The U.S. and Hemisphere Unity
FIGUERES, JOSE
By Jose Figueres The U.S. and Hemisphere Latins want aid and restraint COSTA RICA FOR MANY YEARS those of us who look at the map—or at the clock —have been saying that the United States needs...
...These prejudices, however, do not apply to the products exported by the industrial nations...
...In any case, red tape and ritual should be reduced to a minimum...
...Some long-term investment bankers should abandon the absurd idea that capital used for educational and health facilities is not productive...
...To compensate for the long period of exploitation (non-deliberate but reckless), capital must be injected now from the countries that have accumulated most of the wealth of the world into the countries that have accumulated practically nothing but needs...
...Yet it has taken the Sino-Soviet ideological invasion of Latin America to make some people heed...
...and Western Europe, in their dealings with the weak Latin American economies...
...The most important move to be taken is the stabilization of the international market, to which the United States and other advanced countries have been objecting because of doctrinaire prejudices...
...I count myself as one...
...I believe that the West badly needs a strong American Hemisphere, united by friendship among equals...
...Of course, the question asked today, as always when it is almost too late, is: What shall we do now...
...There is no way of exaggerating the harm this blind policy has done to inter-American relations...
...Nobody believes the alibi of “non-intervention...
...Some development loans could or should be channeled through local institutions, which would run the financial risk and distribute the investment in the recipient countries with a view to diversification and with a criterion of priorities...
...This same ethical criterion is needed, even for practical purposes, in the commerce between industrial and retarded countries...
...can expect to appear as a champion of democracy...
...pulled out of the Depression by applying social controls to the power of the ruling class...
...On the other hand, the countries producing basic raw materials as their main source of income have not had the political ability necessary to get together and stabilize the market by themselves...
...The general aim should be to raise the income of the poor countries and to broaden the market for the exports of the industrial nations...
...and Hemisphere Latins want aid and restraint COSTA RICA FOR MANY YEARS those of us who look at the map—or at the clock —have been saying that the United States needs Latin America...
...They should abandon most of their primitive industries and artificial agriculture...
...Latin America, the United States and Canada complement each other in constituting the American Hemisphere, which at the present moment is the only possible stronghold of the West that is large enough to withstand competition...
...Maybe the banks could simultaneously hold the anti-inflationary line within the United States, in accordance with the monetary authorities, and at the same time lend more liberally abroad, helping world development and indirectly fostering U.S...
...The American Hemisphere can pull out of the present situation only if international JOSE FIGUERES, former President of Costa Rica, is an important leader of Latin America’s democratic forces...
...The amount Western industrial countries are investing in their own economies is probably between $50-60 billion a year...
...Latin America’s problems are both economic and political...
...and brought about the Great Depression are now at work internationally, retarding the development of Latin America and other areas, and causing the present ferment...
...The amount of outside capital Latin America could absorb in its present state of development is from $2-3 billion a year...
...Besides, you cannot convince anyone, except the oligarchies, that capitalism is better than socialism...
...As often as not, when you speak of “private investments,” the Latin Americans mentally translate it to “imperialism...
...Even today, the last remnants of that era are still in connivance with the corrupt dynasty of Nicaragua and the police state of Paraguay...
...It is easier to point out what we should have started doing 10 years ago, or what we should start doing today with a view to the future, than to answer the child’s question: What do we do now...
...banks to do business in capital-starved countries, but their possibilities are limited by the Reserve Bank’s regulations that probably aim only at internal monetary stability...
...The same erroneous attitudes that impaired the internal development of the U.S...
...They should establish some form of insurance to bail out the affected companies and areas, and help them shift to more productive lines of business...
...restraints are applied, through self-determination, to the economic power of the U.S...
...It might be better simply to facilitate the access of these Latin American institutions to the world capital market by granting United States guarantees through authorized Government agencies...
...banks, one to be followed at home and one to be applied to borrowers in less-developed countries...
...The United States has friends in the liberal movement of Latin America who have consistently taken this line, while trying to help the wrong be right...
...They should continue to reduce the number of working hours, and import the products of light industry from the retarded countries...
...exports...
...Capital should go to Latin America mainly in the form of loans, with the intention of fostering local wealth and ownership...
...It would be better to use the frank appeal: “My country, right or wrong: my hemisphere, right or wrong...
...And, considering the weak bargaining power of poor countries, investments that tend to establish permanent foreign ownership should be examined carefully, and held within proper proportions...
...One of the best examples of a social limitation of economic power within a contemporary Western democracy is minimum-wage legislation...
...my civilization, right or wrong...
...In the cold war it is a mistake to seek allegiance or solidarity on ideological grounds...
...One gets entangled not only in words, but in emotions...
...Perhaps, also, the Federal Reserve Bank could develop two different lending policies for U.S...
...Needless to say, roads and other public works are indispensable to development...
...A long-range policy of international distribution of labor should be encouraged...
...The resentment is so deep in Latin America that it will take a long time before the U.S...
...For a period of 25 or 50 years the industrial countries should endeavor to specialize in the activities that require a high concentration of capital and technological knowledge...
...shared the hatred, and the investments did not flow...
...There is the beginning of a tendency for some U.S...
...It is obvious that Latin America needs the United States...
...In the recent past the illusion of the United States that foreign private capital would develop Latin America has unconsciously led to the support of hated dictatorships as a source of a favorable climate for investments...
...History is not made by putting out fires...
...Latin America is the only continent of European ancestry and aspirations which is still poor...
Vol. 43 • October 1960 • No. 39
