Focusing on the recent coup attempt in Ecuador, the author delineates the problems that center-left regimes in South America face as they try to benefit from agro-mineral exports while, at the same time, trying to steer a more independent course in their relations to the Empire.
The center-left regimes – except Venezuela – have continued to participate in all joint military programs [with the US]. The center-left has not transformed the state. Equally important it has promoted the economic bases of the pro-US Right via its agro-mineral export strategy. It has ignored the fact that political stability is temporary and based on a balance of social power resulting from the popular rebellions of the 2000-2005 period. The center-left ignores the reality that as the capitalist class prospers, as a result of center-left agro-mineral export strategies, so does the political right. And as the wealth and political power of the export elites increase and as the center-left turns to the Right, as has been the case with Correa, there will be greater social conflict and a new cycle of political upheavals, if not by the ballot box then via the bullet – via coups or via popular uprisings.