Exapolakatekls Stronghold of Evil

Bolivias strong man of the day Evo Morales seems to be the left-wings new idol. On may 1st, 2006 he signed a decree nationalizing all natural gas reserves.

Now as everybody knows, there is a long history of nationalizing ressources. The lovely thing for politicians about nationalizing a countries reserves of gas, oil or whatever is that foreign - in this case brazilian- multis have already invested in the infrastructure and a stable and reliable market exists. You only need to harvest other people´s work and spend the money. In addition it is also very popular with the broad public, seeing noone really likes multis anyway. This makes it a very attractive way for governments to raise funding for their spending. Talks about a reselling of the nationalized companies to the french multinational Total are already on the way, which in my eyes perverts the original argument for the nationaliziation which was to stop the plundering by foreign companies.

One of the more famous "presidents" nationalizing national ressources is Saddam Hussein. He used the petrodollars to finance his gargantuan bureucracy, manifold wars and massive army. Oh, and indeed, he used it also to finance additional social services, making him very popular. The same goes for Simbabwian "Prime Minister" Mr. Robert Mugabe, who disposessed white farmers, bringing his own people close to starvation as agricultural production collapsed. Mugabes argument was, that the land originally belonged to the black people, and whites can´t rightfully possess it, which is ridiculous because the white settlers have lived there for generations. Just imagine what would happen if it was attempted to correct every "unlawful" possession of land that ever happened, where would you stop going back in time to find the "lawful" owners? In the stone age? Would you evict the people currently known as Americans and give the land back to the indians?

Bolivia as a state is not exactly renowned for incorruptable civil servants. A 2005 Transparancy international survey shows that more than 50% of the bolivians feel that corruption has increased a lot since 2004. The country sports one of the most corrupt systems in the world. Assuming that Mr. Morales will hardly be able to run the whole state by himself, you can be sure that these are the sort of people that get the major share of the petrodollars now. Please don´t forget; the Bolivian government was already getting a share of the gas profits through the taxes they were imposing. I guess they never get enough.

The move has already inspired imitators; Ecuador is nationalizing US Oil-Corporation Occidental. Personally I don´t see how the one group of profit oriented people like south-american politicians is better suited to run a gas corporation than another, no matter how popular and charismatic single men of the group may be.

Besides I just don´t get it; these people are seriously deterring foreign investors by disrespecting property rights. They are damaging their own economy in a way that will last for centuries to come. Alas, I consider seizing private property to resell it about as morally correct as any other form of theft.