From the Middle of the World to the End of the World – Ecuadorians Revolt against President Lenin Moreno’s Austerity Measures

As everyone knows these days, neoliberalism’s deep interconnectedness with the interests of finance capital makes it the most antisocial version of global capitalism.

It recognizes no other freedom than economic freedom, and so finds it easy to sacrifice all other freedoms. The specificity of economic freedom lies in the fact that it is exercised strictly on the basis of one’s economic power to exercise it.

This, in turn, always entails a measure of asymmetrical imposition upon those social groups that are lacking in power and a measure of brutal violence upon those who have no power at all, which happens to be the vast majority of the world’s impoverished population.

The imposition and the violence lead invariably to the transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich (via the state’s meager policies of social protection) and the plundering of natural resources as well as economic assets whenever available.

The International Monetary Fund is the agent in charge of legalizing this transfer, which is viewed by the people as sheer theft and makes itself felt in the violent austerity policies imposed by finance capitalism.

The theft is so blatant that the amount of the loans is almost always as high as the publicly reported advantages granted to the international lenders and to the large multinationals connected to them. The most recent instances of this process include Greece and Portugal (2011-2015), Argentina, Brazil, and many African countries.

The current situation in Ecuador is the height of neoliberalism’s destructive will. In order to safeguard the right to legal theft on the part both of creditors and multinationals, the country was put to fire and sword, a state of emergency was declared and readily legitimized by the constitutional court, the Armed Forces – trained by the infamous US Army School of the Americas (whose current name erases history while pursuing the same goals) – were mobilized, so they could practice in the fight against the domestic enemies, i.e., the impoverished majorities, protesters were murdered and injured, and hundreds of children were caused to disappear.

It was a maximalist, end-of-the-world strategy, only too ready to raze the country if that’s what it takes to enforce the will of the empire and of the local elites at its service.