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David Luhnow is the Latin America bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal – and one of Jay’s favorite journalists. Luhnow is immensely knowledgeable, and he imparts his knowledge in clear, balanced terms. Though an American, he was born and raised in Mexico. His brother Jeff has an interesting job, and he’s very good at it: general manager of the Houston Astros. David and Jay start out by talking a little baseball. Then they get into the nitty-gritty: murder, dictatorship, freedom, and the burden of history in Latin America.
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Outstanding. This guy knows the continent. One quibble, but he clears it up sort of latter. He contrasts the left and the right including Pinochet as right, but Pinochet was unique, not part of what we call the Latin American right. The right is not particularly different from the left, they both build the power of the state and run matters centrally. Pinochet broke this pattern because, after taking power he had no idea what to do and turned to Catholic University economists who then created the revolution that makes Chile unique. It’s still Latin American, but it has a real free market in contrast to every other country down there except to a shrinking extent, Colombia.
Agree with @iwalton that this was a very interesting interview. Does Chile again prove that you can get eventually get rid of the ‘right-wing’ dictatorships but its much harder to get rid of the ‘left-wing’ especially the Socialists/Communists. Chile was able to overthrow Allende but Pinochet went on his own so to speak. I still think that Venezuela and Nicarauga may end up as poorer, bigger Cubas. Never give up your guns.
Thank you Jay for this interview with David Luhnow. I learned much about Latin America.
Thanks Jay, another interesting podcast.