The Pan-american Dream: Do Latin America's Cultural Values Discourage True Partnership With The United States And Canada?

by Harrison,Lawrence E.

• ISBN13: 9780813334707
• ISBN10: 0813334705
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 1998-02-06
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

The initiative of Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton to forge a Western Hemisphere community has been staggered by Mexico's economic and political crisis. Is this latest grand design for the hemisphere destined to follow John Kennedy's Alliance for Progress and Franklin Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy into the cemetery of frustrated Pan-American dreams? The United States and Canada are prosperous first-world countries with centuries-old democratic institutions; Latin America's countries are poor and, in most cases, experimenting with democratic capitalism for the first time. Can a coherent, durable community like the European Union be constructed with building blocks so different?Why are the United States and Canada so much more prosperous, so much more democratic than is Latin America? Why has it taken so long for Latin America to conclude that democratic capitalism and good relations with the United States are in its best interest? And what might be done to enhance the prospects for a dynamic community in the Western Hemisphere?These are the questions Lawrence Harrison addresses inThe Pan-American Dream.Central to the contrasts between Latin America and the United States and Canada are the fundamental differences between the Ibero-Catholic and Anglo-Protestant cultures, reflected in contrasting views of work, education, merit, community, ethics, and authority, among others. But, as he stresses, cultural values and attitudes change, and Pan-Americanism can be more than a dream.A Pan-American community depends on shared values and institutions, as the community now embracing the United States and Canada demonstrates. Experiments with democracy and the free market in Latin America will help strengthen the values that lie behind the success of the United States and Canada, Western Europe, and East Asia. But if Latin America's political and intellectual leaders do not confront the traditional values and attitudes largely responsible for the region's underdevelopmentwith sweeping reforms in education and child-rearing practices, for examplerealization of the Pan-American dream will be painfully slow and uncertain.

Author Biography

Lawrence E. Harrison directed USAID missions in five Latin American countries between 1965 and 1981. He is the author of Underdevelopment Is a State of Mind: The Latin American Case, and was the U.S. member on the Haiti crisis mission of the Organization of American States in 1991 and 1992.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction: Dream or Reality?	1	(10)
The Roots of the Divergence: Anglo-Protestant versus Ibero-Catholic Culture	11	(31)
Canada and the United States: Siblings, Not Twins	42	(27)
Latin America and the United States: Can Two So Divergent Paths Merge?	69	(19)
The Destructive Role of American Intellectuals (and the Savaging of the United Fruit Company)	88	(17)
Argentina: First World to Third World?--And Back?	105	(19)
Brazil: Is the Future Now?	124	(22)
The Chilean Miracle: Policies, Culture, or Both?	146	(27)
Mexico: The Failure of a Revolution, the End of a Dynasty	173	(29)
Trade and Investment: From ``Imperalism'' to Integration?	202	(16)
Narcotics: A Grotesque Distorting Mirror of Both Cultures	218	(13)
Immigration: The Latinization of the United States?	231	(21)
Conclusion: Democracy and the Free Market Are not Enough	252	(21)
Notes	273	(28)
Index	301