Latin America: Street Blockades Breed 'Anything-Goes' Culture
Latin American Current Events, News & Affairs - Andres Oppenheimer
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The street blockades that almost paralyzed
Last week, members of
During the first nine months this year alone,
"And that doesn't count the hours that are lost by workers," says Arturo Mendicuti, the chamber president. "I myself have been stuck in traffic for more than three hours."
HURTING INVESTMENT
Traffic-obstructing protests are also hurting investment in a region where, according to the
The street blockades "complicate an already difficult business environment," says
"They make it more difficult for workers to go to work, and for products to get to markets. They also hurt investment, because companies do not want to go or expand where the local environment is volatile."
During the recent Conference of the Americas in
Macri, who blames President
He added: "You often have just 10 people blocking traffic, and the police are protecting those 10 people instead of the hundreds of thousands who need to go to work. That's ridiculous."
Scioli disagreed, arguing for moderation and greater efforts to solve conflicts through dialogue.
"It's not a question of imposing order at any cost," Scioli said. "We must try to find a balance between the rule of law, the respect for private property and workers' demands."
ESCALATION
Mercado almost jumped from his seat. Shaking his head in disagreement, he said: "When societies adopt a culture in which it's tolerated to break the law, then people say, 'If I can break the law a little bit, I can break it a little bit more.' It's an escalating process."
He added that
My opinion: I agree. The wave of street blockades is more than a nuisance or even an economic problem. It has an invisible cost that erodes the moral base of a societies already fighting widespread tax evasion, corruption and organized crime.
Granted, the solution isn't to flog protesters with canes, like in
Otherwise, the 'anything-goes' culture will keep growing, and the invisible costs of street blockades will be much larger than the lost dollars and cents.
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