2014年经济学人 玻利维亚替代计划隐隐作痛

（单词翻译）

Bello

The travails¹ of ALBA

The more successful of Latin America's populists have become more pragmatic

ON THE night of October 12th, after comfortably winning a third term as the president of Bolivia, Evo Morales was in full rhetorical flow. Having dedicated³ his victory to Cuba's Fidel Castro and the late Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, he went on: “How much longer will we continue to be subjected to the North American empire or the capitalist system? This triumph is a triumph for anti-imperialists and anti-colonialists.”

So far, so reminiscent of 2007. That was when Chavez's anti-yanqui continental⁴ alliance, known as the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), hit its zenith. It had gained two new recruits with the election of Rafael Correa in Ecuador and of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. Having won a new term by a 26-point margin⁵, Chavez pledged himself to “21st-century socialism”. A year earlier Mr Morales, a socialist⁶ coca-growers' leader of Amerindian descent, had won Bolivia's presidency⁷ proclaiming that he was “the United States's worst nightmare”. In Argentina the election in 2007 of Cristina Fernandez, an ALBA fellow-traveller, prolonged the regime of her husband and predecessor⁸, Nestor Kirchner.

Analysts⁹ lumped these leaders together as radical¹⁰ populists, for want of a better term. Yet despite a shared bent¹¹ for autocracy¹², there were always differences among them, not least because of their countries' differing circumstances. Seven years on, their fates are distinct. In Venezuela Chavez bequeathed a toxic¹³ economic legacy¹⁴ to his lacklustre successor, Nicolas Maduro. A country that claims the world's biggest oil reserves has been so badly mismanaged that it is scraping around for dollars. As for Ms Fernandez, having plunged¹⁵ Argentina into stagflation, she is down and almost out, despite her last-gasp effort to turn her argument over debt with a New York court into a nationalist epic¹⁶.

Their difficulties are in sharp contrast with Mr Morales's continuing popularity. True, he has been in power for a shorter period. But his success has recently owed less to “anti-capitalism” and much more to his accommodation with economic orthodoxy and local capitalists. After a turbulent early period when he pushed through a new constitution, quashed the opposition¹⁷ and nationalised foreign-owned oil and gas producers and utilities, he has presided over several years of political stability and economic growth. And he has made his peace with private business.

The ALBA presidents all claim to be leading durable¹⁸ “revolutions”, not just any old government. In practice, all of them (save Mr Ortega) built their popularity on recycling a huge increase in rents from the commodity boom into subsidies¹⁹ for the poor and expanded social provision. But Mr Morales has been much less wasteful²⁰ than Chavez and the Kirchners, having run a fiscal²¹ surplus every year since 2005.

Mr Correa, like Mr Morales, is becoming more pragmatic. He has invested his oil windfall in roads, schools and hospitals. He recently negotiated a trade agreement with the European Union and has restored normal ties with the IMF. Last month he watered down a new banking²² law under which the state was to dictate²³ the destination of private bank loans. As for Mr Ortega, who has long been chummy with private businessmen, his espousal of a quixotic, Chinese-backed and environmentally damaging scheme for a trans-Isthmian canal looks like a search for elusive²⁴ rents to sustain his family's grip on power.

Mr Morales and Mr Correa, who won re-election last year, may be riding high now. But there are clouds on the horizon for their “revolutions”, too. Despite the rhetoric², these do not include the United States: Barack Obama's response to ALBA has been to yawn. Their first problem is the end of the commodity boom. Three-quarters of Bolivia's exports are of natural gas or minerals, whose prices are falling. Ecuador invests much more than Bolivia. Mr Correa has boosted non-oil exports. He has done more than Mr Morales to try to diversify²⁵ his country's economy, with so far uncertain results. But his “citizens' revolution” is showing signs of financial strain. Ecuador is heading for a fiscal deficit²⁶ of up to 7% of GDP this year. And the oil price is crashing.