Honduras Is Sold as a Libertarian Paradise -- I Went, and Discovered a Capitalist Nightmare

[Panich52]

Honduras Is Sold as a Libertarian Paradise -- I Went, and Discovered a Capitalist Nightmare

A glimpse into a society run for the benefit of a handful of the rich and global conglomerates.
By Edwin Lyngar / Salon

Last month, I spent my final vacation night in Honduras in San Pedro Sula, considered the most dangerous city outside of the war-torn Middle East. ...

... There’s a lot of American cowboy culture in Honduras, but along with silly hats, Honduras has also taken one of our other worst ideas—libertarian politics. By the time I’d made it to San Pedro Sula, I’d seen much of the countryside and culture.  It’s a wonderful place, filled with music, great coffee, fabulous cigars and generous people, but it’s also a libertarian experiment coming apart.

People better than I have analyzed the specific political moves that have created this modern day libertarian dystopia.  Mike LaSusa recently wrote a detailed analysis of such, laying out how the bad ideas of libertarian politics have been pursued as government policy.

In America, libertarian ideas are attractive to mostly young, white men with high ideals and no life experience that live off of the previous generation’s investments and sacrifice.  I know this because as a young, white idiot, I subscribed to this system of discredited ideas:  Selfishness is good, government is bad. Take what you want, when you want and however you can.  Poor people deserve what they get, and the smartest, hardworking people always win.  So get yours before someone else does.  I read the books by Charles Murray and have an autographed copy of Ron Paul’s “The Revolution.” The thread that links all the disparate books and ideas is that they fail in practice.  Eliminate all taxes, privatize everything, load a country up with guns and oppose all public expenditures, you end up with Honduras.

In Honduras, the police ride around in pickup trucks with machine guns, ... For individual protection there’s an army of private, armed security guards who are found in front of not only banks, but also restaurants, ATM machines, grocery stores and at any building that holds anything of value whatsoever. ... The country has a handful of really rich people, a small group of middle-class, some security guards who seem to be getting by and a massive group of people who are starving to death and living in slums.  You can see the evidence of previous decades of infrastructure investment in roads and bridges, but it’s all in slow-motion decay.

The greatest examples of libertarianism in action are the hundreds of men, women and children standing alongside the roads all over Honduras.  The government won’t fix the roads, so these desperate entrepreneurs fill in potholes with shovels of dirt or debris.  They then stand next to the filled-in pothole soliciting tips from grateful motorists.  That is the wet dream of libertarian private sector innovation.

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[Man from Pickens]

1. Hillary's work

http://fpif.org/hillary-clintons-real-scandal-honduras-benghazi/

[bvar22]

3. Thanks for the link,

...but the NeoLiberal destruction of Honduras began long before Hillary arrived.

[delrem]

9. Yup. As in the ME, HRC stood on the shoulders of giants. nt

[SharonAnn]

11. I lived there for a year in 1981. THe situation already existed, it's just that it's gotten worse

A country with so much potential but it was still living the government/society of the United Fruit Company (and others) and it has only gotten worse since them.

I won't be surprised if there's a violent revolution there, not that I think it would result in a paradise. It's just that the poverty is unbelievable and the sheer numbers of the people in abject poverty is appalling.

The rich and the military have only strengthened their previously strong hold on anything and everything of value in the country.

The existing constitution was written by the military before they ostensibly left power. And, supposedly, it can never be changed. And in whose favor was the constitution written? You've got it! It was written to protect the military and the very wealthy and to create a democracy that has little power or ability to function as a government.

[NCTraveler]

14. Swing.....

and a miss.

[appalachiablue]

2. Thanks for the description and warning of the Honduran Libertarian Paradise gone wrong.

A nightmare as written. So much for Libertarian free market selfishness, privatization, I've got mine, to heck with you Millionaire Police State dystopia in a naturally beautiful Central American country. Next up Somalia?

[bullwinkle428]

4. Welcome to America, 2100 A.D.

Perhaps even sooner.

[Marie Marie]

6. ^^ This!^^

[Doctor_J]

10. 2050 at the latest

35 years is an eternity these days

[bullwinkle428]

15. Given what the right wing is doing at the state local levels all over the place,

you may very well be correct.

[Jack Rabbit]

5. "Libertaian Paradise" is an oxymoron

Trickle down economics is a fantasy, and so is the idea that capitalists will make rational decisions for the benefit of all unless the government regulation makes them.

[jeff47]

13. It's a paradise for the people at the top. (nt)

[freshwest]

7. Coming to a neighborhood near you! Check your state legislature.

[whereisjustice]

8. Excellent review, I've often made similar analogies between slums of India and US conservatives

People need to see the end result of the unfettered free market by traveling to these hell holes first hand. But maybe they don't. I'm afraid the US has already started an irreversible course to the same destination. I say that because unfounded conservative thinking has poisoned both Democratic and Republican Parties.

[Archae]

12. I've read of worse...

There's a place called "Galt Gulch Chile," in Chile, (naturally,) where Ayn Rand's philosophy was supposed to take root.

Instead it's awash in grifters, con artists and other corruption.

[TheKentuckian]

16. Honduras has been a long term, rolling, bipartisan crime against humanity

It is also a clear example of the plan of the interventionist elements at the top levels of government and the template for the neoliberal agenda for all people.