Inequality in Latin America

On Tues., Feb. 14, 2012, Plymouth State University hosted Latin American scholar and published author Joseph S. Tulchin to give a lecture as part of the Saul O. Sidore Lecture Series, a series whose goal is to "bring a variety of speakers to campus to address critical issues and events in politics, society, and culture, topics that reflect Sidore's interests."

 This academic year's topic is The Gap Between the Rich and the Poor which "will focus on the various forms of poverty that plague societies around the world and present viable solutions."

Tulchin, a visiting fellow at the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University discussed, in his lecture, the major changes that are occurring in Latin America regarding inequality and citizen security, the measures countries such as Brazil have taken to combat these problems, and how the United States plays a role.

Tulchin began his lecture with the most traditional form of audience participation. He asked, by show of hands, "who has been to Latin America," and "who has taken a class having to do with Latin America?" Tulchin was pleasantly surprised that within the intimate size of the audience, half raised their hands. With this result he concluded that the lecture be kept as "informal as possible," so as to keep it conversational with the audience, as would any professor.

According to Tulchin, four major "tectonic" changes, or "shifts in Latin America that have been a long time evolving," have contributed to the "discontents, tensions, and issues that cause the people to be less than optimistic about their future."

The first change is the establishment of a civilian democratic government. The second change is the fact that Latin America has become the most unequal region, which raises the difficulty of obtaining a successful democracy. 

The third has to do with the "Gini Coefficient." This coefficient is the representation of a country's total wealth divided by those who posses the wealth. In recent years the Gini of Brazil, a country Tulchin put quite an emphasis on, has gotten better due to the largest successful effort to stop inequality in Latin America. This shows what a country can do when it is unified.

 Finally, the fourth change is how principal the issues of crime and violence have become in Latin America. "In Argentina, it is the state itself that is the bloodiest criminal," says Tulchin. That example in itself portrays the discord that takes place in parts of Latin America, greatly affecting citizen security.

As a part of this violence, drug wars and arms dealing were discussed and are two main components that affect citizen security. It is on this topic where it can be said that the United States is lacking. Although almost $10 billion have been spent to reduce the supply of drugs to Latin America, barely anything has been spent trying to stop the consumption of those drugs in the U.S. It is even recorded that when it comes to violence in Latin America, 95 percent of the guns involved in drug wars come from the U.S.

Unfortunately, these are not the topics that are prominent in U.S. political debates. And on Tulchin's word, if a change in the U.S. foreign policies were to come about regarding Latin America, it would most likely have a chance of happening under a second term of the Obama Administration which originally had plans in the works to do so.  Of late, though, "the President has been absorbed with the foreign policy agenda at hand," and therefore Latin American concerns have been dealt a lower standing on the priority list.