[optormtix]

Originally posted by Ned
One of the things I would like to know is why Latin Americans, on the whole, believe in the far left? Socialism, whereever actually implemented in Latin America brings what one would expect, economic collapse and stagnation.
It is probably cultural, the spanish were not friends of capitalism and free trade, like the dutch or english, and amerindian cultures were very communal here, the incas were almost communists, and the catholic church is also rather anti libertarian both in social issues of personal freedom and in economics, the church believed that there was a "fair prize" and that selling above that prize was sinful, that giving loans for an interest was sinful, that god blesses the poor etc the jesuit missions naturally evolved into a quite communistic direction
BTW
(you can find articles in the internet from protestant anti-catholics about how the catholic church invented communism and how the jesuitic missions were a communist experiment of the catholic church)

Spain + Catholic Church + Pre columbian cultures is not a combo that produces love for free trade and capitalism, I think south america ahs a natural tendency towards communalism, and strong authority figures