Juan J. Paz-y-Miño Cepeda*, Prensa Latina employee
Hayek was a radical anti-communist and supporter of limited government, and these ideas guided the promotion of the MPS as well as his sharp polemics with JM Keynes. From the MPS’s point of view, “the fundamental values of civilization are in danger”, due, among other things, to “the growth of a vision of history that denies all absolute moral standards and the growth of theories that question the adequacy of the rule of law.” And in Essentially “due to a decline in trust in private property and the competitive market,” without which “a society in which freedom can be effectively safeguarded is difficult to imagine.”
From the beginning it proclaimed that it was “an ideological movement,” without partisanship or orthodoxies, only to “facilitate the exchange of views between minds inspired by particular ideals and general ideas” and so “for the preservation and improvement of a free society to contribute”. ” He pointed out six basic themes to follow. They concluded that the attacks on “freedom” were based on false theories (in short, on all “socialism”) and were therefore determined to win the “intellectual battle for ideas” (https://tinyurl.com /cnfj98r9). This is how the first international think tank was created, which grew in the following years.
The MPS, whose members include nearly a dozen laureates of the Alfred Nobel Prize (there is no “Nobel Prize” in economics) such as Hayek himself (1974) and Milton Friedman (1976), holds regular meetings, including: includes high-ranking government officials, journalists, lawyers, economics and financial experts from around the world.
It should be noted that the guiding ideas of the “Western Free World” have their origin in this powerful MPS, which were understood primarily on two levels: liberal democracy (Michael Polanyi and Karl Popper were also among the founders) and economics. free market based on private property. And although any “orthodoxy” was ruled out from the start, there is no hiding the fact that the variants of this “liberal” idea ultimately encompass neoliberal economic ideology.
Hayek and Friedman, to whom we must add another founder, Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973), were its most famous representatives and are considered in Latin America as the fathers of neoliberalism in the region and the theoretical heroes of the “libertarian” or “anarcho-capitalist” , as claimed in Argentina by presidential candidate Javier Milei or by the think tank “Ecuador Libre” (www.ecuadorlibre.org), linked to Atlas Network, a well-known network based in the United States, states that sponsor, promote and promote ultra-conservative NGOs finance. It should not be forgotten that the Chicago Boys, Friedman’s students, advised the dictator Augusto Pinochet and that Friedman himself was warmly welcomed in Chile in 1975.
In the MPS, those who theorize and analyze the economy focus on the major capitalist countries and only in a subordinate or non-existent way on Latin America, which they are usually ignorant of, as can be seen from their works. But the approaches are accepted by a number of supporters in the region and, moreover, support the neoliberal policies that continue to cause the greatest social damage in the various countries, through absolutely entrepreneurial governments supported by typical bourgeoisies in development.
In an attempt to emulate the example of the MPS, but exclusively from the political sphere, the Disenso Foundation, part of Spain’s far-right Vox party, published in 2020 the “Charter of Madrid”, founding document of the “Madrid Forum” ( https: //foromadrid.org), which was joined by Latin American politicians of the same line. And to comply with this framework, this year (2023) a number of “Ibero-American” heads of state and government (including Spain) founded, together with other politicians, the “Group for Freedom and Democracy” (GLD). : https://grupolibertadydemocracia.org). All of them are identified with the most reactionary right in Latin America, and some of these rulers are the direct perpetrators of the social misfortune they have left in their respective countries, such as Iván Duque, Mauricio Macri, Sebastián Piñera, Jeanine Añez or the Ecuadorian banker Guillermo Lasso , members of the group that also includes Osvaldo Hurtado, former Ecuadorian president, whose intellectual turn is similar to that of the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who, by the way, is a recognized member of the MPS.
The express purpose of the GLD is to oppose any left-wing government and any “populism”, to oppose the São Paulo Forum and the Puebla Group, under the slogan that “freedom”, “democracy”, “development” prevail. and the “rule of law,” understood in their own way. It would be enough to prove this by enduring the wordy contributions during their second meeting in September (2023) in Buenos Aires (https://tinyurl.com/2a8f3heb). It is therefore understandable that both the Disenso Foundation and the Madrid Forum support Javier Milei for the presidency of Argentina (https://tinyurl.com/mr3dpk26), as did the Libertad group María Corina Machado to victory in the primaries in Venezuela congratulates (https://tinyurl.com/26p6uuwa) and also “with enthusiasm” to Daniel Noboa, the elected President of Ecuador (https://tinyurl.com/3j9f9exx).
As can be seen, the extreme right of Latin America coincides in economic and political postulates and is now integrating powerful international entities with sufficient funding and presence to devote themselves to the “intellectual struggle for ideas” that, in its origins, inspires is the MPS. . Knowing the roots of the economic conceptions of neoliberalism in the region, dressed up as universal theories, as well as the organizations that internationalize their ideas and actions, it is also necessary to wage this intellectual battle for ideas from the opposing ranks. Furthermore, in every country there is a solid basis for demonstrating the catastrophic human consequences of the application of neoliberal slogans. Ecuador even offers the most serious picture since 2017, with the governments of Lenín Moreno (2017-2021) and even more so with that of Guillermo Lasso (2021-present), being the only country where the dominant power bloc is hegemonized by one Leadership made up of businessmen and officials identified with anarcho-capitalist libertarianism. They have caused the unprecedented destruction of what K. Marx called the productive forces by imposing the minimum state and commercial-financial capitalism at the expense of losses in social investments, services and infrastructure, with the obvious aim of improving private enterprise. The title of a famous book by Andre Gunder Frank makes sense again under different conditions: the development of underdevelopment.
RMH/JJPMC
*Ecuadorian historian and analyst
(Taken from selected signatures)