The components of democratic citizenship
do not easily coexist with extreme
and persistent inequality. Rather, they tend to get
distorted in ways that pose serious problems for
the practice of democracy.
According to the most recent estimates of the
UN’s Economic Commission on Latin America
and the Caribbean (ECLAC), there were 209
million Latin Americans living in poverty in 1994, up
from 197 million in 1990, a 6% increase. A decade of
neoliberal, market-oriented reforms has brought about
the reactivation of private investment and economic
growth together with an overwhelming deterioration of
living standards and the impoverishment of large num-
bers of people.
Deep and persistent social inequalities have distorted
the nature of both economic growth and recession in
Latin America. It is the poor who bear the brunt of
recession through job loss, downgraded working condi-
tions, declining real wages, small-business bankrupt-
cies and so on. It is the wealthy, on the other hand, who
are the first to benefit from growth through access to
credit and foreign exchange as well as tax exemptions
and other government benefits. In Argentina, for exam-
ple, between 1990 and 1994, the so-called “golden
years” of the convertibility program of Carlos Menem
and Domingo Cavallo, the gross domestic product
(GDP) increased by one third-some $100 billion–
Carlos M. Vilas is a sociologist and historian at the Center for
Interdisciplinary Research at the National Autonomous
University of Mexico (UNAM), and a member of NACLA’s edito-
rial board. His most recent book is Between Earthquakes and
Volcanoes; Market, State, and Revolutions in Central America
(Monthly Review Press, 1995).
VOL XXXI, No 1 JULIuAuG 1997
and labor productivity grew by 50%. Real wages, how-
ever, remained virtually frozen and unemployment sky-
rocketed. By contrast, after the “tequila effect” of
Mexico’s December 1994 peso crisis rippled through
Argentina, the country’s GDP shrank by 4.6%, while
unemployment almost doubled (see Table 1). In the
Buenos Aires metropolitan area, unemployment in-
creased from 602,718 (12.1% of the labor force) in
1994 to 953,632 (18.8%) in 1995. The 1995 rate of
female unemployment was even higher at 22.3%.1 Both
growth and recession, then, had clear class implica-
tions. Workers gained little during the boom and lost
much more than their employers during the crisis.
Figure 1 presents a rough measure of social inequal-
ity in 17 Latin American and Caribbean countries in the
early 1990s, and compares them to several countries in
Asia and Africa, as well as the United States. The high-
est levels of social inequality are found in Latin
America, with 14 out of 17 countries ranking higher
than much poorer countries in Asia and Africa. In
Figure 2, we see that this income inequality was a fea-
ture of the Latin American landscape well before the
advent of neoliberal restructuring. In part, this is
because there is much more cumulative inequality in
Latin America than in other regions. Different types of
inequality, stemming from class, gender, race, regional
and even religious differences, tend to overlap, creating
extremely rigid social structures. This is particularly
true in countries where class and ethnic domination
57ESSAY/DEMOCRACY AND INEQUALITY
coincide, such as in Brazil and
trary to the neoliberal idea that
nomic growth leads by itself to i
geneity, we see that countries s
rate of growth as Mexico, the Dc
Nicaragua have similar levels o
the case of Ecuador when compa
Figure 3 highlights an addition
American inequality. It compare
earnings of chief executive of
largest private corporations in
with those countries’ per capi
income polarization so extreme
American countries shown on th.
in those four countries
enjoy higher levels of T income than many of their
colleagues in much more
developed countries. In
Argentina, for example, CEOs earn 7% more than
their U.S. colleagues even
though Argentina’s per-
capita GDP is one third
that of the United States.
Mexico’s CEOs earn 12%
more than those in France,
while France’s per-capita
GDP is nearly six times
that of Mexico. 2
The region’s persis-
tently high levels of
poverty and inequality
pose some problems for the o
Latin American democracy. TI
poverty is taking place in coun
elections and have more or I
among political parties. These c
by regimes that are considered
their regular elections and open
so-called “transitions-to-democr
1980s and by the “consolidatin
taking place today. 3 But even i
sphere, these approaches are cl
there is evidence that a number
tions” have retreated to tradition
to regimes which combine demo
authoritarian rule.
I would like to suggest a differ
tion to open competitive election
the effective observance of the
autonomy of the judicial from th
government. It also requires ac
officials, free access to informati
Guatemala. And con-
“market-friendly” eco-
ncreased social homo-
o divergent in size and
ominican Republic and
f inequality, as is also
ared to Argentina.
nal dimension of Latin
s the after-tax average
ficers (CEOs) of the
21 selected countries
ta GDP. Nowhere is
as in the four Latin
e chart. Business elites
“able 1
over military and security forces. In addition to these
minimal political conditions, genuine democracy
requires access to certain socioeconomic conditions
such as education, jobs, health care and housing, which
allow for the effective practice of citizenship. These
conditions are sorely lacking in most of our “really
existing” democracies. 4
Although electoral procedures and party competition
may be found in settings of massive poverty and pro-
found inequalities, poverty and inequality tend to dis-
tort the effective meanings of democracy and citizen-
ship. In conditions of extreme poverty, formal
citizenship may mask a retreat toward patron-client
political relations, while democratic institutions fre-
ECONOMIC GROWTH, LABOR PRODUCTIVITY, WAGES
AND UNEMPLOYMENT IN ARGENTINA. 1″9095.
(Index numbers, 1990 = 100)
Year GDP Productivity (1) Wages (2) Un mp(3yment ()
1990 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0
1991 108.9 115.0 101.4 73.4
1992 118.4 128.0 102.7 77.9
1993 125.5 138.0 101.3 123.4
1994 133.6 148.0 102.0 128.6
1995 126.9 … 100.9 234.9
(1) Output per hour
(2) Average real wage (3) Open unemployment; does not include underemployment. Sources: Argentina’s Government Statistics Authority (INDEC) and ECLAC.
ngoing celebration of quently house authoritarian power relations. The ten-
he current growth in sions between inequality and impoverishment on the
tries that hold regular one hand, and democratic politics on the other, can have
ess open competition a devastating effect on the latter. This can be seen more
ountries are governed clearly if we consider the question of citizenship.
to be democratic-for
competition-by the T iberal democracy-the purported goal of Latin
acy” literature of the American political elites and their U.S. supporters
g-democracy” debates L .- can be thought of as the political regime of cit-
n the strictly political izenship. Citizenship, in turn, is made up of some basic,
early inadequate, and interrelated components including, minimally, the fol-
of “democratic transi- lowing: individual autonomy, involving personal free-
ial caudillo politics or dom vis-h-vis all other individuals as well as individual
cratic formalities with freedom and rights vis-ei-vis state power and power-
holders; equality of rights and obligations of all individ-
rent approach. In addi- uals in a particular polity; efficacy, or the ability (and the
s, democracy requires perceived ability) to achieve desired outcomes through
rule of law and the one’s direct or indirect efforts; accountability, or the
he executive branch of assumption of responsibility for one’s deeds and their
countability of public consequences upon others (which must apply to public
on and civilian control officials as well as to private individuals); empathy, or
NACILA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS 58ESSAY/DEMOCRACY AND INEQUALITY
the ability to place oneself in settings and situations
beyond one’s locality or everyday horizon; and finally
an idea or assumption of a shared belonging to some-
thing that is common to all citizens (the res publica, as
the Romans called it, or the English commonwealth).
These components of citizenship do not easily coexist
with extreme and persistent inequality. Rather, they tend
to get distorted in some of the following ways.
VoL XXXI, No 1 JuLY/AUG 1997
Personal autonomy refers to physi-
cal freedom as well as access to some basic resources
that allow for a minimum of self determination: a
decently paid job, education and access to information,
sustainable living conditions, and the like. Figures on
income disparities suggest that while the elites have
abundant and sometimes excessive access to such
resources, increasing majorities of the Latin American
population are deprived of
them. There is certainly a great
deal of freedom and autonomy
among the richest 20% of the
Brazilian households which col-
lectively earn 67.5% of the
country’s national income, or
among their colleagues in
Guatemala, who get 63% of the
pie. They enjoy more than
autonomy. These elites, as the
Brazilian sociologist Octavio
lanni once put it, behave not as
rulers, but as conquerors. Quite
the contrary is true on the lower
floors of the social edifice.
What kind of personal auton-
omy is experienced by the job- less, the homeless, the poorest
40% of the Latin American pop-
ulation who get only 5.7% of
their country’s income in
Mexico, 5% in Venezuela, 7%
in Brazil, 4.9% in Chile, 2.7%
in Guatemala and 4.9% in
Colombia?
The much-discussed crisis of
political parties is in part the
result of this immense social
polarization. 5 The inability of
political parties to process and
respond to the demands and
expectations of the impoverished
without contesting the overall
imprint of market-dominated
restructuring reinforces people’s
alienation from conventional
representative democratic insti-
tutions. Something similar can
be said with regard to the in-
creasing inability of unions to
represent and mobilize the grow-
ing numbers of the un- and
under-employed, and those ex-
pelled from formal labor mar-
kets because of transnational sub-
59ESSAY/DEMOCRACY AND INEQUALITY
contracting, “flexibilization” and other forms of labor
discipline.
In addition to their conventional political and eco-
nomic objectives, most Latin American parties and
unions once traditionally performed a number of
social-assistance functions with regard to jobs, educa-
tion, health care and the like. Because of neoliberal
restructuring-including budget cuts and union bust-
ing-these social-welfare functions have largely disap-
peared. It is now the state, through “targeted” social
policies, which directly fills the void left behind by the
retreat of unions and parties from the daily needs of
their constituencies. Since state resources-compensat-
ing for the rigidities and shortcomings of the market–
are not sufficient to reach the entire population in need,
a poor-against-poor competiti access to much needed resources.
In such polarized social set-
tings, to speak of equality is plain mockery. There
is, of course, a constitutional framework of legal
equality, yet when socioeconomic and cultural dis-
parities reach extreme levels, effective inequality
tends to dominate legal equality. In these circum-
stances, the egalitarian democratic principle of “one person, one vote” is devoid of any relevant
meaning. In the upper levels of the social order it is
quite obvious that “one person” has access to much
more than one vote: we are dealing here with cor-
porate power. Take the case of Carlos Slim, the
wealthiest man in Mexico, whose estimated $6.1
billion of assets include controlling interest in the Mexpican telepnhnnp point Telmex well nR mninr
shares of the nation’s largest bank and most profitable
financial firm. 6 Are Slim’s political power and efficacy
restricted to just the ballot he casts every two or three
years? Hardly. On the lower levels, of course, “one per-
son” does mean “one vote,” although post-electoral
pirouettes by government officers frequently empty vot-
ing of its ability to achieve the goals the majority of the
electorate is pursuing; cheating “the sovereign people”
looks like standard operating procedure in market-
friendly democracies.
These inequalities in personal auton-
omy have a powerful impact upon efficacy. Patron-
client relations of domination and subordination tend to
substitute for relations among equals. Personal ties sub-
stitute for impersonal institutional loyalties. This is par-
ticularly clear on the lower rungs of the social ladder,
and is increasingly present among segments of the mid-
dle class. Having a friend or a relative who holds some
powerful position tends to be more conducive to the
achievement of specific goals-getting access to a
health clinic or a job, having the roads paved or the
garbage collected–than the entitlements granted by
citizenship rights. The very vulnerability of people in
poverty reinforces their search for someone else’s effi-
cacy, and personal relations take precedence over enti-
tlements.
This is what the Mexican anthropologist Guillermo
de la Pefia calls “negotiated corporatism.” Efficacy here
refers to the ability of subordinate individuals to man-
age themselves in non-democratic power structures and
social networks. 7 In a recent survey conducted in the
Dominican Republic, for example, the demand for
strongmen and for authoritarian solutions was most
common in the most vulnerable segments of the popu-
lation-among lower-income respondents, among the
less educated, among women more than among men
and among blacks much more than among whites. 8 A
direct, non-mediated political relationship tends then to
develop between the impoverished masses and the
power holders. In this relationship, power becomes
unrestricted, and the masses look for some basic secu-
rity for the future. We have seen this develop in a num-
ber of countries. In Peru, for example, a vast majority
of the most deprived population re-elected Alberto
Fujimori in 1995, while in Brazil the poor opted for
Fernando Collor de Mello in 1990, and for Fernando
Henrique Cardoso in 1995. In none of these cases was
the successful candidate backed by a full-fledged polit-
ical party or by labor unions.
Loss of efficacy takes place in at least two interre-
lated levels: with regard to one’s individual ability to
achieve personal goals, and with regard to politics as a
way to cope with collective conflicts and troubles.
There is then a frequent overlap of electoral support for
strongmen or caudillo-type candidates, and electoral
absenteeism. According to a nation-wide survey con-
NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS
0
I 1–ESSAY/DEMOCRACY AND INEQUALITY
ducted at the Institute of Social Research of Mexico’s
National University (UNAM), 29% of the Mexicans
interviewed never talk about politics. Political indiffer-
ence, however, is higher among
people with no schooling (52%),
among elementary-school drop-
outs (49%) and among those in
the lower economic strata
(47%).9 A similar disdain for
politics has been found in sur-
veys on political culture in both
Nicaragua and El Salvador.l 0
Consequently, high electoral
absenteeism should come as no
surprise: 60% in the Salvadoran
congressional and municipal
elections in March 1997, and
40% in the first round of the so-
called “elections of the century”
in 1994.
Mexico’s very high electoral
absenteeism, on the other hand,
receded sharply in the July 1994
presidential elections when elec-
toral competition grew, opposi-
tion parties gained more room
for conducting their campaigns,
international observers were
allowed to oversee the voting,
and there was a feeling among
the public that the coming elec-
tions could bring a change in
their lives. Electoral participa-
tion went up to more than 73%,
1- In settings of perceived power-
lessness, impunity substitutes for accountability. The
belief that there will be no punishment for violations of
a historical record.
Loss of political and social
efficacy is neither a sponta-
neous nor a “natural” phenome-
non. It is a dimension of politi-
cal power, nurtured by escapist
fare from most of the media net-
works, and neoliberal assistance
programs like Mexico’s once-
celebrated PRONASOL, which
oscillate between repression
and the co-optation of indepen-
dent popular organizations. In
this context, one of the key-
and most difficult-steps of
political organizing is the
process of convincing people
that their own efforts can be
fruitful in putting an end to their
daily suffering.
VoL XXXI, No 1 JULY/AUG 1997 61ESSAY/DEMOCRACY AND INEQUALITY
the law is not just a subjective or psychological feeling;
it is nurtured by the objective evidence that there are no
legal sanctions for breaking the law. When impunity
exists, it tends to permeate the entire social structure,
even while manifesting itself in quite different forms:
pervasive tax evasion particularly in the upper levels of
business corporations; “flexible” labor relations that
enable business firms to fire workers with no advance
notice or compensation; drivers passing through red
lights and bribing police officers; the omnipotence of
bureaucrats; police brutality in their dealings with the
poor and the political opposition; open or poorly hidden
corruption at all levels of government administration.
Poverty is usually accompanied by a feeling of power-
lessness which in turn is reinforced by the objective inse-
curity pervading everyday life in poor neighborhoods. In
this setting, voting may harbor quite a different meaning
from that discussed in conventional political theory. For
most educated and concerned citizens, voting may be
associated with general proposals
country, what to do with foreign
trade, how to manage the foreign
debt, what strategy of poverty alle-
viation is best suited to the situa-
tion, and so on. As field research
has found, this is not the case in the
world of poverty. Here, voting is an
ingredient of an overall system of
tradeoffs between the haves and the
have-nots, an instrument to achieve
specific resources like schooling,
jobs, personal security, land titles,
and the like.” In this environment,
the ballot becomes something like
the credit card of the poor.
It would be misleading to con-
clude that authoritarianism lies
deep in the hearts and minds of the
poor. In the recent past the Latin
American poor have been active
participants in revolutionary strug-
gles in Central America, as well as
in democratization processes in
South America and the Caribbean.
It is the authoritarian nature of
post-adjustment settings which, in
the absence of viable and credible
progressive alternatives, biases the
options of the masses toward a
variety of authoritarian options.12
When there is no foreseeable long-
run and inclusive alternative, peo-
ple have no option but to seek
immediate, short-term solutions,
how to run the
particularly when these solutions provide today’s job or
tomorrow’s food.
,. Under conditions of extreme
inequality, empathy recedes to close affective ties: the
family or kin group, locality, religious or ethnic groups.
It becomes extremely difficult, if at all possible, for the
poor to decipher landscapes beyond their daily lives and
troubles and their immediate localities. A retreat to
“primordial ties”-as anthropologist Clifford Geertz
termed them–takes place which substitutes for the
“imagined communities” of nation, state or anything
falling beyond the frontiers of everyday life.
Under the conditions of neoliberal restructuring, the
processes and institutions that can foster a broader
social empathy-education, accessible information,
community-based organizations-are becoming
smaller and less accessible. Public education is shrink-
ing due to privatization; shrinking public budgets are
driving museums and libraries into complete disarray;
Figure 3 CEOs INCOME / GNP PER CAPITA (1996)
92.7 Brazil
Venezuela
Mexico
Argentina
South Africa
Hong Kong
Singapore
USA
Spain
UK
Australia
Italy
New Zealand
Canada
France
Germany
Netherlands
Switzerland
Belgium
Japan
Sweden
48.6
45.3
39.4
32.8
13.3
12.4
11.6
10.2
9.8
“9.5
08.2
S7.4
7.3
N7.3
S6.8
16.7
5.6
15.5
15.5
4.2
Source: Towers Perrin Consultants, 1996.
NACIA REPORT ON THE AMERICASESSAY/DEMOCRACY AND INEQUALITY
and the “global superhighway” is out of reach of those
who do not have access to a home phone-not to speak
of the cost of equipment. Cross-country mobility is cur-
tailed by the privatization of transportation, increasing
fares and decreasing family income, and even state-
funded tourism programs are a thing of the past due to
cutbacks in social spending.
yiyl- l , i”Everyone for her or him-
self’ has replaced the commitments to a shared belong-
ing to the polity. Huge and usually increasing social
distances between the richest and the poorest conspire
against solidarity. The commonwealth is no longer
common: it has been privatized and belongs to the
wealthiest. As the German political scientist Herman
Heller stressed, the very idea of a shared code of mean-
ings involving everyone in the polity usually retreats
when confronted with structural inequality and exclu-
sionary development.13 Like empathy, shared belong-
ing is learned through processes and institutions. It is
hard for people expelled from formal education and
without access to basic social resources such as health
care, a decent house-even a decent room-because of
joblessness and poverty, to feel like members of the
same social setting than those having them in excess.
In turn, allegiance to an international governing class
and to the corporate world has replaced citizenship in
the ranks of the very wealthy. Elites have loosened their
material and symbolic links to any particular country, any particular polity or any particular citizenship, becoming increasingly committed to corporate interests
and goals and even to the country that houses the head-
quarters of the corporations they work for. Democratic
accountability has been eroded even further as the
national elites have become more accountable to the
1. International Labor Organization, Yearbook of Labor Statistics 1996 (Geneva: ILO, 1996), p. 389. 2. Research on CEO salaries conducted by the consulting firm Towers Perrin, Pigina 12 (Buenos Aires), February 16, 1997. GDP figures are from World Bank, World Economic Report 1996 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1996). 3. See Guillermo O’Donnell, “Illusions About Consolidation,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 2, April 1996, pp. 34-51. 4. See Carlos M. Vilas, “Participation, Inequality, and the Whereabouts of Democracy,” in D. Chalmers, C.M. Vilas, et. al., eds., The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 3-42. See also Steven Volk, “‘Democracy’ Versus ‘Democracy’,” NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. XXX, No. 4, January/February 1997, pp. 6-12. 5. See Claus Offe, Contradicciones en el estado de bienestar (Madrid: Alianza, 1990), pp. 151-167. 6. See Carlos Marichal, “The Rapid Rise of the Neobanqueros,” NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. XXX, No. 6, May/June 1997, pp. 27-31. 7. Guillermo de la Peha, “Estructura e historia: La viabilidad de los nuevos sujetos,” in Transformaciones sociales y acciones
global financial community and to multilateral agencies
like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World
Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank
(IDB). Because the loans that these agencies offer are
politically conditioned, many government officials con-
sider themselves no longer accountable to their citizens
but to the lending agencies themselves. The relation of
representation which is central to any electoral democ-
racy has moved from a link between government and
citizens, to a link between government and these finan-
cial institutions.
The self empowerment of the people, moving from
clientism to a full-fledged citizenship, is the only way out
of these authoritarian democracies, and the only escape
from authoritarianism in general. Most of the agenda
for the promotion of effective democracy has been
prompted by the efforts of people to organize them-
selves in the face of repression from governments and
scorn from conservative intellectuals. From these
efforts have come the movements for human rights, labor rights, freedom of information, women’s rights,
ethnic and racial pluralism, peasant access to land, the
rule of law and environmental protection.
In its very beginnings, citizenship was accessible to
just a tiny proportion of individuals-free, literate,
adult, propertied, native-born males. It has been the
task and the success of a whole range of social move-
ments to open up the rights and obligations of citizen-
ship to larger proportions of the adult population, emancipating both citizenship and democracy from
class, gender and racial boundaries. Yet this move from
subordination to citizenship is neither spontaneous nor
inevitable. As with everything in politics-and in
human life-it has to be brought about by need, desire
and commitment.
1. International Labor Organization, Yearbook of Labor Statistics
1996 (Geneva: ILO, 1996), p. 389.
2. Research on CEO salaries conducted by the consulting firm
Towers Perrin, Pigina 12 (Buenos Aires), February 16, 1997.
GDP figures are from World Bank, World Economic Report
1996 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1996).
3. See Guillermo O’Donnell, “Illusions About Consolidation,”
Journal of Democracy, Vol. 7, No. 2, April 1996, pp. 34-51.
4. See Carlos M. Vilas, “Participation, Inequality, and the
Whereabouts of Democracy,” in D. Chalmers, C.M. Vilas, et.
al., eds., The New Politics of Inequality in Latin America
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 3-42. See also
Steven Volk, “‘Democracy’ Versus ‘Democracy’,” NACLA
Report on the Americas, Vol. XXX, No. 4, January/February
1997, pp. 6-12.
5. See Claus Offe, Contradicciones en el estado de bienestar
(Madrid: Alianza, 1990), pp. 151-167.
6. See Carlos Marichal, “The Rapid Rise of the Neobanqueros,”
NACLA Report on the Americas, Vol. XXX, No. 6, May/June
1997, pp. 27-31.
7. Guillermo de la Peha, “Estructura e historia: La viabilidad de
los nuevos sujetos,” in Transformaciones sociales y acciones
colectivas (Mexico City: El Colegio de Mbxico, 1994), pp.
141-159.
8. Isis Duarte, et. al., La cultura politica de los dominicanos
(Santiago de los Caballeros: Pontificia Universidad Cat6lica
Madre y Maestra, 1995).
9. Institute of Social Research/UNAM, Los mexicanos de los
noventas (Mexico City: IIS/UNAM, 1996).
10. Mitchell Seligson, Political Culture in Nicaragua: Transitions
1991-1995, Monograph, Washington, D.C., December 1995;
Jack Spence, et. al., Chapultepec Five Years Later: El Salvador’s
Political Reality and Uncertain Future (Boston: Hemispheric
Initiatives, 1997).
11. See Francisco Weffort, Qual democracia? (S5o Paulo:
Schwarcz, 1992). See also Mercedes Gonz6lez de la Rocha,
The Resources of Poverty: Women and Survival in a Mexican
City (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994).
12. See a lengthy discussion of this point in Carlos M. Vilas, “Are
There Left Alternatives? A Debate from Latin America,” in Leo
Panitch, ed., The Socialist Register 1996 (London: Merlin
Press, 1996), pp. 264-285.
13. Herman Heller, Escritos politicos (Madrid: Alianza, 1985), pp.
257-268.
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