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Notes on El Salvador
- kovezd 3y agoThe article does present a very objective evaluation of Bukele as a person, and statesman. One has to deeply wonder about Political Theory after reading stories like this.
- nemo44x 3y agoWhich political theory? I think Machiavelli was more or less right. Many old texts are quite wise. I’d agree most political theories from the 20th century on is pretty much bunk unless cynical, oligarchical subterfuge is your goal. But if you dig deep enough and long enough into the past there is a lot of wisdom. Bukele in many ways expresses many of these.
- math_dandy 3y agoI really like how the author enumerates and links to his most important sources right in the introduction.
- melling 3y agoI backpacked through El Salvador in 2007. I don’t remember people saying it was particularly dangerous. Honduras was the place I was told to skip, unless you wanted to scuba in Roatan There were other backpackers in the hostels. Even Colombia at that time was fine.
- grecy 3y agoThey all still are fine. I drove the entire pan American highway from Alaska to Argentina from 2009 to 2011. I have dozens of Friends that have done it, and I moderate a Facebook group where thousands are doing it right now. As the marketing for tourism Colombia goes “the only danger is you’ll never want to leave”
- cageface 3y agoThis is absolutely not my experience or the experience of many people I know that have traveled in the region. Latin America is great but the safety concerns are real.
- ks2048 3y agoI've lived in Guatemala for 4.5 years (I'm from the US) and traveled in every country in Central America, and have had only positive experiences. Guatemala is a great country, but difficult for local people because it's hard to make good money. The violence problems are real, but much safer than its reputation, in my opinion.
- someplaceguy 3y agoHmm... possibly a literal survivorship bias at work here? :)
- ks2048 3y agoSure, that's part of it. The stats are the stats - the rest is anecdotes. But, with experience in a place you realize the crime is concentrated to certain places and groups of people.
- noduerme 3y agoFor reference, is it safe now to drive yourself from Antigua to Guatemala City at night? That used to be a dicey proposition.
- cageface 3y agoCrime is a numbers game. And certainly you can improve your odds by be being mindful of where and when you're exploring. I wouldn't let fears of crime discourage anyone from visiting Latin America but compared to many other parts of the world you need to be much more aware of what's going on around you.
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- flextheruler 3y agoUnfortunately most El Salvadorians are not backpacking through their country for recreation. It’s an assuredly different set of circumstances if you’re living there and from there.
- stainablesteel 3y ago> Rather, the best case against Bukele is that he has created severe systemic political risk in El Salvador by converting the government from a democracy to a de facto dictatorship then hes in a good place to introduce some kind of monarchy, or personal transfer of power, someday. people want him to be dictator for life and he seems to be loved enough to receive it. democracy doesn't deal with gangs well enough to make a country like this functional. hes a wise person whose made good investments for his country.
- screye 3y agoAs a cynical idealist, I once tried to find 1 country of decent size that could escape the poverty/mis-governance trap while being a democracy. I found zero success stories. Every 20th century economic success story was a defacto autocratic nation. They only transitioned to democracy after they'd reached a certain level of development. (I excluded preexisting high HDI nations and ones that accidentally hit mineral gold) It's similar to how commitees have never built successful startups. At the early phases, you need a decisive and singular leader. I continue to be on team democracy for poor nations. But I'm well aware that data is not on my side.
- kovezd 3y agoInteresting, you should publish your results. And it does makes sense, in a way it would be similar to letting children (developing persons) make their own decisions. The interesting question would be what is then, the best form of government for developing nations. Or even better, what are the required skill-set for leaders to bring development?
- roenxi 3y agoThe interesting one to watch out for is how often democracies form with the support of an existing democracy - I only have a loose understanding of the history but France seemed to have an outsized role in the US becoming what it is today. The failures (USSR, Republic of China for example) where democracy doesn't take on a wide scale are probably also interesting studies. The key problem in setting up a democracy is that people are, on average, pretty dense. Doing things by vote doesn't cause stupid people to make good decisions. There is a real cultural element where the people involved have to be strongly against solving domestic problems with force, for evolution over revolution and also big believers in general liberty (otherwise you just get two factions fighting to use the big stick of government against the other).
- bradrn 3y ago> As with everywhere else in the developing world, there are also a bunch of cheap Chinese imports […] Note: the images below this text actually show Korean writing, not Chinese.
- mycologos 3y ago(The author has since added a correction.)
- fvdessen 3y agoGang crime seem to be a common weakness of democracies. There's a notable list of countries that had to resort to elect a quasi-dictator to get rid of gangs. As my hometown is coming to grip with a bubbling gang war, I wonder if there is a better way.
- pottertheotter 3y agoWhat country, if you don’t mind saying?
- fvdessen 3y agoBelgium, the Antwerp port is the main entry point for drugs in Europe, and there is high demand for drugs in Belgium itself as well. The gangs used to be 'quiet' but there's been a drive-by shooting wave in Brussels recently, which re-opened the debate about what to do with all this. I know the situation is in no way comparable with what's going on in South-America, but there are also well known spots in the city where drugs are dealt openly, people even queue, which is a bit of a wtf Of course the extreme right is riding on this hard and winning a lot of popularity as a result
- mynameishere 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia_during_the_Fascist_regime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Mafia_during_the_Fasc... All governments are basically mafioso. Consider the existence of national security laws of every government. These are a kind of legal Omertà.
- yichi 3y agoDictatorship is very good at combating crime if it's under good hands (which itself is a tall order imo), just look at Singapore, the problem with dictatorship is the lack of accountability and 99% of dictators simply suck at governing hence democracy is usually better since most dictators have a severe case of Dunning–Kruger effect. People like Bukele and Lee Kuan Yew are very few and far between.
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- WheelsAtLarge 3y agoThis has been the best one place summary of the Salvadorian situation I've read so far. I've had some understanding of the situation through Salvadorian friends and a few news articles that tried to give a quick synopsis. But I can say that what I read in this post concurs with what I know and expands greatly on it. I suspect that there's got to be a few errors. It's inevitable simply because it's a one-person summary. But kudos to Matt Lakeman, he did a very good job.
- jeffbee 3y agoAt first I thought the site disabled the scroll bar with CSS, then I realized that scroll bar is subatomic because the article is seven miles long.
- muststopmyths 3y agoGreat article, but I do have one quibble. The author says El Salvador was not an interesting country to visit to him. Based on my personal experience the countryside is beautiful, the beaches are great and the people are lovely. Yes, the cities are "ugly" but I didn't mind San Salvador at all. I'm not the type to seek out nightlife though. It would be a shame to miss it if you're in the area.
- blovescoffee 3y agoHonest question, what do you mean be “if you’re in the area?” Like near San Salvador or in Latam? Or what area
- muststopmyths 3y agoTraveling in Central America. For example, a lot of people go to Guatemala or to Honduran beaches but skip El Salvador out of apprehension
- optimalsolver 3y agoBe sure to check out his Notes on the Gambia, which for some reason is the world's premier destination for female sex tourism: https://mattlakeman.org/2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/ https://mattlakeman.org/2023/07/10/notes-on-the-gambia/
- doublepg23 3y agoWow that was a fantastic read, didn’t expect to get completely sucked into that.
- deanresin 3y agoI read an article a while ago that showed a correlation between the violent crimes per capita and how close to the equator that country was. Basically, the hotter the climate, the more crime.
- sexy_seedbox 3y agoLink the article? Sounds badly researched as Belarus and Russia are cold places with a lot more crime than hotter places in East and South East Asia.
- bombcar 3y agoIt is probably "somewhat" true when accounting for all possible variables, as the better the weather the more time people spend outside. Crime rises in the summer in most areas, iirc.
- mixmixmix 3y agoYou’re greatly misinformed. Russia and Belarus are tons safer than your average American or Western European city.
- megapolitics 3y agoThat’s just not true. The violent crime rate in Russia is many times that of any Western European country, and their intentional homicide rate is slightly higher than America’s. In terms of murder rate Belarus sits much closer to Western Europe than America, but it still sits above Western Europe.
- billllll 3y agoIt's crazy how popular authoritarian demagogues have gotten around the world. His campaign, mannerism, and treatment of media and opposition can be a cut and paste of a bunch of different politicians of the world. At the end of the day though, I really hope it all works out.
- starspangled 3y agoWhat's crazy is just how terrible the globalist neoliberal political agenda and the mindless cookie cutter politicians they produce everywhere have been, that people are thoroughly fed up and are looking for alternatives, no matter how bad.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago> globalist neoliberal political agenda Bukele pitches crypto at CPAC, so it’s frankly hilarious you think he resides outside this order.
- starspangled 3y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxo92I-akL0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxo92I-akL0 This speech? You think that makes Bukele a "globalist neoliberal"? That would indeed be hilarious, if you did. I do like your sense of humor! But no I wasn't claiming any particular person is or is not "with" the western ruling class. Obviously this order welcomes many horrible dictators (and "authoritarian demagogues") among its ranks, famously in the Middle East but really anywhere it furthers their power. I was just commenting on the parent's post about people supporting them, and it's in contrast to their cookie cutter ones. The Justin Trudeau, United Nations types. Not saying any particular politician or policy is better or worse, just that people feel like they've been failed.
- joenot443 3y agoI think it's bizarre and frankly hilarious that you think proximity to crypto is an indicator to ones proximity to the colloquial globalist order. If there's one thing that the Five Eyes are known for, it's their commitment to crypto. /s
- estebarb 3y agoThe possible intervention of Bukele in other countires affairs is concerning. For example, trying to create new political parties https://www.larepublica.net/noticia/un-bukele-en-costa-rica-familiares-de-nayib-intentaron-formar-partido-politico-en-costa-rica https://www.larepublica.net/noticia/un-bukele-en-costa-rica-... . Then you see that at the same time, El Salvador offers 0% tax to tech companies, Costa Rica defunds all computer science education in elementary/high school level and also defund an agency for bringing external investors... At some point you stop thinking that is was just a coincidence.
- FabHK 3y agoGreat informative article. Note that "M-13" is often used for MS-13, and "M-18" (erroneously?) for B-18, which can be a bit confusing. ETA: It's not erroneous, as that gang is known as either Barrio 18 or Mara 18. At any rate, ignore the letters - it's 18 vs 13.
- Cornbilly 3y agoWho is Matt Lakeman? Why should I care about his analysis/opinions on El Salvador?
- leansensei 3y ago[flagged]
- perryizgr8 3y ago> Like all educated middle-class Americans, my core understanding of urban crime comes from The Wire Lol this is accurate for people like me too who know almost everything they do about America from TV shows
- 29athrowaway 3y agoExtortion was the main crime in El Salvador. Asking people for a share of their income. The cure to mass extortion is carrying weapons, or making the extortionist believe there is a good chance you have a.weapon. There is no other mitigation.
- roshin 3y agoIf the extremely low crime rate is true, that is amazing. However, my concern is that as a de facto dictator, he can fudge the statistics. Just like Mussolini was credited for making the trains run on time only to later be found out that he simply forced the news to report that the trains ran on time. Although, if, as the author writes, people on the street love him and they all claim that crime is down. Then maybe the ballpark figure is right.
- wolverine876 3y agoWhen the government is the most powerful gang, with all the firepower of government, then they can seize power and overcome other gangs. But that doesn't reduce the gangs in people's lives.
- azinman2 3y agoExcept the gov there wasn't able to do that until recently. Haiti has zero chance of it, Mexico let it infiltrate to include the former president, and the US has been unable to largely stomp out its gangs. I understand you were trying to make a cynical point about govs, but I don't think it's even true.
- wolverine876 3y agoI'm making an genuine point about dictators. They are no more than gang leaders with a title.
- mycologos 3y ago> But that doesn't reduce the gangs in people's lives. TFA says that before the crackdown gangs directly extorted money from civilians, and frequently threatened and murdered them. As far as anybody seems to be able to tell, the current government is not doing that. You can maybe argue that they are harming any innocents swept up in the crackdown, but the scale of civilian suffering seems far lower now. I don't get how that isn't "reduc[ing] the gangs in people's lives".
- 1270018080 3y ago
- nemothekid 3y agoThis is a great article; I didn't think I would read the whole thing but AFAIK, its a reasonable thorough account on the rise of Bukele. As an aside, I find it incredibly amusing that the China-funded library is decorated with rather Western culture - Harry Potter, Star Wars, and even Mario. Even Chinese money is used to uphold American cultural hegemony.
- cjbgkagh 3y agoI make a distinction between western culture of Magna Carta onwards as distinct from mass marketed corporate manufactured culture. Encouraging the later probably serves Chinese interests.
- nemothekid 3y ago>as distinct from mass marketed corporate manufactured culture From a hegemonic view, I don't. The "mass marketed corporate manufactured culture" ensures that the West retains an avenue for soft power in the country. As long as they watch american tv, play american games, and read american stories, the country is subtly primed to be more palatable to American view points. It might not matter now, as Bukele has demonized Western influence; but as shown in Asia, Pokemon and Mario were massively effective in cleaning up Japan's image in the eyes of Korean youth. Both China and Korea were brutally colonized by Japan, but cultural influence has inverted the favorability of China and Japan in Korea. I don't see how repeating that mistake favors China interests. [1] In fact, according to a survey published by news magazine SisaIN, China’s favorability among South Koreans reached a high-water mark in 2016 at a score of 60 out of 100—second only to the United States (73) and higher than Japan (43) and North Korea (28).6 However, by 2021, China’s score had fallen by half to 26.4 [2] I don't deny COVID could be a factor here. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/rising-anti-china-sentiment-in-south-korea-offers-opportunities-to-strengthen-us-rok-relations/#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20according%20to%20a,fallen%20by%20half%20to%2026.4 https://www.americanprogress.org/article/rising-anti-china-s....
- eszed 3y agoA nuance: many American mass-market entertainments are now being subtly steered towards palatablity to the Chinese government / market.
- julienreszka 3y agoDespite the lengthy article I have so many questions and suspicions. For example: If the elections are rigged how did he “win” If he is responsible for the crime reduction, how did he do it in such a short time, how were the police trained so fast If the original crime reduction was due to gangs hiding the bodies is it really that unreasonable to think that what actually is happening is that the government is more effective at hiding the bodies?
- mycologos 3y agoTFA addresses all of these questions. Briefly, the author's beliefs appear to be: > If the elections are rigged how did he “win” The election is partially manipulated by gerrymandering but won in the sense that Bukele's overwhelming popular support is real, and the gerrymandering only pushed him from "clear victory" to "almost total victory". > If he is responsible for the crime reduction, how did he do it in such a short time The crime reduction came because it happened at a time when both of its opponents (the gangs themselves, as well as anti-Bukele government forces) were weak. It may also have benefited from a decline in murders that had already started before Bulele took office. > how were the police trained so fast The police and army were less "trained so fast" than having been relatively competent for a while but hamstrung by insufficient political will/funds (this point is less well explained -- maybe because the gangs trade so much off honor rather than actually paying off economically, reasonable people find the police/army a more enticing career path?). > If the original crime reduction was due to gangs hiding the bodies is it really that unreasonable to think that what actually is happening is that the government is more effective at hiding the bodies? Maybe the government is fudging things, but even anti-Bukele organizations and media don't seem to think so, and Bukele's popular support in the absence of repression (yeah, Bukele is not a champion of free press, but he doesn't yet seem to police the actions of everyday civilians to the extent that they would all be scared and lie to a visiting ~journalist) suggests that the murder rate really is down, and not just faked.
- HlessClaudesman 3y agoMy friend from Central America got upset when nearly everyone at a London party took turns to do coke in the bathroom. He told me a pretty harrowing story of how his family had had their lives ruined by drug gangs. A colleague of mine was on a flight when balloon of drugs burst inside a drug mule. They died. Our appetites fuel a cycle of violence and depravity.
- oscarresponse 3y agoRead the article. El Salvador's gangs are not narcotics traffickers like in Mexico or Colombia. They mainly extorted.
- keiferski 3y agoThere is a dead comment pointing this out, but El Salvador gangs are not primarily drug gangs. The article goes into it further, but the short version is: the gangs there are/were focused more on extortion, with a consequence being that they are dramatically less wealthy than drug organizations in Colombia and Mexico.
- pcthrowaway 3y agoI don't think the reason they were less wealthy was because they were primarily in extortion and not drugs, it was because they hadn't created a funnel for money from wealthier countries to enter their pockets. I believe some Russian and North Korean gangs have figured out how to do this via extortion (cyber-crime), but the drug trade seems to be another popular way to do it.
- keiferski 3y agoI meant more in relation to other Latin American gangs, which are wealthy because of drugs. The El Salvador gangs are extorting low income people in El Salvador, so cyber crime is not really a lucrative thing.
- 0xB31B1B 3y agoThe article goes in depth on this. Basically gangs exist on a spectrum of “business” vs “honor”. Business gangs (drug cartels, mafia etc) concerned with money and the goal is being rich and use illegal means to do so. Honor gangs are concerned with righteousness and respect, their goal is power/control/respect, examples are ms13 in El Salvador, Al qida/taliban,
- whatever1 3y agoQuoting from the article: "The whole point of democracy is to spread political decision-making and create approval-based feedback loops with the population so that good leaders are elected and bad leaders are deposed without resorting to violence. Dictatorships concentrate power to permit more state dynamism but at the expense of this dispersed risk. This makes dictatorships a higher risk-higher reward proposition. A good dictator can do more good without democratic constraints, but a bad dictator can do more bad."
- StrauXX 3y agoNo they don't. The issue with dictatorships is that your powerbase rurns from "the people" (or a wealthy subset of the people, depending on how well your democracy works), to a small group of powerfull supporters. Army generals, police chiefs and so on. Even if you were an angel, the power dynamics of dictatorships don't give you the ability of doing all too much for the general populace. Thats the beuaty of democracy. Your power base is (indirectly and delayed, but still) the people. This aligns incentives and power dynamics between power holders and regular inhabitants much more than in any kind of autocracy.
- whatever1 3y agoWhich works in long time scales as long as the players agree that they will play by the rules of democracy, aka respect the institutions. So democracy suffers from 2 main issues: 1) timeliness: some problems need to be solved now, not in 10 years. Example, need to decide your stance against Russia. 2) fragility from the inside: A malicious player can manipulate democratic institutions and convert it to an autocracy. See Russia, Turkey and Jan 6 USA. Not sure how one can design a system robust to these two threats.
- legutierr 3y ago> Not sure how one can design a system robust to these two threats. The US at various time has had a system robust to these threats. A prerequisite has been an educated and well-informed electorate with at least a large majority committed to a shared set of national values.
- navigate8310 3y agoWhat a brilliant piece of writing! As someone who was previously uninformed about the Guatemala belt of countries, this article provided a thorough understanding of the issues. Although it took me an hour to read, every second was enthralling. Thank you, Matt, for such an enlightening piece!
- keiferski 3y agoAnyone that is interested in the “too centralized power vs. safety” topic should really read Leviathan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book) I read the whole article and admittedly most of my knowledge of El Salvador comes from it, but I do think that the critics seem to not understand the concept of monopoly of violence, and how much of the democratic norms that keep the developed world in check are built upon this centralized authority. Great article and I do agree with his basic conclusion: so far, it’s “been worth it”, but the cost may be future instability. I think a lot of people want El Salvador to turn into a typical western democratic state, but IMO I think their goal is to be something more like Singapore.
- tayo42 3y agoSkipping El Zonte (aka bitcoin beach) but covering btc use seemed like an odd choice. I was told it was mostly used by bitcoin tourists and foreign idealists. It was funny being told by a shop they don't accept credit, but only bitcoin or cash lol. Skimmed it, interesting thoughts overall.
- kevinak 3y agoRelevant to the BTC story is this recent tweet by Bukele: https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1768425845163503738 https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1768425845163503738 Looks like they have quite a stack compared to what people previously thought. There's also a tracker you can follow: https://nayibtracker.com https://nayibtracker.com
- jenny91 3y agoI think the author is a tad naive on the worst-case scenarios. Bukele sounds a bit sociopathic: for now he seems good, but it doesn't seem he has the most principled world-view. With the god-level worship from his people and crazy high levels of support, I would worry about him turning into a lifetime dictator. You have to remember that Hitler was democratically elected for seemingly bringing back the glory of his country. Re weapons making people feel safer: this is something I heard from Israelis (~2017) that for them seeing soldiers with big assault rifles makes them feel safer; for me it normally does not. I wonder what the conditions are under which this makes people feel good/bad. Re innocent people ending up in jail and abused: I wonder how the number of people whose lives are now destroyed by the state is vs how many peoples' lives were destroyed (e.g. murders) pre-crackdowns?
- Georgelemental 3y agoYou have to keep in mind the alternative. Salvadorans before Bukele lived under a violent and oppressive regime (the gangs); so even if Bukele becomes a tyrant, it won't be any worse than what they had before. At best people are massively better off, at worst they are no worse off, so it's an easy bet to make.
- danielmichaelyc 3y agoEverything Matt writes is amazing