Bolivia’s President Evo Morales and Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera attend a rally with supporters in El Alto, Bolivia October 28, 2019.
In Chile, which introduced market reforms long before the rest of the region and is seen by many as a posterchild of neoliberalism, some 1 million people marched on Friday to protest the conservative economic agenda of billionaire President Sebastian Pinera, the largest protest since the country’s return to democracy in 1990.
And in perhaps the most emphatic rejection of austerity and business friendly reforms, Argentine voters on Sunday removed conservative President Mauricio Macri in favor of Peronist Alberto Fernandez – a landslide backing for a decidedly more protectionist agenda. “If there is no social justice and minimum of social cohesion, the effects of growth will dissolve in grief, demonstrations, and yes, in the shooting of people,” Milanovic wrote.
While many people globally feel poorer as the world economy slows, in Latin America it is actually true, according to World Bank figures. Ana Lia Agullo, a 69-year old retiree in Buenos Aires, said Argentina’s new government needed to refocus on employment, health and education, “the pillars of every society.”