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Trickle Down Despair: Lessons From a Peruvian Hospital Bed
A first-hand, near-death look at socialism in 1980s Peru.
In his famous encounter with Joe the Plumber, President Obama announced: “It’s not that I want to punish your success. … I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.”
Regrettably, the ash heap of history is littered with the disciples of this ideological gospel. Who pays the ultimate price for such foolish dogma? What can we learn from dark paths others have dared? I witnessed the effects of this cruel story with my own eyes.
General Juan Velasco Alvarado deposed the democratically elected president of Peru, Fernando Belaunde, in a military coup on October 3, 1968. His power secured, he famously proclaimed:
Campesino, el dueño nunca mas va a comer de tu pobreza.
Peasant, the landlord will never again eat from your poverty.
Proclaiming justice for the poor, he went on an unbridled nationalization spree of Peru’s private mines, oil fields, and fisheries. Price controls were instituted to eliminate “unfair” competition. Predictably, foreign capital fled the ever-encroaching rules and regulations. As internal investment faded, political dissent increased — until it was silenced in prison. Velasco’s spending didn’t end until he too was finally deposed in 1975, though his destructive policies were not reversed until the 1990s. What were the effects of his utopian vision of socialism on the very people he purported to “save”?
An investment strike and crushing deterioration of the tax base left the country unable to maintain its infrastructure. In a vain attempt to parry the monster of inflation, Peru did what all socialists do — it minted three different currencies between 1985 and 1991. Incredibly, one “New Sol” in 1991 equaled 1,000,000,000 Old Sols of 1985 — a devaluation of a billion in a span of 10 years.
I arrived in Peru in the middle of this madness in March 1986. We landed at the airport in Lima late at night — under curfew. Socialist third-world countries have a distinct smell about them — the toxic fusion of raw sewage drifting in the streets mixed with the stench of corruption and festering oppression of a people long forsaken by their government. On the way to our hotel, soldiers stopped our bus and checked our passports with machine guns in hand. They seized one of our Peruvian companions. We never heard from him again.
My first days were spent in a small fishing village on the desert coast in northern Peru. Naked children looking for food picked through mountains of trash along the glass-strewn streets while skirting pools of filth. A fortunate few chased flattened soccer balls; others played with balls of knotted rags. I moved into an adobe house with bars on the windows and doors, surrounded by thick, cinder block walls. Broken glass was embedded into the mortar on top of the wall — to keep the thieves at bay. We tied an old sock to the single water faucet in the home to strain the big black chunks from the gray water. We had to empty the sock every day. We were lucky; on most days we had running water for up to two hours — other days, not. The water smelled distressingly similar to the sewage which pooled in the streets. We bathed with bowls of gray water. Living conditions were abysmal.
Three days after arriving, my head started pounding — the first symptom of typhoid fever.
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David Kirkham is a Utah Tea Party organizer.
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16 Comments
1. Anonymous:Liberals never learn from things like this. They always think THEY will do things differently with the same methods.
Jul 6, 2009 - 2:00 am 2. t.g.:Great story. I married in Peru in 1986 up in mountains in village called chongos bajo near Huancayo. I can’t recall much poverty issues but it’s true there were all broken glass on top of the walls to keep the thieves away.
But you really should visit peru nowadays. You won’t recognize it. Peru is a living proof of how a just and transparent tax system change the way the very people live.
Jul 6, 2009 - 2:56 am 3. Steve:Lets hope those here in the United States have now been awakened as to what the Obama Administration has in mind and will vote out the liberal (all democrats and some republicans) in the congress and senate in the 2010 election and remove Obama either through impeachment or by vote in 2012.
If it were actually possible to spend the country out of a recession we would be the largest most prosperous economy on earth, but at this point we are instead one of the most in debt countries on earth and getting poorer and less productive instead.
Jul 6, 2009 - 5:23 am 4. pelaut:No one learns from history where history is not taught.
Jul 6, 2009 - 5:57 am 5. Joe Bison:To quote Reid, “The War is Lost”.
Your leaders are Axelrod/Obama, products of Alynski/Ayres/Davis (perhaps biologically).
They’re wrapping up Latin America with point man Chavez, bargaining away Europe with Putin and demolishing America as a counterweight for the individual, his liberty and prosperity.
The truth of a situation doesn’t matter to
Socialists. They will simply blame something
else for their failures eg the CIA, US policy,
Republicans, Imperialism, Rush Limbaugh…
That is why they can begin new endeavors in
Jul 6, 2009 - 7:59 am 6. Saber:stupidity with a clear conscience.
On the way to our hotel, soldiers stopped our bus and checked our passports with machine guns in hand.
The most likely reason for the presence of soldiers was that there was an increased military presence as a response to the Maoist Sendero Luminoso terror sweeping the country at the time. While Fujimori had his faults,he did capture Guzman in the early 1990s.
Otherwise, your point about the debilitating effects of Socialist economics in Peru is well taken.
Jul 6, 2009 - 8:28 am 7. johnb:I remember it well. I was working in Peru in 1975-76 during the revolution.
The medical care wasn’t any better before the author’s experience either.
Tainted water was a fact of life you either dealt with, or you got sick. I remember visiting a doctor in Lima regarding an ongoing problem I had, (my fear was Hep-C), only to be told by the doctor that the reason I was not getting better was that I must have sinned and God was punishing me.
I left for the USA on the next available plane.
Jul 6, 2009 - 8:36 am 8. Sebastian Shaw:The Socialist Liberals believe Socialism when done in the past is somehow done wrongly by previous arrogant snobs; therefore, in their own arrogance, repeat the same mistakes over & over again–never learning Socialism is failure. The Democrats will still think so when their Socialist agenda implodes before their own eyes. Arrogance rears its head again.
Jul 6, 2009 - 9:58 am 9. Marc Malone:It’s not arrogance. It is faith. Socialism is a religion. Facts don’t matter.
Jul 6, 2009 - 12:01 pm 10. homeroclon:reading these comments …¨why don´t our leaders learn from the past´
well you people are too kind and too naive.
your/our leaders don´t actually care …they say they will do better but never have any intention of trying to do better.
do you really think any of the dictators or fascist of the last hundred years really cared about anyone but themselves ? get a grip they do not
I´m in Peru now …the problems here grow faster then the solutions. (I am not advocating anything but free enterprise capitalism …too bad there is so much corruption which the leftists use to say capitalism doesn´t work)
well I see the USA may look like Peru if
Jul 6, 2009 - 12:13 pm 11. WR Jonas:I think Marc Malone has it absolutely right. Nothing fazes Liberals who have the power to ignore and disregard the truth. It is their religion and America is about to get a giant Socialist enema . Their version of the truth.
Jul 6, 2009 - 1:47 pm 12. Avitar:Obama does not care! When Charlie Gibson told him that raising the Capital Gains taxes lowers Government Revenue and lowing it increases government revenue Obama said that he would do it because it was “Fair”.
Mike Savage says that liberalism is a mental disorder. Doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different outcomes is certainly a definition of insanity.
I on the other hand observe that in 90% of societies the rulers raise the taxes so high that the societies fall off the high side of the Laffer curve and are forced down to a subsistence level of life of about $500 per capita. This must be a birth defect. I think we should practice eugenics of a sort where the descendents of politicians who raise taxes are never allowed to seek Government employment.
Jul 6, 2009 - 2:49 pm 13. David Kirkham:t.g.
I have always wanted to return to Peru. Nothing would make me happier than to see those kind people prosperous.
Saber,
Undeniably, the Shining Path was the cause of grievous suffering in the country. Socialism bankrupted Peru and left many people desolate. Some, living in abject poverty, tragically turned to unspeakable violence. The government imposed draconian laws and curfews, further strangling both their people and economy. As always, it was the poor who bore the brunt of their infernal socialist designs.
David Kirkham
Jul 6, 2009 - 5:56 pm 14. Peter Montbriand:Venezuela will look like the picture you describe in a few years. With their oil wells producing less each years, the one thing keeping them afloat will soon go away. Perhaps Pat Robertson was right, even if it’s not something that should be spoken out loud…..
Jul 7, 2009 - 12:59 am 15. t.g.:David
I’ve been there this january, according a lima newspaper (comercio) the poverty diminished in “crisis mundial”. The citizens have more cash, more jobs! We’ve been at asia beach a few miles south of lima; at wong (air conditioned supermarket) you could buy variations of local food, fish, vegetables; they have variations of peruvian beer, not only pilsen and crystal.
It seem to be the effect of a flat (20%) tax system and fiscal transparency on each level. So a mayor to be reelected has to show how he spent the money. Nowadays the people demand more police because they paid for it.
This applies even for churches: At a blockboard of a local church there was a report of the last fundraiser with detailed report on all expenses and earnings.
If you can afford to go just go. You’ll be surprised.
Jul 7, 2009 - 2:06 am 16. David Kirkham:t.g.
I can not tell you how happy it makes me to hear such good news from that corner of the world. When I was there I witnessed suffering beyond imagination. Yet somehow, living under such dispassionate governmental intrusions, the Peruvian people never ceased to amaze me with their grace, humility, and kindness. I particularly remember one day having to cross a muddy beach when the man we were with took off his own sandals (made from old worn out car tires) and insisted I put them on to spare my shoes from the mud. He then walked home–barefoot–across the glass and rock strewn beach.
I always told myself one day I would return.
David Kirkham
Jul 7, 2009 - 9:30 am