Larvatus Prodeo

In 1823, while the Monroe Doctrine was being framed, John Quincy Adams took care to ensure that while it might warn European powers from territorial acquisitions in Latin America, it would also not prevent the US from snaffling areas like Texas and Cuba should it so choose. Ostensibly a defence of anti-imperialist Republics, it was always intended to assert regional hegemony and carve out a sphere of influence in the true manner of 19th century power politics. While veering and tacking between overt military interventionism and more progressive sounding rhetoric like FDR’s “Good Neighbour Policy” and JFK’s “Alliance for Progress”, the Monroe Doctrine has always sought to keep South America as the US’ political and economic backyard.

Although Latin America in the 20th century had more than its fair share of military dictatorships, the continent has not seen much in the way of inter-state war, and militaries were small and largely directed to internal repression. The militarisation of Latin America is in part a result of the War on Drugs in Colombia (and fears that the chaos and disorder will spread) and in part something that has accompanied democratisation, as states assert what they believe to be in their national interest. Washington seems to have trouble with both trends, as evidenced by its hostile reaction to an arms sale to Venezuela by Spain’s socialist government and its horror that elections in South America are increasingly being won by centre-left or left parties. The big story of the last decade of democratisation is the emergence on the political stage of peasants and indigenous parties (the “Bolivarean Revolution”), and the stabilisation of democratic institutions to the point where alternation of power is a regular thing, and parties not tied to old oligarchies can win and govern successfully. This also implies that attempts to create neat free trade areas, and to dissuade states from alliances with powers such as China are increasingly futile. The irony of course is that governments like Lula’s and Chavez’s are hardly communist or even Castroite, but really just social democratic. Although unlike the old social democratic parties of Europe and Australia and NZ, these movements are actually putting teeth into their ideology - expanding public provision of services and pursuing redistributionist policies. But the US had better get used to a more assertive South America. It’s called democracy.

The Australian editorialises:

Given that Singapore is apparently intent on hanging Van, as it does hundreds of its own citizens, boycotts and sanctions will neither save this foolish young man’s life, nor occasion a dramatic rethink by Singapore of capital punishment. And are our economic relations with Singapore a mere bagatelle that we should be prepared to sacrifice on the altar of a feel-good moral gesture? Hardly.

Have we come to such a pass that opposition to capital punishment is dismissed like this?

And, if economics is invoked, isn’t it fundamental to any theory of consumer sovereignty that we can express our moral sentiments through our consumption choices? Or does that distort markets where price and quality are normatively the only criteria on which rational actors choose?

Perhaps a boycott has too much of a collective ring about it for ConsumerChoices Australia, even if the decisions are made as a matter of individual conscience. It would appear that we’re now not even allowed to indidividually bargain with the Singapore government.

Update: C.L. notes the “execution for jobs” angle in the ravings of the Australian’s editorialist.