Bolivia, between the false hope of the IMF and the plurinational nightmare

By: Hugo Marcelo Balderrama - 09/12/2024

Guest columnist.
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The situation in Bolivia is critical. The lack of dollars in the financial system makes it difficult to import fuel, medicines and food. Most households are having serious difficulties making ends meet. Faced with this apocalyptic scenario, some opposition members and mainstream economists are talking about the urgent need to obtain dollars through an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a proposal with which I completely disagree.

The first question to ask is: is the shortage of dollars the central cause of the problems or is it simply a symptom of something more serious?

To answer this question, it is necessary to clarify something: The economic model of the Movement Towards Socialism did not fail, since its objectives were always to make the Bolivian population poor and dependent on the crumbs of state power. Nor is it exhausted, because the history of the last seven decades in Cuba and the three in Venezuela show us that we can always dig deeper. Therefore, the root of the problem is found in the Plurinational State, a project of submission and domination born from the criminal franchise of the Sao Paulo Forum.

So, solving the dollar shortage by going to the IMF is confusing the thermometer with the fever, but with an additional aggravating factor: The dictatorial system is being given a huge oxygen tube. In this regard, my teacher, Alberto Benegas Lynch, in his article: The International Monetary Fund, states:

The IMF serves to finance inept rulers who, when they are about to resign or, pushed by reality, to reverse their failed statist policies, receive large amounts of resources at low interest rates with grace periods in order to continue with oversized state apparatuses, which are generally advised to further increase tax burdens and take other measures to balance their budgets, but not to reduce the size of the Leviathan.

During his 32-year dictatorship in the Belgian Congo, Mobutu Sese Seko received large amounts of money from Western powers and the IMF itself. The result was the elimination of all traces of republicanism and the departure from constitutional precepts. Mobuto's power was absolute; he himself took it upon himself to elevate his image to quasi-religious levels. All, absolutely all, state and private offices had a picture of him.

In a country with vast natural resources such as oil, uranium, coal, diamond mines, tin, gold, lead and zinc, as well as the largest reserve of cobalt, the population was one of the poorest in the world, fourth place, to be exact.

But it is not necessary to travel to Africa or go back so far in time, I remind you of the IMF's words of joy at the victory of Luis Arce Catacora in 2020:

He was the minister who led the Bolivian economy through a period of great growth, of great strength of public finances, of great creation, the architect, architect and creator of reserve margins for that economy that made it easier to live through not so good periods.

As is well known, the IMF is coercively financed by the fruits of the work of its member countries. That is why authors such as Anna Schwartz, Ronald Vauvel and Raymond Mickesell consider that it is time to end the institution, since it has served to enable the poor in rich countries, through taxes, to finance the rich and dictators in poor countries.

And the dollars?

The dollars will appear just at the moment when Bolivia can offer something vital to the world: confidence. However, the first stage begins by dismantling the Plurinational State to recover the republican framework and individual freedoms to undertake, save and invest.

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».