Neoliberalism K—UMich 2013 neg 1NCs 1NC: Generic

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Generic Link

1. 
   American engagement in Latin America is simply a result of the anti-neoliberalism movements in Latin America. The US government is another act to suppress these movements to prevent the overthrow of the neoliberal regimes.
   
2. 
   The US government wants to reinforce the US neoliberal policies in Latin America to ensure future cooperation with Latin America that’s 1NC Renique, 10
   
3. 
   The affirmative sense of the need to globalize Latin America is an instance of and therefore reinforces neoliberalism
   

4. 
   The Affirmative’s attempts to exert US influence over Latin America would further reinforce the neoliberal policies that Latin America is trying to escape
   

What this article will do is—after sketching the surprising new economic conjuncture facing Latin America—outline two of the new institutions emergingin the wake of the impasse of the FTAA, two institutions based on regionalintegration outside the terms of the FTAA. One is the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), a continuation of the South American Community ofNations (CSN), whose summit, December 8–9, 2006, brought together representatives from 12 Latin American nations, including eight heads of state.8An initiative centered on the Brazilian state, the UNASUR/CSN, if successful,could represent a very real challenge to US hegemony in Latin America. Thesecond is the BolivarianAlternative for the Americas (ALBA), an initiative centered on the Venezuelan state. ALBA means “dawn” in Spanish, and there is areal feeling that what we are witnessing is what Hugo Cha´vez Frı´ as, president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, has called “the dawn of a new era” in Latin America9 —an alternative at last to the long night of neoliberalism. This articlewill argue that, while both initiatives are frequently treated as one—theemergence of a new regionalism in opposition to the US-led FTAA—they in factneed to be treated separately. The UNASUR, while a challenge to US hegemony in the region, is completely embedded in a very familiar logic of capital accumulation and corporate rule. ALBA, by contrast, is closely associated with the mass movements, which are at the core of the leftward move of many of the region’s politics. If there is to be an alternative to US hegemony in the region that can challenge capitalism as well as neoliberalism, it will be in relation to the ALBA initiative, not that of the UNASUR.

5. 
   The 1AC’s attempts at positive globalization are backed by the drive to make a profit back home
   

In large part, this claim that there is no alternative is based on the argument that the ‘globalization’ of economic affairs forces virtually all countries of the world to embrace the world market if they wish to achieve economic development. Globalization in the current era has involved, first of all, a progressive deregulation of the international movement of goods and capital. Also, globalization today is taking place in a world which is more and more uniformly capitalist. In this homogenized world economy, businesses can do the same things in the same ways at a great variety of locations, and, with the declining regulation of international commerce, they will accordingly continually relocate to the lowest cost production sites. Thus, the neo-liberals contend,, if the government of a particular country attempts to regulate private activity in order to achieve some desired social goal – great income equality or environmental preservation, for example – businesses will simply leave the country for higher profits elsewhere in the world. On the other hand, the argument continues, if a country eliminates both external and internal barriers to commerce, globalization will allow it to reap the benefits: low-cost goods from abroad, access to foreign markets for its own exports, and higher levels of investment by both foreign and domestic businesses.

Econ/Heg Link

1. 
   US economic policies always place the US at the central of control and place the others under its reigns.
   
2. 
   The US economic engagements are purely neoliberal and it constrains the governments of other nations to the US’s trade policies and makes them abandon their sets of laws.
   
3. 
   The US uses neoliberal policy to decrease the power of other country in order to increase the economic assets of the US. That’s 1NC Gill 95
   
4. 
   That aff’s promotion of market changes further neoliberal experimentation in Latin America
   

Lander, Professor of Social Sciences at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas, Summer 1996

(Edgardo, “The Impact of Neoliberal Adjustment in Venezuela, 1989-1993,” Translated by Luis A. Fierro, Latin American Perspective, Vol. 23.3, 50-73. JSTOR)//SG

Beyond the goals of reestablishing macroeconomic equilibria and structural reform of the Venezuelan economy,the economic policy we have been examining was part of the neoliberal/neoconservative political project. Neoliberal thought constitutes not only an economic theory but a normative political one-a concept of what the relationships between state and society as well as between the economy and the market should be (see Waligorski, 1990).Starting from a critique of the threats to the free operation of the market represented by Keynesianism, the social-democratic tradition and, the welfare state, the neoliberal/neoconservative economists assert a need to rescue democracy from itself through a radical limitation of the sphere of politics and of democratic decisions. They demand a fundamental transformation of contemporary political systems with the purpose of recovering the economy's autonomy and its separation from politics and limiting state action to guaranteeing the basic conditions for the operation of the market forces. "Thus they coincide with the conservative critics of the "excesses" of contemporary democracy in their advocacy of reducing its scope in order to guarantee the "governability" of modern societies (Crozier,Huntington, andWatanuki, 1975). In the core countries,no such "revolutionary" transformation of political systems has been possible despite the strength of neoliberal ideology and the efforts of conservative governments such as those of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, which placed these goals at the center of their political agendas.'2The situation in Latin America is quite different. The debt burden, the deterioration of the state, the political parties, and the political system in general, and the association of businessmen, technocrats, and right-wing politicians with international financial capital and the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have so altered the correlation of social and political power in these societies that the continent has become an experimental laboratory for the neoliberal transformation. The declining legitimacy and organizational weakness of the traditional parties, labor unions, and organizations have left the popular sectors in many of the countries of the continent without an effective voice,allowing the advance of neoliberal neoconservative political proposals with only limited resistance. In Venezuela this political project has had its expression in the aforementioned agreements signed by the national government – behind the backs of Congress, the political parties, and public opinion – with the International Monetary Fund. Beyond its short-term macroeconomic goals, there was an attempt to redefine, in accordance with the neoliberal agenda, the basic relationships between the state and society and between politics, clienteles, populism, and inefficiency and corruption in state management, neoliberals seek solutions in the reduction of the role of politics. Thus, the role of the state is reduced and there is an attempt to depoliticize economic policymaking, isolating it from political debate and thus from populist and/or democratic temptations. From a radically reductionist concept of the social order according to which only the quantifiable macroeconomic variables are held to be true, a new economic policy is advocated as if it were exclusively a technical matter, without any attempt to create coalitions or consensus with regard to the proposed changes. Both the government bureaucrats and the advisers of international organizations present it as an objective requirement of national conditions and those of the international economy – a requirement that is beyond any possible debate about what type of country we desire. There seems to be confidence that the weakness and limited legitimacy of parties and labor unions and the precariousness of the popular grass-roots organizations will allow these transformations to take place without any resistance. In fact,the important labor conflicts during the development of the adjustment program have not proved capable of significantly influencing the general orientation of economic policy. The political parties, both in government and in the opposition, have confronted a systematic antipolitical and antiparty campaign charging them with corruption and narrow self-interest that has rendered them incapable of presenting a credible alternative to the government’s policies. In contrast to the situation in other countries of Latin America, where recent experience of military dictatorship, hyperinflation, or both has allowed the implementation of adjustment policies with relatively little resistance and without a loss of legitimacy,in Venezuela the adjustment has led to a deepening of the political crisis. With the institutional mechanisms for changing these policies constrained, the reactions and resistance have taken place at the margins of the formal political system. The social explosion of February 1989, the so-called Caracazo, was the first such extrainstitutional response. The broad (though passive) popular support for the attempted coup of February 1992 was also a clear expression of the increasing disintegration of a political system that once seemed exceptional for its stability.

5. 
   The 1AC uses neoliberalist policies to force their desired market on Latin America
   

MacEwan, He has a PhD from Harvard University and is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston 1999 (Arthur, Neo-liberalism or Democracy? Economic Strategy, Markets and Alternatives for the 21st CenturyPub. Zed Books in 1999 Page 4-5)//JS

While the basic tenets of neo-liberalism operate in the rich countries, the policy plays its most powerful role in many of the low-income countries of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Central and Eastern Europe. Within these countries, influential groups see their fortunes tied to neo-liberalism, but the conflict over economic policy is seldom confined within a nation’s borders. Officials from the international lending agencies, particularly the IMR and the World Bank, from the government of the economically advanced countries, particularly the United States, andfrom private internationally operating firms use their economy and political power to foist ‘market oriented’ policy on the peoples of the low-income countries. The use of the term ‘Washington Consensus’ to sum up the neo-liberal prescription underscores the role of the US government, the IMF and the World Bank in its premeditation, as well as the complementary role of the various US research and policy institutes in providing intellectual support.

6. 
   The 1AC’s attempts at positive globalization are backed by the drive to make a profit back home
   

MacEwan, He has a PhD from Harvard University and is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Boston 1999 (Arthur, Neo-liberalism or Democracy? Economic Strategy, Markets and Alternatives for the 21st CenturyPub. Zed Books in 1999 Page 6)//JS

In large part, this claim that there is no alternative is based on the argument that the ‘globalization’ of economic affairs forces virtually all countries of the world to embrace the world market if they wish to achieve economic development. Globalization in the current era has involved, first of all, a progressive deregulation of the international movement of goods and capital. Also, globalization today is taking place in a world which is more and more uniformly capitalist. In this homogenized world economy, businesses can do the same things in the same ways at a great variety of locations, and, with the declining regulation of international commerce, they will accordingly continually relocate to the lowest cost production sites. Thus, the neo-liberals contend,, if the government of a particular country attempts to regulate private activity in order to achieve some desired social goal – great income equality or environmental preservation, for example – businesses will simply leave the country for higher profits elsewhere in the world. On the other hand, the argument continues, if a country eliminates both external and internal barriers to commerce, globalization will allow it to reap the benefits: low-cost goods from abroad, access to foreign markets for its own exports, and higher levels of investment by both foreign and domestic businesses.

Mexico Link

1. 
   US investment is driven by profit that doesn’t result in the welfare of the Mexican people being advanced and instead they are suffering because of the low wages.
   
2. 
   The money that made in Mexico is instead of being put into Mexico’s economy is placed elsewhere. This incomplete circuit in the Mexican economic causes economic problems.
   
3. 
   Neoliberalism is a tool of the state viewing human capital as a commodity to sell and trade. The perceived benefits of such policies simply serve as a mask for the stripping away of fundamental rights
   

Kim, Politics & History student and the University of Alberta in Alberta, 2012

(Dongwoo, “Modernization or Betrayal: Neoliberalism in Mexico,” Constellations, Volume 4.1 2012, pg 223-25)//SG

Thus, Carlos Salinas came to power in times of crisis in 1988. Understanding that PRI’s success was built on and perpetuated by economic prosperity during the Mexican Miracle,Salinas made economic recovery his priority.6 Furthermore, Salinas had the ambition of modernizing Mexico through the implementation of neoliberal policies. Salinas was educated at Harvard University, where he obtained two master’s degrees and a doctorate in political economy. He was stunned by “progressive thinking about global economics and the lagging development of the Third World” whenhe first came across neoliberal economic theory and immediately drawn to it.7 Hence, Salinas believed that he would both stabilize and modernize the country through the neoliberal transformation of Mexico. The emphasis on the association between economic prosperity, modernity, and neoliberalism is apparent in Salinas’ inaugural speech. From the onset, Salinas emphasized that “nuestros problemas no vienen por eI fracaso de nuestros esfuerzos, sirio por el tamaño de la adversidad,”8 suggesting the existence of a difficulty beyond national level. Salinas then stated that “[l]a modernización de México es indispensable,” and also “inevitable,” as it is the only way of affirming “nuestra soberanía en un mundo en profunda transformación.”9 Salinas then employed the word “modernización” various times throughout his eight-thousand-word speech.Salinas thus demonstrated his belief that the adoption of neoliberalism was not only beneficial for Mexico, but also imperative for survival in a fast-changing world. Carlos Salinas’ series of neoliberal economic policies culminated with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada.Salinas was at first disinterested in forming a bilateral agreement with the United States.10 After all, the PRI had staunchly closed up the Mexican economy to the world for the last sixty years and gained popularity from its nationalist and defensive economic policies (especially against the United States), most notably the nationalization of the petroleum industry in late 1930s by president Lázaro Cárdenas. However, due to the “lukewarm” response from the world leaders during his European tour, which included a stop at the World Economic Forum in February of 1989, Salinas realized that the only way of drawing investors to Mexico was to “provide [them] with both cheap labor and privileged access to the U.S. market.”11 Salinas immediately approached the American government officials with the intention of negotiating a bilateral free trade agreement,shortly thereafter the administration shifted policies for the preparation and successful negotiation of NAFTA. CarlosSalinas thus marketed NAFTA with fervor in and outside of Mexico and hastened the pace of the neoliberal reforms. Salinas wrote that he made efforts to “disseminate more information and confirm the active presence of key economic, labor, and business leaders in working groups” during the period of NAFTA negotiation.12 His administration privatized public corporations and implemented land reforms. Furthermore, Carlos Salinas marketed his neoliberal policies as means of modernizing the Mexican politics as well, thus associating neoliberalism with democracy. In November 1990, Salinas said both political and economic problems, which he described as “clouds,” were “dissipating.”13 Some even referred to Salinas’ reforms as “Salinastroika,” paralleling these to the radical introduction of socio-political transparency and freedom in the former Soviet Union.14 The Salinas administration thus provided hope that these neoliberal economic policies would continue as political reforms as well. Seemingly, Carlos Salinas’ reforms were successful; his policies did draw foreign investments, Mexico relieved itself of a significant amount of debt and its economy grew by 4.4% in 1993.15 Salinas administration earned the reputation as a “political juggernaut” for its political competency.16 The elections for federal senators and state governors held in 1991 reflected the surging popularity of the Salinas administration; the PRI candidates won 61 percent of the congressional votes, giving Salinas “the power to make laws without having to seek any support from the opposition.”17 Most importantly, Carlos Salinas’ leadership earned the respect and confidence of foreign investors. According to Dillon and Preston, President Clinton praised Salinas for giving Mexico “better leadership than ever in [Clinton’s] lifetime” and The Wall Street Journal “looked favorably on [his] reforms.”18Salinas was thus deemed a progressive and modern leader by the “first world,” and many believed that Mexico was truly modernizing.Many ordinary Mexicans shared this feeling ofbuoyancyandprogress brought by NAFTA—the primary form of neoliberalism that they came across. Mexicans had long identified the United States with “modernity,”19 and although historically described as an “imperialist bully,” it was a country to be admired.20 According to Dillon and Preston, the successful negotiation ofNAFTA gave Mexicans the impression that they were entering an equal relationship with the “First World countries” like the United States or Canada,and thus rendered an elevated sense of patriotism.21 Martín Calderón, an entrepreneur, echoed the ebullient sentiment of many Mexicans when he said that NAFTA would render “fantastic opportunities to Mexico.”22The economic prosperity benefited many Mexicans in the upper and middle classes.Those in the middle class then started to use credit cards to purchase “first world” luxury items, which added to the sense of modernization. Hence, neoliberalism, mainly manifested in form of NAFTA to ordinary Mexicans, was in a way perceived as the very signal of Mexico’s modernization and advancement into the “first world.” Many Mexicans, who believed in PRI government’s promises about modernization, were hopeful for political changes as well.Nonetheless, not everyone shared this sense of advancement or modernization; in fact, neoliberalism symbolized the effective betrayal of the Mexican pueblo by PRI for those in the marginalized sectors of the society. Although some Mexicans, like Martín Calderón, received the neoliberal reforms of the Salinas administration positively,many others, especially those in the marginalized sectors of the Mexican society, saw these as the betrayal of the pueblo by PRI. Contrary to their name and self-constructed image of a “Revolutionary Party,” PRI had been betraying the populist promises embodied by the Mexican Revolution and the Constitution of 1917.PRI regime had become a brutal oppressor, which had led Mario Vargas Llosa to refer to Mexico as “the perfect dictatorship.”23 The brutal acts of oppression by PRI, the crackdown of the student protesters in the Tlatelolco Massacre of 1968being just one of the many examples, had been shadowed by decades of brilliant economic performance between 1940s and 1970s. The neoliberal policies of the Salinas administration had various aspects that conflicted with the core elements of the Mexican nationalism,which had been greatly influenced by the memories and symbols of the Mexican Revolution. First, as Frederick C. Turner notes, xenophobia, especially against the United States, formed a fundamental base of the Mexican nationalism.24 The war of 1847 and loss of territories are deeply ingrained in the Mexican public discourse. However, the main element of the modern Mexican nationalism is the memories of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. As Lynn Stephen claims, the images of Emiliano Zapata, the leader of the original Zapatista movement, were “[served] as a symbol for the institutionalization and nationalization of the Mexican Revolution,primarilyunderthetutelageof[...]PRI.”25 HenryC.SchmidtnotesthattheRevolution came to be perceived as the “protean mythos of nationhood.”26 The Constitution of 1917, which was born out of the Revolution, fulfilled—at least in words—the pueblo’s demand for land reform (ejidos) and empowered the labor sector through the articles 27 and 123, respectively.27 All of these historical memories were embedded in the discourse of national identity, more so as PRI had appropriated and perpetuated these to legitimize its rule. All in all, the Mexican Revolution played a fundamental role in shaping the modern national identity of Mexico. Therefore, the neoliberal policies of the Salinas administration that challenged the achievements of the Mexican Revolution and opened up to the United States, the ancient enemy and “imperialist bully,” symbolized PRI’s turning away from the promises of the Mexican Revolutionand even the Mexican pueblo itself. Alejandra, one of the interviewees of Judith Hellman, echoes the sentiment of betrayal incurred by neoliberalism when she says that the “real history of Mexico has become an embarrassment to the regime.”28 The following cases of unions, maquila workers, and land reforms, which demonstrate the contradiction of the promises of the Constitution of 1917, support my claim thatthe neoliberal policies undertaken by the PRI regime symbolize the clear betrayal on the Mexican pueblo.Carlos Salinas trampled the workers’ rights, one of the key victories of the Mexican Revolution enshrined in the Constitution of 1917, as part of his neoliberal economic agenda. The article 123 of the Constitution of 1917, among many other things, guarantees the right of the workers, whether employed by public or private enterprises, to organize and strike; it states that “[t]oda persona tiene derecho al trabajo digno y socialmente útil; al efecto, se promoverán la creación de empleos y la organización social de trabajo, conforme a la ley.”29 Salinas’ brutal crackdown on union workers, which completely contradicted the article 123, symbolized the continuation of the PRI government’s betrayal and oppression. For Salinas, thecrackdown of the unions was a necessary step before the implementation of his neoliberal policies. In the context of free trade with Canada and the United States, the “competitive advantage” of Mexico consisted of “cheap labor” and “a minimum of state intervention in the economy,” and thus the labor had to be subdued before anything else.30 According to Mark Eric Williams, most of the scholars agree that the “weak labor opposition,” diluted in the CTM, was one of the key characteristics of the Mexican industry that allowed Salinas to implement his privatization policies.31 However, the labor leaders who wielded significant influence in Mexican society, such as Joaquín Hernández or Agapito Gónzalez definitely posed a threat to Salinas’ agenda and hence it was necessary for him to overcome this opposition beforehand.Instead of negotiation, which would have been preferred in modernized countries and more in line with the Constitution of 1917, Salinas chose a rather caudillo and PRI method of resolving conflicts: brutal crackdown.

4. 
   US engagement with Mexico resulted in the spread of neoliberalism and an economic crash
   

Greenberg, et al, Ph.D in Anthropology at University of Michigan, 2012

(James B., Thomas Weaver (Ph.D. in Anthropology at University of California at Berkeley), Anne Browning-Aiken (Ph.D. in Anthropology at University of Arizona), William L. Alexander (Professor of Anthropology at University of Arizona), “The Neoliberal Transformation of Mexico,” Neoliberalism and Commodity Production in Mexico, University Press of Colorado, pp 3-4)//SG

President Miguel de la Madrid (1982–1988) began his administration facing a depression greater than any in the post-revolutionary period. The external debt had risen from a manageable 30 percent of the GDP in 1981 to 63 percent in 1983, with interest on the national debt absorbing half of the country’s export income (Bosworth, Lawrence, and Lustig 1992:7). Eighty cents of every dollar earned from the oil industry was owed to foreign banks. The debt had climbed to over $100 million when Mexico declared a debt moratorium in 1982.Bailing Mexico out of this crisis required a worldwide effort by banks supported by the US Federal Reserve, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB),and the US Department of the Treasury(Adams 1997:6).Their support, however, was conditional on Mexico taking steps toput its economic house in order, which entailedadopting neoliberal policies. From 1982 to 1985 the IMF backed a program to stabilize Mexico’s economy through fiscal and monetary constraints.The program failedas a result of slow structural reform,and a new monetary crisis ensued, with the currency rate set at 150 pesos per dollar.These loans came with a set of conditionalities that obliged the borrowing governments to both adopt strict monetarist measures and institute free mar- ket and free trade policies (Easterly 2005:3; Koeberle 2003:251). Although the intent of thestructural adjustmentprogram(SAP) was to stimulate economic growthand help governments clean up their finances, the specific measures applied depended on local circumstances. Commonly,these programsincluded a variety of neoliberal measures to reducegovernmentspending, open markets, and encourage exports.As these neoliberal policies were implemented, specific parts of the economy experienced immediate impacts. Neoliberalmeasuresto reduce government expendituresultimatelytranslated into cutting programsand subsidiesand downsizing spending on health, education, and welfare (Kolko 1999). The immediate effects includedincreased unemploymentas government and other civil servants were laid off,loss of services, and rising pricesas subsidized commodities were forced into line with the market. Frequently,monetary reforms included devaluation of the local currency against international currencies such as the US dollar. Such devaluations have a double impact:they make national goods more competitivein the world market,but they also drive up the price of imports.To curb inflation,neoliberal reforms typically included measures to restrict creditby eliminating ceilings on interest rates,causing rates to soar and credit to dry up.Under the banner of market liberalization and free trade, actions were taken to lift restrictions on foreign investments in local industry, banks, and other sectors of the economy that enjoyed special protection and to abolish or cut tariffs, quotas, and other restrictions on imports. To encourage the competitiveness of exports, SAP reforms often sought to deregulate export-oriented sectors of the economy and to free these sectors from government controls that protected labor, the environ- ment, and natural resources (Babb 2005; Bello 1996:286). Because ultimately so much rests on “getting prices right,” these packages often include policies to hold the line on wages or even to force them down (at least in terms of their true foreign exchange equivalents) in an effort to make exports more competitive (Greenberg 1997).

5. 
   Neoliberal reforms such as the aff have and will devastate the Mexican population
   

Watt, Masters from the University of Iowa; PhD from the University of Aberdeen; Professor of Latin American politics at The University of Sheffield, 2010, (Peter, “NAFTA 15 Years on: The Strange Fruits of Neoliberalism” http://www.stateofnature.org/?p=6369)//JS

Neoliberalism, then, has reduced the ability of Mexicans to participate in any meaningful democratic process. While the 2000 elections in which the 70 year-long rule of theInstitutional Revolutionary Party(PRI) came to an end represented a change on some level, it is difficult to see how this translated into outcomes that have beneficial consequences for peoples’ lives.Regardless of the party in power, a key provision of the NAFTA treaty allows investors to sue governments if legislation negatively affects profits. With this, the Mexican state effectively passed control of environmental, labour and health and safety legislation to multinational corporations. As a result, laws which protect the natural environment are rarely enforced against corporations as the threat of legal action acts as a successful deterrent.As part of neoliberal restructuring, Mexico would have to re-orientate its economy to the export rather than the domestic market. Mexico was already heavily dependent on trade with the US, but post-1982, Mexico’s dependency has become almost akin to that of a colony. US agricultural products – most notably corn – subsidised by American taxpayers now flooded the Mexican market, undercutting small domestic producers. For Mexican farmers the consequences have been ruinous and have devastated domestic production, a process which continues under the recent government of theNational Action Party(PAN).Concurrent with a reduction in real wages for the majority and cuts in public spending, Mexicans were dealt a second blow with the onset of neoliberalism. Prices for daily necessities, many of which previously were subsidised by the state, rose dramatically. Milk, tortillas, petrol, electricity and public transport all became more expensive just as personal incomes began to decline. In keeping with neoliberal logic, the government closed the CONASUPO shops which provided subsidised necessities cheaply to poor communities. [11] This had a knock-on effect on those producing subsidised corn and milk, who now found themselves not only undercut by imported food products, but also without CONASUPO stores to buy their produce. Soon after the implementation of NAFTA, Mexican corn farmers saw the price of their produce decline by 50 percent. Within the first decade of neoliberal reform, the number of people living in poverty in Mexico rose by a third and around half the population had no access to basic necessities. [12]

Venezuela Link

1. 
   Contrary to popular belief the US doesn’t promote the neoliberal policies to help the other country, but rather in Venezuela because the US has interest in their resources.
   
2. 
   The US uses and imposes its neoliberal policies to secure interest not to maintain relations. That’s 1NC Clement 05
   
3. 
   Venezuela is working towards an anti-neoliberal structure—US intervention prevents
   

Albo, Department of Political Science, York University, 06 (Gregory, “The Unexpected Revolution: Venezuela Confronts Neoliberalism”, Presentation at the University of Alberta, International Development Week, 1/06, http://socialistproject.ca/theory/venezuela_praksis.pdf)//AS

A basic goal of neoliberalism is to reduce the role of the state in domestic policymaking and increase the control of foreign capital over local economies. Venezuela has argued that the state must maintain a role in promoting domestic economic development through strategic use of tariffs and government subsidies to protect nascent industries and promote local development of jobs, as in the VuelvanCaras program. These are tools that governments around the world -including the U.S. - have used for decades to help promote national economic growth and create local jobs.'"' Yet the U.S. and EU proposals in the WTO"" would drastically reduce the ability of developing countries from employing the same strategies we used, effectively "kicking away the ladder of development."'" Venezuela has opposed these measures in global arenas, signing on with a group of 11 countries calling for the right to protect developing country's industrial policy space in the WTO, for example. Another key aspect of Venezuela's opposition to corporate globalization is in its approach to services. The "liberalization" of services involves privatizing services that are owned by the public to meet basic human needs including health care, education, and distribution of water and electricity. But these basic services are guaranteed to Venezuelans in the Constitution. Programs like Barrio Adentro and the education missions, detailed above, ensure access of Venezuelans to basic services. At the same time, promoting regional integration programs focusing on eradicating illiteracy have been a focus on the Chavez administration: on April l8th, 2005 Venezuela presented a proposal for a massive regional literacy program to a visiting UNESCO committee."" These programs exemplify the commitment to the right to basic services, and are incompatible with privatized education or health care. And the case of SAIC's interference in the Venezuelan oil company's PdVSA's computer operations is a dire warning about the danger of allowing foreign ownership of domestic services in strategic industries.

4. 
   The affirmative attempts to better the lives of Venezuelans has empirically failed due to the neoliberal policies that are reinforced by the 1AC
   

Hellinger Professor of Political Science at Webster University in St. Louis and directs the International Relations Program 1991 (Daniel, Venezuela: Tarnished Democracy Pub. Westview Press pp. 197-98)//JS

As might be expected, the sudden rise in oil prices was welcomenews to the politically and economically troubled nation, but President Perez soon made it clear that his embrace of an austere program of economic readjustment, designed to satisfy the conditions laid down by the International Monetary Fund, remained firm. In fact, despite expectations that the Gulf crisis would generate an additional US$2 billion in export earnings, the government admitted it would fall $800 million short on debt obligations due in November 1990.16 Some additional fund~ would be spent to ease the plight of the poorest sectors, but within a month of the outbreak of the Persian Gulf crisis, it had become clear that any improvement in economic conditions for the majority of families would have to wait several more years of what Venezuelansbitterly call the "Perez truca" ("Perez trick").February 27 will probably stand out in Venezuelan history as anevent similar to the massacre of students in the Plaza of Tlalteleco inMexico City in 1968, that is, as a turning point in which the hegemony of the governing elite can no longer be taken for granted, as the beginningof a longer term historical process of change. Even if AD were to returnto its popular roots and offer a more humane and just approach toeconomic reform, the level of repression may very well grow and threatenthe democratic gains made between 1935 and 1958. With the enormous resources of the media and the power of the international banks and corporations behind them, proponents of the neoliberal project have enormous advantages over proponents of the alternative, democratizing project of the new social movements

5. 
   Their representations of disaster as something the US has to fix is a cover for the expansion of neoliberalism
   

Dubhashi, Ph.D. at Pune University, former Vice-Chanceller, Goa University, and an erstwhile Secretary, Government of India, December 20, 2008

(Padmakar, “Myth and Reality of Capitalism: Neo-Liberalism and Globalisation,” MAINSTREAM, VOL XLVII, NO 1, http://www.mainstreamweekly.net/article1111.html)//SG

EVER since Ronald Reagan of the Republican Party was elected the President of the US, an extremely conservative economic ideology advocating unbridled capitalism and free market, as preached by Milton Friedman and his Chicago School, has become the ruling economic ideology of the USA, going by the name of “Washington Consensus”. Under the Presidency of George Bush (Junior), it has reached its acme. This was manifested in the privatisation of even “core” functions of government, maximum deregulation, cut in expenditure on people’s welfare programmes and promotion of neo-liberal policies all over the world. The prolonged Iraq war from 2003 till date is an example of the extreme ideology. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfield brought the corporates into the heart of the US military. Logistic functions relating to the war were handed over to private companies like Halliburton with which Vice-President Cheney has been intimately connected. Health care and housing for soldiers were privatised. All the security functions were discharged by Blackwater including the security the US military base and its seat of governance (Paul Bremmer’s Green Zone area). Of course, production and supply of weapons and material were all handled by private companies. The contracts for Iraq oil exploitation were prepared by private firms. The selected contractors, whether for oil exploitation or constru-ction in infrastructure projects, sub-contracted, since they themselves had no operational base. The local Iraqi public sector enterprises were left-outs, so were the local professionals. The Defence Minister, Donald Rumsfeld, was a strong advocate of this approach of slim military, supported by a huge network of corporations. Billions of dollars spent on the Iraq War want to the coffers of these private corporations. The Department of Homeland Security, set up after 9/11, handed over $ 130 billion to private contractors to develop and install detection equipment and cameras against unproven threats. The war on terror, an un-winnable proposition, has become a permanent fixture of the global economic architecture. In the name of security. The Bush Administration fulfilled the corporate mission of merging political and corporate interests. The same approach was adopted in dealing with the calamity of Hurricane Katrina which hit New Orleans in September 2005. The poor people were left homeless as their public housing was washed away. So were the public schools where their children studied. Milton Friedman saw in this the opportunity for privatisation of housing and schooling system. Here again the private contractors failed in housing the poor. The poor were provided with vouchers to be paid to the owners of the private schools which had a good business opportunity to make money. The money-making got the better of the provision of public services like education and health to the poor. No wonder the New Orleans rehabilitation programmes did no good to the poor. The Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina, both “disasters”, have been good opportunities to corporate business for making money. Israel, the mini-USA in the Middle East, has discovered that “perpetual” war with Arabs, whether in Palestine or in Lebanon, is conducive to its dynamic economy. The rise of insecurity the world over has been an opportunity for Israel to develop the “security industry” in a big way. This is what Klein calls the “Disaster Capitalism” of today

Cuba Link

1. 
   Cubans don’t like the US policies because they have been associated with oppression.
   
2. 
   The Central Americans do not accept the expansion of neoliberal policies because they want to develop their own economy separate from the US. That’s 1NC LaFeber 93
   
3. 
   Neoliberal policies won’t work in Cuba - Cubans reject it – the aff fails
   

Carmona - Professor of Economics at the Universidad San Pablo. Spring 2000

(Antonio, “Cuba: Reforms and Adjustments Versus Transition,” International Journal of Political Economy. Vol 30.1, pp. 85. JSTOR)//SG

The difference among highly industrialized countries lies in the manner in which these elements are implemented and in their political capacity. Each country has developed its own variant mode ofproduction throughout its history. What makesWestern Europe different from the rest ofthe world's capitalist economies is their welfare state, where the interests ofworkers are safeguardedin the legal and con- stitutional framework. The welfare state in Europe was consolidated after World War II.The benefits ofthe welfare state and its reforms were won after nearly a century of worker-based struggles and the efforts of unions, labor parties, and other emancipation groups. One cannot account for the high level ofproductivity experienced in Western Europe without taking into consideration the framework in which the state operates. In Cuba, most ofthe welfare-state attributes were brought into existence with- out the installation ofan industrialization process, and in a relatively short period of time. In this manner, the overthrow ofthe FulgencioBatista regime andthe implementation ofthe so-called socialist project can be seen as revolutionary. The institutional and infrastructure capacity forproductivity exists only through na- tional state power,the very same power that guards the welfare reforms.Another reason for CUbans to reject neoliberalism is that Cuban workers are already accus- tomed to the benefits ofthe welfare state and the political space for expressing economic interests. Ultimately, what allows the Cuban government to enjoy sta- bility and support frommostworkers isthe fact that Cubanworkers are much more involved in production planningthan their counterparts in free-market econo- mies.Cubansare most likely tosupport Fidel Castro rather than allowmultina- tionalcompaniesto rule the countryand wipe away benefits that were implemented a generation ago. The logical step for Cuba to take is to maintain a high level of socialization ofproductivity and an increase in hard-currency profits

4. 
   American economic engagement strategies are distinctly neoliberal and subscribe to exceptionalist theories
   

Gill, Distinguished Research Professor of Political Science at York University, 95 (Stephen, “Globalisation, Market Civilisation, and Disciplinary Neoliberalism”, Millennium - Journal of International Studies 24:3, 1995, Sage Publications)//AS

North American arrangements are more hierarchical and asymmetrical,understood both in inter-state terms and in terms of the class structures of eachnation. NAFTA is premised upon a low level of political institutionalisation anda hub-and-spoke configuration of power, with the United States at the centre ofa continentalised political economy. This is even more the case with theCaribbean Basin Initiative, which can be terminated unilaterally by the UnitedStates." The United States has negotiated the implicit right to monitor andcontrol large areas of Canadian political life in the US-Canada Free TradeAgreement. The US-Canada Agreement specifies that each side has to notify the other "˜party' by advanced warning, of intended federal or provincial government policy that might affect the other side's interests, as defined by the agreements Because of Canada's extensive economic integration with the United States, this situation necessarily affects the vast majority of Canadian economic activity, but not vice versa. Thus, Canadian governments no longer can contemplate an independent or interventionist economic strategy. In both NAFTA and the US-Canada Agreement there are no transnational citizenship rights other than those accorded to capital, and these are defined to favour US-registered companies. Finally, NAFTA can only be amended by agreement of all signatories. Whilst these arrangements place binding constraints on the policies of Canada and Mexico, to a certain degree, the United States retains constitutional autonomy and important prerogatives: its trade law is allowed to override treaty provisions, notwithstanding the rights of redress that are available to participants through the dispute settlement mechanisms." In other words, the US government is using access to its vast market as a lever of power, linked to a reshaping of the international business climate, by subjecting other nations to the disciplines of the new constitutionalism, whilst largely refusing to submit to them itself, partly for strategic reasons. Indeed, one of the arguments expressed by former European Union President Jacques Delors in favour of comprehensive West European economic and monetary union was strategic: to offset economic unilateralism from the United States, in matters of money and trade. Thus, an American-centred global neoliberalism _mandates a separation of politics and economics in ways that may narrow political representation and constrain democratic social choice in many parts of the world. New constitutionalism, which rarities this separation, may have become the de facto discourse of governance for most of the global political economy. This discourse involves a hierarchy of pressures and constraints on government autonomy that vary according to the size, economic strength, form of state and civil society, and prevailing national and regional institutional capabilities, as well as the degree of integration into global capital and money markets.

5. 
   That aff’s promotion of market changes further neoliberal experimentation in Latin America
   

Lander, Professor of Social Sciences at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas, Summer 1996

(Edgardo, “The Impact of Neoliberal Adjustment in Venezuela, 1989-1993,” Translated by Luis A. Fierro, Latin American Perspective, Vol. 23.3, 50-73. JSTOR)//SG

Beyond the goals of reestablishing macroeconomic equilibria and structural reform of the Venezuelan economy,the economic policy we have been examining was part of the neoliberal/neoconservative political project. Neoliberal thought constitutes not only an economic theory but a normative political one-a concept of what the relationships between state and society as well as between the economy and the market should be (see Waligorski, 1990).Starting from a critique of the threats to the free operation of the market represented by Keynesianism, the social-democratic tradition and, the welfare state, the neoliberal/neoconservative economists assert a need to rescue democracy from itself through a radical limitation of the sphere of politics and of democratic decisions. They demand a fundamental transformation of contemporary political systems with the purpose of recovering the economy's autonomy and its separation from politics and limiting state action to guaranteeing the basic conditions for the operation of the market forces. "Thus they coincide with the conservative critics of the "excesses" of contemporary democracy in their advocacy of reducing its scope in order to guarantee the "governability" of modern societies (Crozier,Huntington, andWatanuki, 1975). In the core countries,no such "revolutionary" transformation of political systems has been possible despite the strength of neoliberal ideology and the efforts of conservative governments such as those of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, which placed these goals at the center of their political agendas.'2The situation in Latin America is quite different. The debt burden, the deterioration of the state, the political parties, and the political system in general, and the association of businessmen, technocrats, and right-wing politicians with international financial capital and the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have so altered the correlation of social and political power in these societies that the continent has become an experimental laboratory for the neoliberal transformation. The declining legitimacy and organizational weakness of the traditional parties, labor unions, and organizations have left the popular sectors in many of the countries of the continent without an effective voice,allowing the advance of neoliberal neoconservative political proposals with only limited resistance. In Venezuela this political project has had its expression in the aforementioned agreements signed by the national government – behind the backs of Congress, the political parties, and public opinion – with the International Monetary Fund. Beyond its short-term macroeconomic goals, there was an attempt to redefine, in accordance with the neoliberal agenda, the basic relationships between the state and society and between politics, clienteles, populism, and inefficiency and corruption in state management, neoliberals seek solutions in the reduction of the role of politics. Thus, the role of the state is reduced and there is an attempt to depoliticize economic policymaking, isolating it from political debate and thus from populist and/or democratic temptations. From a radically reductionist concept of the social order according to which only the quantifiable macroeconomic variables are held to be true, a new economic policy is advocated as if it were exclusively a technical matter, without any attempt to create coalitions or consensus with regard to the proposed changes. Both the government bureaucrats and the advisers of international organizations present it as an objective requirement of national conditions and those of the international economy – a requirement that is beyond any possible debate about what type of country we desire. There seems to be confidence that the weakness and limited legitimacy of parties and labor unions and the precariousness of the popular grass-roots organizations will allow these transformations to take place without any resistance. In fact,the important labor conflicts during the development of the adjustment program have not proved capable of significantly influencing the general orientation of economic policy. The political parties, both in government and in the opposition, have confronted a systematic antipolitical and antiparty campaign charging them with corruption and narrow self-interest that has rendered them incapable of presenting a credible alternative to the government’s policies. In contrast to the situation in other countries of Latin America, where recent experience of military dictatorship, hyperinflation, or both has allowed the implementation of adjustment policies with relatively little resistance and without a loss of legitimacy,in Venezuela the adjustment has led to a deepening of the political crisis. With the institutional mechanisms for changing these policies constrained, the reactions and resistance have taken place at the margins of the formal political system. The social explosion of February 1989, the so-called Caracazo, was the first such extrainstitutional response. The broad (though passive) popular support for the attempted coup of February 1992 was also a clear expression of the increasing disintegration of a political system that once seemed exceptional for its stability.

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