BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION CHILE: THE SAME PROCEDURE AS LAST 200 YEARS?
THE URGENT SOCIAL COHESION AGENDA
During the last 5 years I saw in Germany the sketch “Dinner for One” during new year´s celebrations. I imagined a "Dinner for Chile" in case of the main celebration dinner for the 200 celebration of the independence held at the Palace of Government (La Moneda) with all our politicians of past and present governments.
Mr. President : The same procedure as last 200 years, my Gordi?
Ms. ex President : The same procedure as every year, my Tatán!
The lines that follow are the original in order to avoid any wrongful interpretations.
After the dinner, Miss Sophie indicates to a very drunk Mr. James that she wishes to retire to bed, to which James responds:
James: By the way, the same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?
Miss Sophie (delightedly): The same procedure as every year, James!
James: Well, I'll do my very best!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinner_for_One
Trans-governmental failures in Chile: Just an Example
After two years have elapsed from the inauguration of the new master plan for public transportation in Santiago, denominated Transantiago, significant service malfunctions have evidenced a chain of structural errors committed by government officers in the decision taking process.
Indeed the whole process has resulted in one of the most paradigmatic cases that can be presently studied in Latin-America concerning the concept of “government failure” with vast economic, political and social externalities caused in the capital city of Santiago. The problems caused by the wrong implementation of this new transportation scheme have negatively affected the image of the country, the micro and macroeconomic output, the life standard of the population and had a negative impact in the public perception of government coalition officers pertaining to the last two periods, namely: the Lagos administration (first socialist government after the dictatorship to attain presidency); and the Bachellet administration (first socialist women leader to attain the presidency).
The new government of Mr. Piñera came to power with a battery of “neo liberal weapons of mass satisfaction” aiming at correcting technical, procedural and managerial failures observed or newly discovered in different areas with high social impact, such as: transportation, health, education, infrastructure, R & D and others.
Is it too early to ask?
Despite the fact that the new installed government has been struggling against the urgencies that followed the 27/2 Earthquake, no specific programs have been so far announced nor any targeted measures implemented in order to correct the market failures in the areas aforementioned.
Following a consented economic standpoint, governmental policies designed in a rather blind fashion by the Lagos administration and the Bachellet administration targeted to improve the efficiency of determined sectors i.e. transportation, health, education and R & D. In theory a market failure can be conceptualized as an allocation of resources that does not conform to the Pareto optimal, based on different causes such as market power, monopoly, imperfect information, negative externalities, public goods or spill over effects.
In the case of the Chilean transportation master plan, the basis of intervention policy was to improve the market performance, reducing the inefficiencies caused by a extremely unsafe, chaotic, highly polluting, unequal and politically risky combination that included buses, metro and trains in the city of Santiago, as allowed in many sectors of the economy by the Chicago Boys during the Pinochet era. In fact the proposed targets of the new plan as posted by the past government were to encourage the use of public transport; to enhace the the quality of public transportation by eliminating the on-the-street competition and replacing the existing bus fleet; diminish air pollution and sound pollution levels by reducing the number of buses from over 7,000 to about 4,600; and reducing travel times.
Unfortunately, the effect of a deficiently conceived transportation master plan did not produce the objective of substantially maximizing social welfare. Conversely, the policies adopted have forced the Chilean economy to incur in costs starting from an ex ante transportation situation, were market failures did exist, but could have ex post been improved with a much more efficient resource allocation. As a result, it caused an increase in government expenses, a sacrifice of resources that could have been otherwise effectively used and has actually reduced social welfare.
The case of Transantiago may empirically demonstrate one of the arguments to explain government failure which is based on politicians or regulators pursuing their private goals which in some circumstances do not coincide with the public goals. In this case the precious virtue of the representative democracy model, tempted politicians from the former administration to position themselves for a potential re-election and presumably made them take wrong choices in the transportation policies, which derived in decreasing social welfare. Further, the fact that the transportation plan produced huge social externalities has raised the issue of commitment problems of the past government, forcing some politicians to demonstrate against the results of the plan approved by the last government and the lack of transparency of the past administration, causing more political division in the coalition that recently lost the elections.
During the last government a parliamentary battle originated in the need to inject huge resources amounting to U$ 290 million to maintain the public transportation system functioning during the first year of wrongful implementation notwithstanding substantial inefficiencies and the necessity to renegotiate contracts with system operators. At present, a new parliamentary battle focuses in the need to incorporate a new regulatory frame to protect transportation users, increase service comfort and inject the incredible yearly amount of U$ 90 million until 2014 to complement the system deficit. Moreover, the allocation of new resources will force present government to negotiate an equal quantity of resources to be distributed on a regional basis.
Public Accountability
Another major issue deals with accountability of the government at different levels that may cause unprecedented economical, legal and political effects in Chile.
The question of government failure in the implementation of a plan is entailing a huge expense for the public budget leads into the question of accountability in its three main forms, namely: a) political accountability; b) public accountability and c) legal accountability. Political accountability derives from institutional methods in order to review governmental activities via questioning, forming parliamentary commissions, forcing government to remove Ministers or high rank officers and at the end public elections, which could derive in a radical change of government. Public accountability concerns other methods of control pertaining to the public service function, such as those exerted in Chile by the Contraloria General de la Republica, which may derive in a revision and control of public accounts including direct spending programs and fiscal expenditures. Finally, most interesting, legal accountability means the actions given to citizens in order to hold liable the State via Civil suits if decisions are taken causing civil damage or even Criminal responsibility if implemented with contravention to penal laws (abuse, corruption, fraud).
The case of governmental failure produced by Transantiago is particularly interesting, since it will now lead to the intervention of the jurisdictional power in the protection of the rights of persons in their civil dimension. Thus, the civil jurisdiction has been activated by a massive sue targeting indemnification of damages caused by the failures arising from the transportation system, which could have unprecedented effects in the assumption of the administrative and civil responsibility of the State before its citizens.
In parallel, as from the failure committed by implementing an efficient transportation system, other master plans have come into public scrutiny targeting the Auge Health Plan for enhancing Health Protection; or the acute discomfort in the Public Education system with a very low response at the level of professors and students according to OECD Pisa comparisons.
Increasing Inequalities
These and other issues are increasing the social despair and triggering unexpected social reactions that could derive in accumulation of anger and violence between social layers. The former, since the last two socialist governments made promises in order to increase the welfare of Chilean people by efficiently applying the huge fiscal surpluses accumulated in the State’s treasury to enhance education, health, minimum wages, pensions, transportation, environment and culture bringing increased social wealth.
In practice, recent information shows that the promises of the last two governments were not on their way to be accomplished, since statistics show an increase in the line of poverty as demonstrated in Casen 2010, with an augment to 15.1% of the population.
http://www.gobiernodechile.cl/especiales/casen-2009-encuesta-de-caracterizacion-socioeconomica-nacional/
Indeed, huge social differences persist among those who have notoriously turned very rich in the last decades and those who maintain a poor or middle class life standard. Plus, they are bound to use a bad transportation system, a defective public health system and must conform to the public education system which has been qualified as highly inequitable and inefficient. All of the above, has been dramatically incremented in the VI, VII and VIII regions of Chile severely struck by the Earthquake. No doubt that these and other differential problems can be characterized as ethically intolerable for a country with budget restrictions and an excess of non targeted public expenditures.
Social Cohesion Agenda
A probable source of the aforementioned ethical problem faced by Chileans relies not only in the increased economical disparities between the population, but also in the lack of cohesion attained by the society as a whole to face sound political solutions to inequalities.
In this sense it results interesting to understand the theoretical concepts entailed in light of Articles 2 and 3 of the Treaty establishing the European Community which state that one of its tasks is to: “promote throughout the Community a harmonious, balanced and sustainable development of economic activities, a high level of employment and of social protection, (and) the raising of the standard of living and quality of life, and economic and social cohesion and solidarity among Member States.” From this theoretical definition two main ideas can be synthesized. The first refers to the dimension of reduction of disparities, discriminations, inequalities and social exclusions. The second idea refers to the strengthening of social bonds, solidarity and social relations.
In fact, in order to reach social cohesion in Chile, which could derive in more harmonious and balanced patterns of human conduct, it would be necessary to encourage the possibility of social interactions which at present are not fluid, since the country has been historically constructed with stratified social layers that function as a virtual caste system. This social order is determined by numerous crass and delicate parameters that are handled by Chilean people in order to produce direct and reverse discriminations that in general impede social mobility. Some of the underlying factors are based on: skin colour, physical traits, family name, country of origin, use of language, clothing, place of residence, transportation method, school and university education, political, religious or sexual orientation and the like features which determine the position of the individual in the Chilean society.
Although the Chilean Constitution abolishes all types of discrimination and conforms to the international standard of equality of treatment, persistent conducts of direct and reverse discrimination are recognizable not only in current legislation, but as underlying customary social rules to determine a stratified social layer that protrudes horizontal social interactions. (See the 30.7.2010 Sentence of the Chilean Constitutional Court abolishing discriminatory treatment in the application of risk factors to adjust prices in services in Private Health Plans)
In this sense, it must be acknowledged that, with good or mediocre results efforts, past governments had been positively directed to implement the so called “Growth with Equity Agenda”.
In order to advance, more efforts are needed in order to focus the present discussion into a “Social Cohesion Agenda”, which could embrace both rethinking of quantitative aspects together with qualitative aspects in the design of long term policies affecting successive coalition governments whether from the right or left. Hence, the discussion of social cohesion policies should include according to ECLAC the following terms: (i) social capital, or the heritage of networks and bonds between the various social actors; (ii) social integration, or people’s access to basic levels of well-being; (iii) social exclusion, or the processes and mechanisms of the accumulated disadvantages that lead to social breakdown and deprivation, and (iv) social ethics, which underline the importance of the community of values and solidarity.
http://www.eclac.org/publicaciones/xml/1/33911/LCG2362i.pdf
http://www.eclac.org/publicaciones/xml/6/13896/lcl2006pe.pdf
THE URGENT SOCIAL COHESION AGENDA
During the last 5 years I saw in Germany the sketch “Dinner for One” during new year´s celebrations. I imagined a "Dinner for Chile" in case of the main celebration dinner for the 200 celebration of the independence held at the Palace of Government (La Moneda) with all our politicians of past and present governments.
Mr. President : The same procedure as last 200 years, my Gordi?
Ms. ex President : The same procedure as every year, my Tatán!
The lines that follow are the original in order to avoid any wrongful interpretations.
After the dinner, Miss Sophie indicates to a very drunk Mr. James that she wishes to retire to bed, to which James responds:
James: By the way, the same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?
Miss Sophie (delightedly): The same procedure as every year, James!
James: Well, I'll do my very best!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinner_for_One
Trans-governmental failures in Chile: Just an Example
After two years have elapsed from the inauguration of the new master plan for public transportation in Santiago, denominated Transantiago, significant service malfunctions have evidenced a chain of structural errors committed by government officers in the decision taking process.
Indeed the whole process has resulted in one of the most paradigmatic cases that can be presently studied in Latin-America concerning the concept of “government failure” with vast economic, political and social externalities caused in the capital city of Santiago. The problems caused by the wrong implementation of this new transportation scheme have negatively affected the image of the country, the micro and macroeconomic output, the life standard of the population and had a negative impact in the public perception of government coalition officers pertaining to the last two periods, namely: the Lagos administration (first socialist government after the dictatorship to attain presidency); and the Bachellet administration (first socialist women leader to attain the presidency).
The new government of Mr. Piñera came to power with a battery of “neo liberal weapons of mass satisfaction” aiming at correcting technical, procedural and managerial failures observed or newly discovered in different areas with high social impact, such as: transportation, health, education, infrastructure, R & D and others.
Is it too early to ask?
Despite the fact that the new installed government has been struggling against the urgencies that followed the 27/2 Earthquake, no specific programs have been so far announced nor any targeted measures implemented in order to correct the market failures in the areas aforementioned.
Following a consented economic standpoint, governmental policies designed in a rather blind fashion by the Lagos administration and the Bachellet administration targeted to improve the efficiency of determined sectors i.e. transportation, health, education and R & D. In theory a market failure can be conceptualized as an allocation of resources that does not conform to the Pareto optimal, based on different causes such as market power, monopoly, imperfect information, negative externalities, public goods or spill over effects.
In the case of the Chilean transportation master plan, the basis of intervention policy was to improve the market performance, reducing the inefficiencies caused by a extremely unsafe, chaotic, highly polluting, unequal and politically risky combination that included buses, metro and trains in the city of Santiago, as allowed in many sectors of the economy by the Chicago Boys during the Pinochet era. In fact the proposed targets of the new plan as posted by the past government were to encourage the use of public transport; to enhace the the quality of public transportation by eliminating the on-the-street competition and replacing the existing bus fleet; diminish air pollution and sound pollution levels by reducing the number of buses from over 7,000 to about 4,600; and reducing travel times.
Unfortunately, the effect of a deficiently conceived transportation master plan did not produce the objective of substantially maximizing social welfare. Conversely, the policies adopted have forced the Chilean economy to incur in costs starting from an ex ante transportation situation, were market failures did exist, but could have ex post been improved with a much more efficient resource allocation. As a result, it caused an increase in government expenses, a sacrifice of resources that could have been otherwise effectively used and has actually reduced social welfare.
The case of Transantiago may empirically demonstrate one of the arguments to explain government failure which is based on politicians or regulators pursuing their private goals which in some circumstances do not coincide with the public goals. In this case the precious virtue of the representative democracy model, tempted politicians from the former administration to position themselves for a potential re-election and presumably made them take wrong choices in the transportation policies, which derived in decreasing social welfare. Further, the fact that the transportation plan produced huge social externalities has raised the issue of commitment problems of the past government, forcing some politicians to demonstrate against the results of the plan approved by the last government and the lack of transparency of the past administration, causing more political division in the coalition that recently lost the elections.
During the last government a parliamentary battle originated in the need to inject huge resources amounting to U$ 290 million to maintain the public transportation system functioning during the first year of wrongful implementation notwithstanding substantial inefficiencies and the necessity to renegotiate contracts with system operators. At present, a new parliamentary battle focuses in the need to incorporate a new regulatory frame to protect transportation users, increase service comfort and inject the incredible yearly amount of U$ 90 million until 2014 to complement the system deficit. Moreover, the allocation of new resources will force present government to negotiate an equal quantity of resources to be distributed on a regional basis.
Public Accountability
Another major issue deals with accountability of the government at different levels that may cause unprecedented economical, legal and political effects in Chile.
The question of government failure in the implementation of a plan is entailing a huge expense for the public budget leads into the question of accountability in its three main forms, namely: a) political accountability; b) public accountability and c) legal accountability. Political accountability derives from institutional methods in order to review governmental activities via questioning, forming parliamentary commissions, forcing government to remove Ministers or high rank officers and at the end public elections, which could derive in a radical change of government. Public accountability concerns other methods of control pertaining to the public service function, such as those exerted in Chile by the Contraloria General de la Republica, which may derive in a revision and control of public accounts including direct spending programs and fiscal expenditures. Finally, most interesting, legal accountability means the actions given to citizens in order to hold liable the State via Civil suits if decisions are taken causing civil damage or even Criminal responsibility if implemented with contravention to penal laws (abuse, corruption, fraud).
The case of governmental failure produced by Transantiago is particularly interesting, since it will now lead to the intervention of the jurisdictional power in the protection of the rights of persons in their civil dimension. Thus, the civil jurisdiction has been activated by a massive sue targeting indemnification of damages caused by the failures arising from the transportation system, which could have unprecedented effects in the assumption of the administrative and civil responsibility of the State before its citizens.
In parallel, as from the failure committed by implementing an efficient transportation system, other master plans have come into public scrutiny targeting the Auge Health Plan for enhancing Health Protection; or the acute discomfort in the Public Education system with a very low response at the level of professors and students according to OECD Pisa comparisons.
Increasing Inequalities
These and other issues are increasing the social despair and triggering unexpected social reactions that could derive in accumulation of anger and violence between social layers. The former, since the last two socialist governments made promises in order to increase the welfare of Chilean people by efficiently applying the huge fiscal surpluses accumulated in the State’s treasury to enhance education, health, minimum wages, pensions, transportation, environment and culture bringing increased social wealth.
In practice, recent information shows that the promises of the last two governments were not on their way to be accomplished, since statistics show an increase in the line of poverty as demonstrated in Casen 2010, with an augment to 15.1% of the population.
http://www.gobiernodechile.cl/especiales/casen-2009-encuesta-de-caracterizacion-socioeconomica-nacional/
Indeed, huge social differences persist among those who have notoriously turned very rich in the last decades and those who maintain a poor or middle class life standard. Plus, they are bound to use a bad transportation system, a defective public health system and must conform to the public education system which has been qualified as highly inequitable and inefficient. All of the above, has been dramatically incremented in the VI, VII and VIII regions of Chile severely struck by the Earthquake. No doubt that these and other differential problems can be characterized as ethically intolerable for a country with budget restrictions and an excess of non targeted public expenditures.
Social Cohesion Agenda
A probable source of the aforementioned ethical problem faced by Chileans relies not only in the increased economical disparities between the population, but also in the lack of cohesion attained by the society as a whole to face sound political solutions to inequalities.
In this sense it results interesting to understand the theoretical concepts entailed in light of Articles 2 and 3 of the Treaty establishing the European Community which state that one of its tasks is to: “promote throughout the Community a harmonious, balanced and sustainable development of economic activities, a high level of employment and of social protection, (and) the raising of the standard of living and quality of life, and economic and social cohesion and solidarity among Member States.” From this theoretical definition two main ideas can be synthesized. The first refers to the dimension of reduction of disparities, discriminations, inequalities and social exclusions. The second idea refers to the strengthening of social bonds, solidarity and social relations.
In fact, in order to reach social cohesion in Chile, which could derive in more harmonious and balanced patterns of human conduct, it would be necessary to encourage the possibility of social interactions which at present are not fluid, since the country has been historically constructed with stratified social layers that function as a virtual caste system. This social order is determined by numerous crass and delicate parameters that are handled by Chilean people in order to produce direct and reverse discriminations that in general impede social mobility. Some of the underlying factors are based on: skin colour, physical traits, family name, country of origin, use of language, clothing, place of residence, transportation method, school and university education, political, religious or sexual orientation and the like features which determine the position of the individual in the Chilean society.
Although the Chilean Constitution abolishes all types of discrimination and conforms to the international standard of equality of treatment, persistent conducts of direct and reverse discrimination are recognizable not only in current legislation, but as underlying customary social rules to determine a stratified social layer that protrudes horizontal social interactions. (See the 30.7.2010 Sentence of the Chilean Constitutional Court abolishing discriminatory treatment in the application of risk factors to adjust prices in services in Private Health Plans)
In this sense, it must be acknowledged that, with good or mediocre results efforts, past governments had been positively directed to implement the so called “Growth with Equity Agenda”.
In order to advance, more efforts are needed in order to focus the present discussion into a “Social Cohesion Agenda”, which could embrace both rethinking of quantitative aspects together with qualitative aspects in the design of long term policies affecting successive coalition governments whether from the right or left. Hence, the discussion of social cohesion policies should include according to ECLAC the following terms: (i) social capital, or the heritage of networks and bonds between the various social actors; (ii) social integration, or people’s access to basic levels of well-being; (iii) social exclusion, or the processes and mechanisms of the accumulated disadvantages that lead to social breakdown and deprivation, and (iv) social ethics, which underline the importance of the community of values and solidarity.
http://www.eclac.org/publicaciones/xml/1/33911/LCG2362i.pdf
http://www.eclac.org/publicaciones/xml/6/13896/lcl2006pe.pdf
Labels: Chile, Dinner for Chile, Same Procedure, Social Cohesion Agenda
posted by cristián gárate @ 10:12 PM
