75-03-A3
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Peru Revolution[edit]
Transcript[edit]Is there really a middle way between capitalism and socialism? The generals who run Peru are trying to find out. I'll be right back. Almost since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the appeals of capitalism and socialism have been clear. Financed capitalism has built a complex network of incentives that has generated vast economic growth and wide prosperity, but with finance capital concentrated in the hands of a few. Socialism has offered relative equality and social stability at the expense of incentive and the economic growth and mass prosperity that incentives bring. The only alternative to the two paths was seen as a mixed economy containing elements of both and often chaotic and unpredictable. Many social thinkers have rebelled at this choice and in the last 50 years, a good deal has been written about the possibility of a so-called third way but until the military of Peru overthrew an elected civilian government in 1968, nobody'd really given it a try. Bear in mind that Latin America is an area where traditional capitalism, at least until relatively recently, and in one country, Brazil, has never worked very well. Large land holdings and industry tended to be concentrated in the hands of a tiny oligarchy which paid low wages and send its profits out of the country. In Peru, the situation was worse than elsewhere. Half the population consists of primitive rural Indians, who were until recently virtually serfs. The military regime has dispossessed the land owners and distributed most all of their land of the Indian peasants. Land reform of this sort, though rarely so extensive, is not new and can be made to work, depending upon whether the new owners can learn the burdens of ownership and new farming methods. More original is the system being inaugurated and privately owned industry in each company a so-called industrial community is being established. It includes everyone in the firm from president to janitor. Each year, the firm awards fifteen percent of its profits to the industrial community in the form of common stock until it owns fifty percent. As stock ownership increases so does worker representation on the company board. In this way, the government reasons the workers will acquire a stake in the success of the company and labor unions will become superfluous. So far things haven't worked out as planned. For one thing, outside investment in such a novel system has been hard to find, so governments created a so-called social property firm to be the financing backbone of the system. Although these two were theoretically worker controlled, the government has assumed the real power, thus defeating the market system. The system is met with much opposition ranging from traditional conservatives on the right to orthodox Marxists on the left. The most damaging has come from the labor unions whose organizing skills have enabled them to take over many of the industrial communities. Using them, mostly for traditional worker demands and for haggling over profit, accounting procedures workers have tended to oppose industrial expansion on the short-sighted theory that new workers mean dilution of their share of the profits. Few Peruvians are happy about the general's recent suppression of critical independent newspapers. The generals have some novel ideas, but a lot to overcome, including their own reluctance to really give workers the power the new system promises. It'll be interesting to see whether they succeed. This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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