The Chavín Ruins

So, I'll get pictures of the ruins up when I can--I moved hotels today,
to a place that has a better cellular connection (the other place was
behind the mountain, although 50' away, the cell reception was
excellent), but the internet is still moving (rather, stumbling), like
one of the inebriated gentlemen I saw lurching up the main drag in town
here this evening.

The Chavín culture is pretty old--we're taking about 900BC or so to
600AD, if I remember correctly--a lot older than the Inca culture, which
was only a couple hundred years when a pig herder named Pizarro showed
up in 1520 or so and screwed everything up for those folks.

Typically, when I go to places like this, I like to buy a guidebook to
the side and skip the guided tour--I get bored by movies, television
programs, and guided tours of archaeological ruins. Here in Chavín,
there are almost no such services--not even a museum shop, but I was
able to buy a pirated copy (that is, photocopied and spiral bound) of
what I understand to be *the* work for popular consumption on
Chavín--_Chavin and the Origins of Andean Civilizatin_, by Richard
Burger, from an indigenous guy hanging around the front gate. A pretty
good deal, for 10 soles. I would feel guilty, if I had seen anything
else for sale along the lines of a book there, but the only things you
can get are knickknacks...

Anyways, one theory about the origin of the Chavín society goes
something like this:

1. An egalitarian group of semi-nomadic pastoralists and farmers
settles in the region, and everything goes great.
2. Somebody figures out that they can gain a privileged position by
claiming access to divine knowledge.
3. It works.
4. The resulting stratified civilization finds that, as a relatively
well-organized group along a major trade route between the coast and the
jungle. they have the power to tax traders traveling through their
territory.
5. A good time is had by all.

An interesting story about the way in which beliefs (correct or not) can
have an impact on rationality. It probably seemed rational for the
peasants to pay tribute to the priest-kings of Chavín, since the
priest-kings would call down the wrath of god on their heads if they
didn't. On the other hand, that doesn't seem very rational at all to
your average ethical monotheist. Or, for that matter, to the average
member of the cult of the market.

In this case, it does indeed look like there were benefits to most of
the local citizens of the resulting stratified society, but in many
cases (the Inca come to mind), the benefits may have been small, indeed.

Of course, I disclaim any understanding of this area. I'm no
archaeologist. I study modern local governments.

Pakistan, the Taliban, other nouns that end in "an"...

So, a couple of days ago, Zane posted about the situation in Swat, in
Pakistan, with the Pakistani government signing a truce with the Taliban.

Zane noted that Mancur Olson's work suggests that, if we perceive the
Taliban as "the bandit," this may be good for things. While the roving
bandit has an incentive to pillage (and frankly, who doesn't love to
pillage), the stationary bandit has an incentive to make things richer
in the territory he/she controls (although, of course, there isn't a lot
of female leadership in the Taliban).

On one hand (sounding like an economist, unfortunately), I think this
might be accurate. There might also be a couple of other beneficial
effects of the Taliban taking over, too. First, they might do what the
neo-Wahabbi (sp?) fundamentalists did in Anbar, in Iraq, and end up
getting rolled over by the locals, who eventually decide that they like
things like non-religious music and alcohol. Second, they might become
more pragmatic through the act of governance--deciding that they might
have to allow things like alcohol in order to stay in control of the
situation.

However. I wonder about three things.

First, can we characterize the Taliban as "bandit-like"? Isn't one of
their appeals to the locals the fact that they _don't_ pillage? Taliban
rule is perceived, by some, as beneficial, because although their rules
are draconian, they're honest, and they really enforce their rules
impartially, so, for example, all women showing their ankles are stoned
to death, not just the poor, politically-unconnected ones.

Second, I wonder about a potentially missing cognitive component.
Olson's theory assumes that the "stationary bandit" _knows_ how to
improve the situation. Does he? Do the poorly-educated, mostly
illiterate people who run the T-ban really know enough about how the
world works to generate economic growth in the region of the world that
they now control? Maybe the answer is yes--I don't know. Maybe all
that's really needed is some good sexual-deviant stoning, and the
occasional loose-woman burning. In all seriousness, though, maybe all
that's needed is some law and order (of the kind that the Taliban will
undoubtedly bring).

Finally, I wonder if it's accurate to describe the "stationary bandit's"
incentives as beneficial to the population at large. There are clearly
some "stationary bandits" in places around the world. A couple in
Africa, for one thing. Robert Mugabe comes to mind. But the reality of
his rule has been very different from the positive spillovers we might
assume would take place from Olson's theory. If the Taliban are, in
fact, bandits (and the only Bandit I'm willing to recognize without
further examination was played by Burt Reynolds) then will they behave
like Robert Mugabe, or like someone more desirable as a ruler, like
(say) Victor Emmanuel, King of Sardinia? Or, for that matter, Ernesto
Villa?

Chavín de Huantar

Made it to Chavín de Huantar today. All the locals just call it Chavín,
but that could be a problem as there is at least one other "Chavín,"
Chavín de Pariarca, in the area.

The bus trip out here is simply amazing! It really reminds me of
driving through the Alaska range, and at times, it really resembled
parts of Colorado--one particular spot reminded me of that hairpin turn
on the far side of Loveland Pass. The difference is that there aren't
any sheepherder's huts going over Loveland Pass. I got some pretty good
pictures--I'll put them up when I have a better internet connection,
though that will probably be a while.

Just a couple of interesting notes...

The first thing is that I managed to miss my stop on the bus, and ended
up going over a bit. This was not a major problem--I was able to take a
combi (shared van) back to Chavín--but it added a little bit of
adventure to the day.

The combi was particularly easy to catch, because the road was blocked
in between Chavín and San Marcos, the next town, due to a paving
project. I asked the combi driver about that.

"Yeah. The road's blocked for two days. It was closed yesterday, too.
It will be open tomorrow."

Seriously? There are other ways to get to the towns on the other side
of that road, but not via paved roads, and the alternative is probably a
10 or 12 hour ride, rather than two or three. So those people,
basically, are cut off from the rest of the country for a couple of days.

This is probably not as big a deal as I make it out to be--there are
landslides that block these roads all the time--but it never ceases to
amaze me the myriad ways in which things operate differently down here.

Of course, at least they get the government to pave the road for them.
A number of the places I visited in Carhuaz received no such
services--if there was a road, the locals had built it (and maintain it)
themselves, by hand. Paving is out of the question--they simply don't
have the capital.

Once I got to town, I found a room, and dropped my stuff. The good
thing about the room is that I have a balcony on the Plaza de Armas,
with a beautiful view. The bad thing is that they are now performing
one of the Carnaval traditions out in the Plaza, which involves rather
loud music, and the ubiquitous bottle rockets. The other bad thing is
the absence of a good cell connection--ironically, thirty steps away, I
get a great cellular connection, but there appears to be a small rise
blocking my view of the tower.

On the up-side, the town itself is really pretty--even this far out in
the sticks, they really know how to put together a Plaza. And it doesn't
hurt that there are huge, pre-Incan ruins right outside of town. From
the Chavín culture, incidentally, hence the name.

We'll see how friendly people are at the muni. tomorrow, but so far, so
good.

Carnaval

Today is carnaval down here. This means that I'm more or less trapped in the hostel, as I'm not too keen on getting soaked in the countrywide water-fight that breaks out today. I've been watching these little girls (maybe 10 years old) all day standing on the roof of the house across the street, dumping buckets of water on unsuspecting passers-by.

Dodged a couple of water balloons earler, though I've (fortunately) so far avoided the attention of the roving bands of university students with buckets that (occasionally) are broken up by the police.

All of the gringo cafés are closed today, so I'm not able to get by Belgian Waffles and carafe of french-press coffee at the "California Café." I can't complain about the food in Carhuaz--generally, I've had it pretty good over the last week or so--but I can't pass up a chance at waffles, and although the coffee here is great, they never give you enough of it (enormous, Starbucks-sized cups haven't caught on here yet).

Hopefully, tomorrow.

In other news, I finally got the registration for my copy of Stat/Transfer for Mac. This has been an onging saga for a couple of weeks, but the end result is that I've spent the day at the Peruvian INEI (National Institute of Information and Statistics) web site. The data store, as they say, is open. It's totally amazing what they've got here. Although it's weird that they seem to use SPSS, and none of their files are available in .txt or .csv format. But they have household surveys of, among other things, poverty, education, political participation, services, ninja skills... You get the idea. Forget a dissertation. One could make a career out of doing data analysis on this stuff.

I suppose they must have a reliable place where they can buy bootleg copies of SPSS. I'll have to track it down next time I'm in Lima.

Vicos

Pictures of Vicos are up. Check out the album by clicking on the link in the sidebar.

Sunset

Lovely, lovely Carhuaz. Carhuaz, by the way, really is lovely, unlike Huaraz, which is kind of a dump, but in a nice place.

...it's good to be back on the road again...

So, I've about worn out my welcome here in the muni (That is, in the municipal building. In town, people are super-friendly), and I've pretty much gotten the story on the situation here in Carhuaz. Moving on tomorrow back to Huaraz, then on to Chavín de Huantar on Thursday, to continue with the interviews. I've gotten in about 15 interviews here, plus numerous informal conversations, a couple of hikes, a visit to Vicos, and about four hair-raising encounters with angry dogs.

All of the locals think I'm nuts to be carrying a cane, but what can I say? Los perros no les gustan los gringos. Especialmente ellos con bigotes.

The story on Carhuaz is pretty much as follows:

Most of the people I've talked to either think the mayor is (a) incompetent, (b) corrupt, or most likely, (c) both. He got voted in by taking strategic advantage of the nationalist/pro-indigenous tide that swept Peru in the last election, and hasn't done much since, except for print glossy brochures and hire a professional public relations guy.

Okay, I exaggerate, but let it suffice to say that the policy here has not impressed me.

On the other hand, the civil society actors are really on the ball. Which leads me to believe that he'll have a hard time of it the next time around. However, there are two problems:

1. No checks and balances. The Peruvian electoral laws say that the municipal council always consists of at least a majority of the party of which the mayor is a member. This is supposed to generate efficient policy making and less gridlock, but what it seems to do in Carhuaz is make sure that nobody's looking over the Mayor's shoulder.
2. Too many parties, no run off, etc... When the mayor is running against 15 others, he doesn't need a majority to win. In this case, he only needs about 25%. This makes it a lot easier to buy off your cronies and get them to vote for you.

Nevertheless, we'll see what happens. I haven't been impressed by the government here, but as I said, the citizens are quite well informed, at least about their local government, and they seem to be pretty well organized. I'm looking forward to following this municipality in the future!

Man oh man... You all should have seen the sunrise that I just watched out of my window. We'll see if the pictures come out.

New Pictures Up

Hi all,

I've put up some new pictures of lovely Carhuaz and environs. Click on the picture in the sidebar to get to the album. I'll write more about my adventures in getting these pictures tomorrow.

Civil Society and Rationality

In an interview today, one of my interview subjects talked a bit about the reasons for the decline of an important participatory forum here in Carhuaz. In between comments about "kids today" and questions about life in the states, she said that there were two reasons for this decline.

And as it turns out, this middle class Peruvian from a small town in the Andes is a rational choicer.

First, there is a cost associated with participating in such an organization, both in terms of time and in terms of money (in many cases, at least). These costs can deter many people from getting involved in the first place.

However, there are benefits to belonging to such an organization—among other things, there is the opportunity to press for policy change at the local level in a particular form that may be more advantageous to you. This is a real possibility in a small place like this, where you might be one of only a couple real movers and shakers in the political scene.

So basically, your probability of joining such an organization would be a function of the utility you were likely to receive from joining. But if your opportunity to shape policy is lower, than there is less of an incentive to join, because you lose that piece of the utility you would get from participating.

So broadly, if you have a mayor or local government uninterested in what your organization has to say, there will be fewer people interested in participating.

As such, one might argue that the presence of a strong civil society is contingent upon the existence of a fair degree of give and take between government and civil society. A democratic government might need a strong civil society to be effective, but a strong civil society also needs government.

This is a little different from my take on government in the rural areas, where there is no state presence, so your probability of participating in a “participatory forum” that resolves local problems might be much higher.

I’m an anarcho-communitarian again.

Notes

A couple of things:
1. Some more new pictures of Carhuaz are going up--you can get to them by clicking on the (same) picture in the sidebar.
2. I took some of the links to my older photo albums down, but you can still get to those albums by clicking on the one photo link, then looking at the new albums at the photo web site.
3. I love the pineapple soda, especially when it's not adulterated with rancid goat blood.
4. Aubrey, just because I want to rub it in--I want you to know, I'm staying at the most expensive hotel in town again (I didn't plan it that way--every other place was full), and although it's a little more expensive here in Peru, it's still only costing me $26/night. Breakfast's included. Breakfast includes homemade bread.

So, I got in a couple of more interviews in today--two or three, depending on what you call an "interview." The line gets pretty fuzzy sometimes. But I talked to two people in the muni, including the municipal public relations official.

Yeah, you read that right. This primarily agricultural rural Peruvian town, where 70% of the population lives below the (Peruvian) poverty line and 40% of the population is considered malnourished has a PR guy. And some glossy brochures to back him up. They also have a tourism official who only speaks Spanish. Go figure.

So, perhaps my new found Anarcho-Communitarian belief system is losing some of its luster. I kid, of course. I'm a revolutionary syndicalist.

Anyways, although the people at the muni. are plenty nice, they are also extremely vague. And their vagueness seems to correspond rather nicely to the story that all of the citizens and community leaders I've talked to so far have told me--that the mayor and his people aren't doing a good job.

There is, however, a possible explanation for this that might be a little bit more optimistic. Maybe he's doing works out in the rural areas. And maybe this is an interest group story--maybe his constituency is the rural population. That certainly is what he's claiming. Of course, the muni's glossy brochure is also taking credit for the ATM installed in the Plaza de Armas by the Banco Comercial de Peru. Hmm...

Anyways, I need to get out into the boonies here, anyways, including possibly making a trip to nearby Vicos, Peru, of Ron Brunner fame. Time to see what a Laswellian paradise really looks like. In theory, there should also be a Peace Corps volunteer wandering around out there somewhere as well, working in agriculture. I should look him up. Just what I need.

Some new pictures up

Hi all,

Putting some pictures up now, including some older photos of Cusco from January, and some new pictures of Huaraz (terrible pictures, those) and some initial pictures of Carhuaz, which aren't that great but are a start. I'll try to get more up as I go. Hopefully, the weather will clear off in a bit so that you can see the beautiful snow-covered peaks here. The link will be in the sidebar.

Stephen Walt: Love Doctor

Stephen Walt writes about the similarities between romance and realist theories of international relations in Foreign Policy. This is awesome. It also would be a pretty good introduction to some of these concepts for undergraduate students in IR courses.

Venezuela vs. Bolivia

I don't understand why today's story on the vote in Venezuela which describes Uncle Hugo's victory--the voting was 55% in his favor for an end to presidential term limits--is described as a "decisive victory" by the New York Times, while Evo Morales' victory of last month, which was about 10 percentage points greater in favor of an even greater change, was described as "divisive" and "demonstrating how divided Bolivia really is." Perhaps this is just unclear writing--I haven't been in Bolivia, so I don't know how divided the country really feels to an insider--but my suspicion is that the article about Bolivia was really written to play up the same kinds of sensationalism that often plagues Latin American journalism. And I wonder (hopefully unjustifiably) about how "inside" the NYT correspondent in Bolivia really is.

Natural Foods and Creepy Inka Kola

First off, ignore the fact that the "Kola" in Inka Kola starts with a "K." Which is vaguely white separatist and kind of creepy in and of itself.

So, I was in the market in Huaraz yesterday, and I bought two bottles of Inka Kola "light". As many of you know, I'm a fan of the diet soda, when I can get it.

Anyways, one bottle was fine. The other one had a strange odor that kind of smelled like some combination of the butcher section of your average developing-world market and the chicha (home-brewed corn beer) that you can buy on the street here. It also had some kind of purple or red substance in the threads under the cap.

I hope this was because it had been dropped in a bucket of chicha. I'm afraid it's because it was dropped into a pile of cow stomachs. I really afraid it's because it was manufactured from a pile of cow stomachs.

Long story short, I took a drink before I noticed the smell etc. So far, I'm okay. Hope I stay that way. Especially hope I don't wind up with any Mike Touchton-esque diseases like liver fluke, cholera, or tapeworm.

Which brings me to my second point.

Peruvians (and Estadounidenses) that I meet in Peru often seem to have the idea that the food consumed in Peru is healthier than the food we get in the states--"It's natural," they say. Well, first off, those people haven't walked down the main street in Carhuaz (or any other Latin American agricultural town) on market day, when all the locals come into town, sell their goods, then use the proceeds to buy pesticides and chemical fertilizers. There is probably some organic farming going down here, but there's no way to know what products are organic and what products arent (I suppose that technically, since they're all carbon-based, their all organic, but you know what I mean.)

Also, there isn't a lot of regulation in terms of health and sanitation. So the endshot is, nobody can really justify any assumptions about how healthy the food is here, because there isn't any system to verify anything.

One example:

Before I left Cusco, there was a major story in the news about how some counterfeit bottling company in Lima was putting tap water in bottles and slapping a label on. This, of course, defeats the purpose of bottled water down here, which isn't because it tastes better or because you get to show off your pricey fiji water, but because the water out of the tap can make you sick with Giardiasis, Cryptosporidium, Amoebic Dysentery, etc...

But because the water going on the market isn't regulated in any significant way, there's no way to stop this funny business.

Just another example of how the market fundamentalists--who believe that regulation can never work--are wrong. We don't have these problems in the states, and it isn't because our "market" for bottled water works so well. It's because of regulation. It's also difficult to argue that these regulations aren't more efficient than the alternative (cholera outbreaks are not efficient), and it's hard to argue that the market finds solutions for these problems (it clearly has not.)

That is all.

In Huaraz

Though I don't suspect that many of you are exactly sitting on the edge of your chairs, hitting the "reload" button on the browser to see if I've gotten a new blog posting up, I feel like I've been too lazy recently. Or, more precisely, I guess I just haven't felt like I've had much of interest to say.

Though I'm dog-tired here tonight, after taking a night bus last night, I wanted to post and let you all know that I'm in Huaraz, Peru, and ready to head out to the district of Carhuaz to start my interviews again (finally!)

Huaraz is a welcome change from Lima, as it's rainy, cool, and comfortable. Also, there's a place here that sells Belgian waffles.

I'll keep you all posted when I come up with something interesting to write about. I'll get some pictures up, too, when I can take some good ones.

Susan Collins

When Emily and I were living in Maine, I developed a strong degree of respect for the moderate Republicans representing the state in Congress. According to the Washington Post, Susan Collins played a strong role in promoting the stimulus package:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/11/AR2009021104078.html?hpid=topnews

This is the kind of republican behavior that I would like to see more of.

Shugart's got a blog...

...which will expose you to the mind of (arguably) the most important
scholar of formal institutions among Political Scientists.

Rock on!(?)

http://fruitsandvotes.com/blog/

The Cultural Homogenization Continues!

Ladies and gentleman, Taco Bell has entered Mexico--evidently, I'm a
little behind, because it happened back in 2007. But check out the
article in the Chicago Tribune:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-talk-avila-tacofeb07,0,5420344.story

This is awesome for three reasons:
1. Apparently, much of what's sold at T-Bell is so far away from
Mexican cuisine that they needed to invent new words so that the
Mexicans would have some idea of what they were eating. For example,
according to the Tribune, they can't call it a "taco" (tacos are soft),
so they called it a "tacostada."
2. If taco bell can make it to Mexico, why not Peru?
3. Oh man. I could go for a burrito about now. But the only Mexican
place in San Isidro (that I know of) is too swishy for me. That's
okay. I could really go for some pancakes, too.

Stimulus nonsense

Yesterday's news (I'm a little behind): NY Times is reporting that the Repubs. in congress think Obama is being alarmist by telling them to stop pussy-footing around and pass a damn stimulus package already.

Uh... seriously? Alarmist? Have they not been looking at the unemployment figures and/or reading the news? Spending too much time watching old reruns of Seinfeld?

As my old students back in V-Haven would say:

wow.

Lima and Social Mobility

Made it to Lima without a hitch, and had something of a dia de comida Estadounidense. Got a burger at McDonald's (although I did, admittedly, get it with ají). And I got an Americano (no surprise there) at the Starbucks across the street. One of these days (possibly tomorrow), I also have plans to try out the San Isidro KFC.

I'm sure you'll all be shocked to hear that both Starbucks and McDonald's is better in Peru than in the US. This just goes to support my theory that Latinos make better fast food (maybe better food in general) than we gringos do.

As I was wandering around the city today (the ritzy part of the city, as it turns out), I was struck by three thoughts in quick succession.

1. "Man. It's fantastic how well these guys here are doing economically. Walking around San Isidro is like walking around Yonkers, without all of the terrible taste. These guys really have it made."
2. "I wonder if the prosperity on display here is only a result of old money appearing in a new way, or if there is really some upward mobility going on here, with the generation of a new Peruvian middle class. It probably wouldn't be any good if all these beautifully-designed houses were just new homes for old money."
3. "I don't think I've ever read any political science research that examines social mobility as an independent variable. This could be the missing control variable from Acemoglu and Robinson/Boix's theory on inequality and democratization."

So folks, am I right about that? Have we political scientists totally missed the boat on examining social/economic mobility?

The way I'm thinking about this is as follows:

A and R (and Boix) argue that the implementation of democracy is basically a way for the poor to ensure that they get wealth redistributed to them, over the long term. As such, democratization will tend not to take place at very low levels of inequality (not much to redistribute) or at high levels of inequality (elites will fight like hell to keep their wealth from all getting taken away). But there's no evidence cross-nationally of this.

What if, however, (a) you could find societies with very high levels of inequality, but also high levels of social mobility--lots of very rich and very poor people, and not much of a middle class, but where it's relatively easy to move from one class to the other, and (b) people would be willing to put off democratization because they know that they have a pretty good chance of making it if they try hard.

This might mean that you could have a lot of inequality but not much demand for democratization.

A further extension of this idea might be that, in some places, democratization is particularly desirable not only for economic purposes (redistribution of wealth), but because there is a social stigma placed on things associated with inequality (racial differences, class differences, etc.) These stigma (or whatever) carry a non-economic cost that might hurt more than poverty. Democratization might be a way to get rid of this stigma, or take off some of its edge.

In this theoretical formulation, the presence or absence of race-based or class-based social stigma might also be an important causal variable.

Anyways, somebody should do this (probably not me) because it would be pretty easy to measure:

Q1: Of what social class do you consider yourself a member: (a) lower class, (b) lower-middle class, (c) middle class, (d) upper-middle class, or (e) upper class?
Q2: Would you say that your parents were members of the: (a) lower class, (b) lower-middle class, (c) middle class, (d) upper-middle class, or (e) upper class?
Q3: What kind of chances do you think your children will have to join a different (higher) socioeconomic class from you? (a) no chance, (b) very low chance, (c) low chance, (d) moderate chance, (e) moderately high chance, (f) high chance.

On the Road Again...

...It's good to be back on the road again...

The life I love is getting suits and shoes custom made and then trying to figure out how to get them home...

So, faithful reader, I have been a bit remiss in writing about my complete lack of adventures recently, but I have a couple of things to write about. I've been spending far too much time recoding variables and getting all of these forestry/local gub'mint policies surveys merged together in one rather large dataset. About 200 variables in each survey, eleven surveys, and every variable named different in each of the surveys. A real pain in the asno.

However, for today, I'm getting ready to hit the road (air?) tomorrow. Rather than taking the 24 hour bus ride, I have a plane ticket. I'll be spending enough time on a bus in the near future.

In any event, back to Lima tomorrow, a meeting with the Mysterious Dr. Jaramillo of Peruvian research institute GRADE on Monday, then (hopefully) a meeting with one of the local experts on the arcane, obscure, and bizarre Peruvian local electoral laws.

And a burger. Man, I can go for a burger. A burger and some fried Yucca.

By the way...

...any guesses on what a pirate statistician's favorite statistical
package is?

I'm so happy, 'cause today I found my friends..

..they're in my head...

Apparently, somebody at the New York Times recently looked at a map of
South America and discovered the mysterious country of Bolivia--that's
the only way that I can explain their sudden interest (something like
three long articles in under three weeks!)

Here's the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/world/americas/03lithium.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

Zane talks about the article here:
http://audacityofhops.blogspot.com/2009/02/i-hope-glenn-sees-this.html

He's right--it's easy to understand Bolivian resource nationalism--oil
and gas companies don't exactly have a history of holding up their end
of the bargain on (a) protecting the environment, or (b) returning
profits to the people to whom these resources belong. And that doesn't
just go for the developing world. One need not look any further than
Alaska (okay, that's pretty far, too, but you get what I mean) to see
how well BP is taking care of _our_ oil infrastructure:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5626067

For what it's worth, the Uyuni Salt flats is one of the dustiest,
dirtiest, poorest places I've ever been, and although it's been
developing something of a tourist infrastructure, it's not hard to
imagine why the locals would view lithium with hope.

If nothing else, they would get to sing that awesome Nirvana song a lot...
"I'm so ugly, but that's okay, 'cause so are you."

That said, the Uyuni Salt flats and the surrounding areas are also the
most surreal and strikingly beautiful places I've ever been. I would
hate to see them get torn up for mining, at least before I get to go
back a couple more times. On the other hand, on a global scale,
strip-mining the high-altitude dessert of Uyuni would probably be a lot
less damaging than, say, cutting down the Brazilian rain forest to grow
cane sugar for ethanol. So I suppose one could make a case for it on an
environmental dimension.

In terms of a natural resource curse-type angle, this could presumably
be undesirable. However, because Bolivia's other major export (other
than cocaine, of course) is natural gas (and there are a lot of other
mineral exports as well), as natural resource extractive economies go,
this might not be such a bad idea, economically. Petroleum-based
exports might be a good complement to a mineral that's used in batteries
for electric cars. One goes up, the other goes down. Maybe.

But I guess the endshot of this all is, if you haven't made it down to
Uyuni yet, go this year. Because, in the words of the venerable Warren
Miller, "If you don't, you'll just be one year older when you do."
Also, because the salt flats may be an industrial wasteland. And they
might not be making that Salvietti papaya soda anymore.

So, you should really go. And bring me back some Salvietti.

And check out the Salvietti web page at:
http://www.salvietti.com/en/4.htm

MMMmmm...

This guy was playful and fuzzy until about 35 minutes before he became dinner. Sumaq mijuna. That is, good eatin'.

Lynchings and Community Justice

The L.A. Times has an interesting article about the "community" or "indigenous" justice provisions of the recently-passed constitution. You can get the article here.

They point out that "community justice" often takes the form of "mob justice" (not like The Sopranos, the other type of mob). And what is sometimes called "community justice" by some people is called "lynching" by others.

The article is very balanced, however, in pointing out that, in the face of an ineffective justice system and corrupt police force, sometimes, even the questionable practices that pass for "justice" may be superior to the absence of any justice at all, which is sometimes the only other alternative in these places.

I understand that there's a pretty good literature in Sociology that looks at this stuff (which I can't cite because I haven't read), but if I understand correctly, one of the reasons for lynchings is a pervasive feeling of insecurity in society, often because of an absence of the rule of law. In these circumstances, lynchings are bad, and having a well-functioning justice system may be the only cure.

In other cases, though, community or indigenous justice is very well developed, consistent, and fair--not only may it be the only option for "justice" in many poor rural places, but it may, in fact, be superior to the centralized "justice" of even a well-developed country like the US, in some ways. And indeed, we in the United States might be said to have a system of "community justice," as many of our legal encounters take place with municipal, county, or state courts which are not centrally controlled, even to the extent that their ruling are often not based on a simple, codified system of rules, but on precedent. There may be some interesting parallels with the informal justice systems of many indigenous communities.

One example might be this community landholding system, in which individuals who break community rules are not granted land to farm the following year, if they fail to make good their debt to the community in the form of paying a fine. This, linked with the social pressures that come along with rule-breaking and rule-obeying in small, rural places where everybody is related may do a better job at preventing crime and promoting rehabilitation than other alternatives.