Last week, I saw a bumper sticker that said “Gore for Poor; Bush for Rich.” It was on a car of an old woman who refused to accept that the last presidential election was over. I could tell by the way she drove that she thought she was special because she cared more about the poor than the rest of us.
I spent seven years as a lawyer for poor people and 10 years as a management consultant who tried to help poor countries. I can tell you this: The poor don’t want anyone to feel sorry for them. All they want are good jobs.
My overseas clients said that they didn’t want to be leaders of poor countries. What they wanted was a way to energize their economies so that they could move up the economic ladder.
What was striking about the old woman’s bumper sticker is that the most important group in America, the middle class, was nowhere to be seen. The doctors, teachers, firemen, police officers, small business owners, engineers, accountants and all of the other people who are the heart and soul of a country’s economy were not included on her bumper sticker. The good news in America is that the middle class, although overtaxed and overregulated, is still in pretty good shape.
The bad news is that the middle class of Latin America is facing a crisis of almost unimaginable magnitude.
You may be wondering why I’m writing about this now. Simple. If you think that the chaos that has engulfed Afghanistan poses a grave threat to the safety and stability of the United States, think again. Today, we face the real possible that most of Latin America will devolve into a state of narcoterrorist-controlled anarchy. And if that happens, we won’t be able to build a high enough wall to protect you and me from a disaster of biblical proportions.
Let me give you an idea of how serious this is. Drug lords control Colombia and are trying to seize control of Venezuela. Al-Qaida members have established camps on the border between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. Mexican and Colombian drug lords now use Mexico as the transshipment point of choice for cocaine, heroin and a host of other plagues on America.
But that’s not the worst of it. The real crisis is the war on the middle class. Because the only hope these countries have is that the middle class will lead them out of their valley of darkness. The problem is that the middle class of most Latin American countries are sick and tired of living in fear. And they are leaving.
In Mexico, men and women of education and ability dress down and drive beat up cars so they won’t be mugged, kidnapped or murdered. If they do decide to drive a new, upscale car like a Ford Taurus, they first get bullet-resistant glass and body armor installed.
In Colombia, one of the fastest growing businesses is one that provides bullet resistant raincoats, sport coats and other “normal” apparel. In both Colombia and Venezuela, the middle class is leaving for Miami and other parts of the United States. They are tired of being the targets of kidnappers, muggers, murderers and incompetent governments.
In Argentina, 2nd and 3rd generation Argentines of Italian, Spanish and Jewish descent are leaving the country in droves. As one man said, “We are tired of the economic terrorism of living in a country where the economy is always on the brink of implosion. We would rather go to Israel and take our chances than stay here.”
Every other year, the Alumni Association of Harvard Business School holds a global conference overseas. Two years ago they went to South Africa, the country that has the highest murder rate in the world. This spring they were scheduled to go to Argentina. They’ve just cancelled that trip because they can’t guarantee the safety of the participants. When South Africa is safer than Argentina, you know how bad things have gotten.
A decade ago, the picture was very different. Latin American countries were renouncing military dictatorships and embracing democracy. Unfortunately, the last decade was one where the Clinton administration and Congress ignored our neighbors who live south of our border. Now, the results of our benign neglect are coming home to roost.
Our challenge is simple: We can’t just worry about terrorism in the Middle East. We can’t just worry about homeland security. And we definitely can’t return to isolationism, caring little about the outside world, if we want to live in a world that is safe.
That means that America must accept, however reluctantly, her new mandate as the leader of the world and the beacon of freedom. We are facing enemies that are more evil than any we have faced in the past. Because these new enemies don’t just lust for power. They lust for the hearts and souls of good and decent people in every part of the world. And they have amassed such great wealth through crime that we are the only country that has the power and the will to beat them.
But time is of the essence. Because if the middle class of Latin America abandons their homes, the vacuum will be filled by criminals and terrorists. And if we lose Latin America to the narcoterrorists, how long will it be before we lose America too?
