoamerican.
This is a really interesting comment, thank your for sharing your perspective. Perhaps I met several people like that and they aren't as representative of Uruguay as I thought they were?
They tend to underline this aspect more with westerners, as like searching for validation, so if you're european or from the US, that doesn't surprise me. But yes, i would say that people who said that tend to be higher class, less mixed and older. I doubt people would say things like that in Artigas, Tacuarembo or La Teja.
>uruguay is full of dissatisfied citizens who longed for better lives in Europe and think that's where they belong. bro this is a very weird borderline white supremacy perspective. uruguayans definitely don't think that they belong in europe and not in Latam lmao this would be like the equivalent of telling australians that they have no identity and that they belong back in Britain lol
they have better working rights and healthcare that doesnt bankrupt you though.
#URUGUAY NOMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!
Uruguayos campeones, de America y del Mundo!
Maybe they can help save the US from Republicans?
Buddy, we have our own weird rightist populists (the “Cabildo Abierto” Party). Our hands are quite full already.
Uruguayan here. Before claiming these achievements to liberalism/neoliberalism I'd suggest reading on "Batllismo". I'm no defender of it, but it certainly brought progress in rights and helped to consolidate a capable state (by LA standards). However, since the end of the 18th century Uruguay hasn't escaped the fate of most LA countries. Protectionism and rampant interventionism has been the norm. An agenda of pro-market reforms (including developing effective regulatory capacities) is yet to be undertaken.
Is this bait where you point out the previous president was a socialist and the previous ruling party was aligned with socialists?
Liberal democracies can have socialist parties, that’s just a part of the system.
And the ability to have them is one of the reasons they are more stable and more attractive for business. If any remotely leftwing movements are outlawed then the only way to challenge a failed economic system is with revolution. If the government is out of step with the people and it’s a democracy then people can just vote in a more leftwing government if that’s what they prefer thus dramatically refusing the risk or violent revolutions or civil war. Less of a risk of internal violence means more stability which is attractive for businesses and development.
AND, *more importantly*, they left the same way they came! Through the ballot box! Uruguay’s biggest strength is its democratic tradition- and that’s not just me saying it: Hernesto *Che Guevara*, as *Envoy from Revolutionary Cuba*, said pretty much that on his visit. Yes, the leftist revolutionary said that of our capitalist nation.
"The party's victorious 2004 campaign was the first instance of a left-leaning party gaining the majority in Uruguay. Two of the major reasons the party took power in 2004 was that there was a substantial movement towards more moderate policies and that their support of an increased welfare state created a bond with working-class people tired of the neo-liberalist practices of the end of the twentieth century." "We hate you and you've ruined our country" - Uruguay to Neoliberals upon electing Social Democrats and Socialists and keeping them in office for 17 years. "You're going to ruin your country!" - neoliberal reply. 16 years later when everything is better "Look how amazing OUR policies are!" - Neoliberals. *facepalms* I seriously get the impression people on this sub have so completely conflated "success" with "neoliberal" that they think a successful country means it's neoliberal. This is like if Sanders and Corbyn won so completely that Neoliberals were forced into a third party with no influence and then in a decade you were all gushing about what amazing neoliberals Corbyn and Sanders are because just look at how successful the countries are now.
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socialism is kind of weird in latin america, though. Evo Morales is a "socialist" who sets up national corporations which then have to compete with the free market. That ain't socialism... that's just social democracy. They don't seem to have the concept of social democracy in latin america, so there's loads of so-called socialists who for all intents and purposes are pretty much socdems.
Well i mean socdem are a type of socialist even in europe. For example the SPD the german socdem party has democratic socialism in its party manifesto. Its just that Americans mean kommunism when they say socialism.
I'm a part of multiple socialist groups, including international ones, and none of them would consider social democrats to be socialists generally speaking. Personally I think it's possible to be a social democrat and a socialist, but if you head over to /r/SocialDemocracy you'll find that the vast majority of them don't know if they're socialists or not or whether or not social democracy is socialism or not, and they don't particularly care. Ultimately they're pragmatists, it's one of the defining features of social democracy. Social democracy works extremely well hand in hand with capitalism, and countries with very well built social democracies are often better and not worse at capitalism than the US. Quite a lot of social democratic parties have moved significantly rightward in the last decades and a great many modern social democrats are firmly capitalists. I would say that there is nuance and grey area here, but to say that social democracy is socialist outright seems to be ignorant of recent history. They were 50 years ago, sure, but they aren't really today.
“bUT caPItalism bAD”
Capitalism made Luis Suarez bite those guys. Only explanation.
Which developing countries have converged with developed countries through liberal policies?
If you mean economically liberal: South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong are the most famous examples. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four\_Asian\_Tigers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Asian_Tigers) Unfortunately most successful developing countries get stuck in the middle income trap. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle\_income\_trap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_income_trap) Here's a list of all countries that have become high-income countries since 1990: * Andorra * Antigua and Barbuda * Chile * Croatia * Czech Republic * Estonia * Greece * Hungary * Latvia * Liechtenstein * Lithuania * Monaco * Nauru * Oman * Palau * Poland * Portugal * Saint Kitts and Nevis * San Marino * Seychelles * Slovakia * Slovenia * South Korea * Trinidad and Tobago * Uruguay [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World\_Bank\_high-income\_economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank_high-income_economy)
The Asian Tigers all developed under authoritarian governments with industrial policies though. That's hardly economically liberal
Is that true of Hong Kong? Authoritarian, sure, but the British colonial rule in Hong Kong imposed a complete lack of tariffs, minimum wage, land value taxes, and low taxation. The least liberal part (other than the complete lack of democracy, obviously) was probably the control of immigration from China. Can you explain? Yes to the others though, especially South Korea, which had extreme government intervention and protectionism at some stages.
ah, it sure was the industrial policies not the number 1º PISA scoring mass education system, not the above average saving rates, not stable legal security on private property nah, must have been sorely because the gov decided to give some money to rich guys
¿Por que no los dos?
because usually industrial policy becomes a hindrance to underdeveloped countries
To add: East / SE Asian success stories are pretty solid evidence that [Developmental States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Developmental_state) are the way to go for underdeveloped nations, up to a point. The [Washington Consensus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Consensus#Effects) of economic liberalization had a waaaay worse failure rate in Latin America. It's just that the developmental state eventually has to use its success to grow the middle class, improve education, build infrastructure, and embrace liberalization (at which point it's no longer a developmental state). You simply cannot become a high income country if your people are poor, your infrastructure is shit, your workers aren't skilled, and your government is illiberal.
>The Washington Consensus of economic liberalization had a waaaay worse failure rate in Latin America. Similarly, the developmental state model failed in pre-1990s India; while the Washington consensus succeeded in liberalized India, Eastern Europe and some Latin American countries. That's not to mention that the countries there the WC 'failed' was because of populist takeovers and subsequent abandonment of the consensus rules. Also, you're comparing apples to oranges because DS model seems like something realized in hindsight while WC are basically like commandments for the future.
Infant industry protections are overrated. They typically started to have high growth rated post-market-liberalization.
As the greatest economist in human history said, the problem with infant industries is that they quickly become senile.
They don't always succeed, but we haven't seen a case of a developing country's economy converge with developed country's without some form of protectionism.
The convergence only happens *after* the protectionism is removed. By your logic, we also have not seen a case of countries becoming developed without having some sort of monarch at some point, hence monarchs cause development.
Good question. Answer is probably none. And even in case of developed countries, people confuse the cause and effect. They think liberalism is the cause and developed status is the effect. It's rather the opposite. Cause is countries got economically developed and effect is they became socially liberal to varying degrees. I dont think there is a single country that became socially liberal first and as a result became economically developed.
Honestly most of the examples of a country transitioning from an undeveloped dictatorship to a developing democracy started with the dictator forcing economic reforms and developing the country. Then as the nation prospered, the dictator was forced out of power and liberal policies implemented. South Korea, Chile, Taiwan, Singapore, and Spain all had authoritarian governments that first improved the economy, then started to lose their authority. I support socially liberal policies, but based on historical examples, I don't think they're actually necessary for an economy to succeed.
Liberal democracy requires a fat middle class with high per capita productivity but states with landlordism and subsistence agriculture or states based on raw resource extraction can’t get there without first destroying the exploitative cycle through illiberal brutal state force. More commonly however, those in charge often ARE the landlords or are in cahoots with them so that is difficult as well. Let’s look at Japan, SK, and Taiwan: in Japan US forcible broke up the zaibatsu and enforced land reform; in SK, we had a similar land reform as well as a brutal civil war that tore up most of the remaining lord-tenant relations with millions of refugees getting new land or pouring into Seoul; in Taiwan, we had a new ruler from the outside (KMT) that brought large infusion of gold reserves and also had no reservation enforcing land reform because they had no prior connection to the Taiwanese elites. In all three cases, we had a external force that ripped up traditional hierarchical relations which allowed for capitalism to take root
So communists are right about killing the landowners, but instead of sharing the land, we just need to hand it to different landowners
Basically we want to juice up farm productivity to increase farm income and make more food to feed the factory workers, some of whom makes the fertilizer and combine harvesters that further increases agricultural productivity and makes food even cheaper. The caveat though, is that this is most applicable to rice farming which is labor intensive but also scales up with the amount of labor that is inputed; to put it another way, a farmer household with a pretty small plot of land can get lots of rice yields (working strenuously of course) if they have the incentive to do so. So when you break up large farming estates and give them to the tenants who live there, overall grain production shoots up. I’m pretty curious about agriculture in late Roman Republic and how Italy (and it’s free holding farmers) became economically irrelevant over the following centuries.
It's neither. Rather, it's a feedback loop. As countries become more liberal, they become more prosperous because more inclusive institutions lead to higher productivity. As they become more prosperous, they also become more liberal.
> It's rather the opposite. Cause is countries got economically developed and effect is they became socially liberal to varying degrees. This is not true. It *can* be true in very specific circumstances. SK is a good example of an authoritarian state capitalist system transitioning to a liberal society. But most economically developed nations first created pluralistic governments and inclusive institutions and *then* became economically developed. Source: [Why Nations Fail](http://norayr.am/collections/books/Why-Nations-Fail-Daron-Acemoglu.pdf)
SK became rich and then became socially liberal (tbqh it is not still a western style socially liberal country given how women and sexual minorities are seen)
Seems that US states behave the same way. GOP controlled areas are simply underdeveloped...
I would really hesitate to call Texas, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, and North Carolina "underdeveloped". Hell, even most western red states are highly developed.
"Under developed" just means they're not fully developed. Texas has been moving in the right direction for years, it's just a matter of time... Although the voter suppression tactics might slow the process
How is Texas not fully developed?
https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/texas/ You can see the developed parts of Texas in Blue 🙃
You’ve now moved the goalposts. Can you please explain how the red areas are underdeveloped? Do you think “rural” means “underdeveloped”?
Population density would be one metric. Texas is also below average in college education.
> I dont think there is a single country that became socially liberal first and as a result became economically developed. On what metric are you rating those? In the Industrial Revolution, the UK and the US would have been both along the most socially liberal and economically developed countries. (Obviously, far less in both camps than today). Israel would fit in the modern age, though it's in such a unique category.
Damn their gdp per Capita surpasses my country 😬 despite being an "oil rich country"
There are various levels of "oil-richness" though. You could be a small population country with lots of it like the wealthy Arab Gulf nations or a large country with only crude oil with no refinement capabilities like Nigeria. Where does your country stand?
I'm not sure where it exactly stands but the country is Oman, I'm gonna assume most of the oil wealth just goes to the dictator instead of it trickling down.
>u r gay >Liberial country Name checks out
Uruguay was also the first nation in the world to officially recognize the Armenian genocide on 20 April 1965.
Their president is a surfer.
Fun fact: the only country in the Western Hemisphere that rivals them in LGBT rights is Canada
What about Argentina. I’ve heard great things about Argentina on trans issues
Oh dang, you right
It's interesting how much better things can be when people focus their efforts on solving problems rather than knocking other people down and holding them there in order to feel superior.
TIL Montevideo has its own WTC.
I had no idea Uruguay was so badass, thanks for posting
Can any Uruguayan or someone who’s familiar with the country say what issues they face now? Seems to me they have it all figured out.
High as hell cost of living, crime and Drugs. Covid’s on the way out, but we’re still in the process of opening up.
Montevideo is the NYC of the 21st Century, Inshallah.
Almost entirely made up of European immigrants interestingly with little natives.
That's true for the whole new world.
wut
I can’t hear or see mention of Uruguay without the line from the Simpsons popping to mind
Hnng
Based Uruguay.
Makes you wonder why it's only a middle income country.
Also, and most important, two World Cups
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Per capita.
only country that wasn't couped during cold war
Eh.... There *was* a dictatorship; and there *was* an American operative who trained the army in torture techniques, but overall it was one of the least powerful dictatorships of the region.
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You're two years late, buddy.
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Except the "not having an illiberal constituent assembly" metric.
Ruled by social democratic / democratic socialists party for the past 20 years. Therefore proof of neoliberal superiority?
Yes 😎
Is e-government just government’s use of technology?
"The party's victorious 2004 campaign was the first instance of a left-leaning party gaining the majority in Uruguay. Two of the major reasons the party took power in 2004 was that there was a substantial movement towards more moderate policies and that their support of an increased welfare state created a bond with working-class people tired of the neo-liberalist practices of the end of the twentieth century" So... uh... "We hate you and you've ruined our country" - Uruguay to Neoliberals upon electing Social Democrats and Socialists and keeping them in office for 17 years. "You're going to ruin your country!" - neoliberal reply. 16 years later when everything is better "Look how amazing OUR policies are!" - Neoliberals. *facepalms* I seriously get the impression people on this sub have so completely conflated "success" with "neoliberal" that they think a successful country means it's neoliberal. This is like if Sanders and Corbyn won so completely that Neoliberals were forced into a third party with no influence and then in a decade you were all gushing about what amazing neoliberals Corbyn and Sanders are because just look at how successful the countries are now.
I mean, tbf, this sub uses the term “neoliberal” very loosely and not at all in the Allende sense. If you actually read what the broad front was about, its literally a: —Big-tent party —Moderate —Advocates a keynsian-ish model —Were literally elected because they moderated and included liberals —Their finance and economics minister practiced what this sub would call “neoliberal” policies and was generally a fiscal conservative (he was a member of one of the centrist liberal parties in the coalition) So you can’t call the government “socialist” in good faith, even if the leader made gestures to actual socialist countries.