Following his trip to Colombia to inaugurate the cycle of thought "Imaginar el futuro desde el Sur" (Imagining the future from the South), organized by the Colombian Ministry of Culture and the philosopher Luciana Cadahia, former Bolivian Vice President Álvaro García Linera spoke with Jacobin about the political and social scenario that Latin America is traversing in this "liminal time" or interregnum that we will delve into over the next 10 or 15 years, until the consolidation of a new world order. This unstable darkness marks the entrance of the most monstrous ultra-right-wing movements, which, to some extent, result from the limits of progressivism. In the new stage, Linera argues that the progressivism must espouse a greater audacity in order to, on the one hand, answer with historic responsibility to the profound demands that are found in the base of popular support, and on the other, to neutralize the siren sound of the new right wing. This implies pressing ahead with profound reforms on property, taxation, social justice, wealth distribution and the recovery of common resources in favor of society. Only in this way, starting by resolving the most basic economic demands of society and advancing in real democratization, Linera argues, will it be possible to confine the ultra-right to their niches.

TOP: In the region, the 21st century began with a wave of progressive governments that reoriented the course of Latin America. However, this dynamic started to get stuck after the triumph of Mauricio Macri in Argentina in 2015, which lead many to predict the end of the regional progressivism. Thus, a wave of conservative governments began, but, against this trend, in countries such as Brazil, Honduras or Bolivia, progressivism has returned. And in others, such as Mexico and Colombia, it mhas anaged to come to power for the first time. How do you read this current tension between popular or progressive governments and conservative or oligarchic ones?

AGL: What characterizes the historical period from 10 to 15 years ago up to the present is the slow, distressing, and contradictory decline of a model of economic organization and of the legitimization of the contemporary capitalism, as well as the absence of a new solid and stable model that resumes the economic grow and stability and the political legitimization. It is a long period, we are talking about 20 or 30 years, inside of which lies what we call "liminal time" —what Gramsci called "interregnum"—, where waves and counter-waves of multiple attempts to settle a dead end succeed one another.

Latin America —and now the world, because Latin America was ahead of what later happened everywhere—, experienced an intense and deep progressive wave. However, this wave failed to consolidate, and was then followed by a regressive conservative counter-wave, which was followed by a new progressive wave. Possibly, during the next five to 10 years these new waves and counter-waves of short victories, defeats and hegemonies will still be seen until the world redefines a new model of accumulation and legitimization that will give itself and Latin America back a new cycle of stability for the following 30 years. As long as this does not happen, we will be witnessing this vortex of liminal time. And, as I was saying, one witnesses progressive waves, their exhaustion, conservative counter-reforms that also fail, and a new progressive wave… And each counter-reform and each progressive wave is different from the other. Milei is different from Macri, although he collects part of him. Alberto Fernandez, Gustavo Petro and Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador are different from the referents of the first wave, although they gather part of their inheritance. And I believe that we will continue to witness a third wave and a third counter-wave until at some point the order of the world is defined because this instability and anguish cannot be perpetual. Ultimately, as happened in the 1930s and 1980s, what we see is the cyclical decline of a regime of economic accumulation (liberal between 1870 and 1920, State capitalist between 1940 and 1980, and neoliberal between 1980 and 2010). The chaos generated by this historic downfall, and the struggle to establish a new and lasting model of accumulation-domination that resumes the economic growth and the social adherence.

TOP: We can see that the right-wing is once again implementing practices that we thought had been overcome, including coups d'état, political persecution, and murder attempts… Even you suffered a coup d'état. How do you think these practices will continue to evolve and how can we from popular projects resist them?

AGL: Something typical of the liminal time, of the interregnum, is the divergence of the political elites. When things go well - as they did until the 2000s - the elites converge around a single model of accumulation and legitimization. Then, everyone becomes centrist. Even the left temper and neoliberalize themselves, although there will always be a radical but marginal left, without an audience. The right-wing also fights among itself, but merely for replacements and circumstantial adjustments. When this enters its inevitable historical decline, divergences begin and the right-wing splits into extreme right-wingers. The extreme right begins to eat the moderate right. And the most radicalized lefts emerge from their marginality and political insignificance. They start to acquire resonance and audience. They grow. In the interregnum, the divergence of political projects is the norm, as there are searches, dissidents from one another, to solve the crisis of the old order, amid a discontented society that no longer trusts, no longer believes in the old 'gods,' in the old recipes, in the old proposals that ensured moral tolerance towards the rulers. And then, the extremes begin to strengthen.

That is what we are going to see with the right wing. The center-right, which ruled the continent and the world for 30 or 40 years, has no longer the answer to the obvious economic failures of liberal globalism. And, in the face of people's doubts and worries, appears an extreme right that keeps defending capital, but believes that the good manners of the old era are no longer enough. And that the rules of the market must now be imposed by force. This implies taming people down, even by beating them, if necessary, in order to return to a pure and pristine free market, without concessions nor ambiguities, because –according to them– that was the cause of the failure. Thus, this extreme right tends to consolidate and gain more activists by talking about "authority", "free market shock" and "reduction of the State." And if there are social uprisings, force and coercion must be used. And, if necessary, a coup d'état or massacre to discipline the wayward who oppose the moral return to the "good manners" of free enterprise and civilized life. The women cooking, the men in charge, the bosses deciding and the workers working in silence. One more symptom of the liberal decline is evident when they can no longer convince or seduce and need to impose, which implies that they are already in their twilight years. Nonetheless, this does not make them any less dangerous due to the authoritarian radicalism of their impositions.

In the face of this, progressivism and the left cannot behave in a condescending manner, trying to please all factions and social sectors. The lefts emerge from their marginality in liminal time because they present themselves as a popular alternative to the economic disaster caused by corporate neoliberalism. And their function cannot be to implement a neoliberalism with a "human face", "green" or "progressive". People do not take the streets and vote for the left to decorate the neoliberalism. They act and radically change their previous political views because they are sick of the neoliberalism. They wish to get rid of it, because it has only made wealthier a few families and a few companies. And if the left does not fulfill that wish and coexist with a regime that makes the people poorer and poorer, it is inevitable that people will drastically change their political preferences towards an extreme right outlet that offers an (illusory) way out of the great collective malaise.

If the left wants to consolidate themselves, they must answer to the demand for which they arose. And, if they truly want to defeat the extreme right, they must solve in a structural way the poverty of society, the inequality, the precariousness of services, education, health, and housing. And, to achieve that, they must be radical in their reforms about property, taxation, social justice, wealth distribution, and the recovery of the common resources in favor of society. To dwell on this work will feed the law of social crises: any moderate attitude in the face of the severity of the crisis encourages and feeds the extremes. If the right-wing does that, it feeds the left wing. If the left-wing does that, it feeds the extreme right wing.

Therefore, the way to defeat the extreme right, to reduce it to a niche –which will still exist, although without social relevance– lies in the expansion of economic and political reforms that translate into visible and sustained material improvements in the living conditions of the popular majorities of society. Into a greater democratization of the decisions, a greater democratization of wealth and property, in such a way that the containment. All this must be done in such a way that the containment of the extreme right is not merely a discourse but is supported by a series of practical actions of wealth distributions that solve the main popular worries and demands (poverty, inflation, precariousness, insecurity, injustice). Because we must not forget: the extreme right is a perverted response to these anxieties.  Certainly, the more wealth is distributed, the more the privileges of the powerful are affected. But they will be left in a minority around the rabid defense of their privileges. Meanwhile, the left will consolidate as the one that cares and resolve the basic needs of the people. But the more these lefts or progressivisms behave in a fearful, timorous and ambiguous way regarding the resolution of the main problems of society, the more the extreme rights will grow, and progressivism will be isolated in the impotence of disappointment. So, in these times, the extreme right is defeated with more democracy and greater distribution of wealth. Not with moderation or conciliation.

TOP: Are there novel elements in the new right-wing? Is it correct to call them fascists? Or should we name them something else? Are the right-wingers organizing a post-democratic laboratory for the continent (including the United States)?

AGL: Without any doubt, liberal democracy, as a mere replacement of elites who decide for the people, tends inevitably towards authoritarian forms. If, at times, it was able to produce results of social democratization, it was due to the boost of other plebeian democratic forms that unfolded simultaneously: the trade union form, the agrarian community form, the plebeian form of the urban multitude. These are multiple and multiform collective actions of democracy that gave liberal democracy a universalist radiance. This was able to happen because it was always being surpassed and pulled forward. But if liberal democracy is left as it is, as a mere selection of rulers, it inevitably tends to the concentration of decisions, to its conversion of what Schumpeter called a mere competitive election of those who will decide about society, which is an authoritarian form of decision-making concentration. And, that monopolistic decision-making through authoritarian means, and, if necessary, above the very procedure of elite selection, is what characterizes the far-right. Therefore, there is no antagonism between extreme right-wingers and liberal democracy. There is collusion in the background. The extreme right can coexist with this kind of purely elitist democratization that sustains liberal democracy. That is why it is not uncommon for them to come to power through elections. But, what liberal democracy marginally and reluctantly tolerates, and what the extreme right openly rejects, are other forms of democratization, which involve the presence of grassroots democracies (trade unions, agrarian communities, neighborhood assemblies, collective actions…). They oppose them, reject them, and consider them a hindrance. In this regard, today's extreme right-wingers are anti-democratic. They only accept themselves to be the ones elected to rule. But they reject other forms of participation and of democratization of wealth. This seems like an insult to them, a grievance or something absurd that must be fought with force and coercive discipline.

Now, is this fascism? That's difficult to determine. There is growing academic and political debate about what to call this trend and whether it is worth recalling the terrible acts of fascism that took place in the 1930s and 1940s. These digressions may become meaningful in the context of academic preciousness, but they have very little political effect. In Latin America people over 60 may have memories of fascist military dictatorships and their definition may influence them, but for new generations talking about fascism does not have the same effect. I'm not opposed to that debate, but I don't see it as being quite as useful. In the end, social adhesion, or rejection to the approaches of the extreme right will not be related to old symbols and the images they evoke, but to the effectiveness in responding to current social anxieties that the left is unable to overcome.

Perhaps, the best way to qualify these extreme right-wingers, beyond this label, is to understand what type of demand they respond to, which of course, differs from those in the 30s and 40s, although they have certain similarities due to the fact that both those times and current times are characterized by crisis. Personally, I prefer to speak of extreme right or authoritarian right; but if someone uses the concept of fascism, I won't object, although I am not too keen on it either. The problem may arise if, from the beginning, these rights are labelled as fascist, and we left aside the question of what kind of collective demand they respond to or from what kind of failure they emerged from.  Therefore, before labelling and looking for answers without their respective questions, it is better to ask about the social conditions surrounding their rise, the type of solutions they propose and, when it comes to the answers to these questions, you can now choose the appropriate qualifier: fascist, neo-fascist, authoritarian…

For example, is it accurate to say that Milei is a fascist? Maybe, but first you must ask yourself why he won, who voted for him, and due to which concerns. That is what matters. Besides, you should ask yourself what it was that you did to contribute to that outcome. Nowadays it is more appropriate to ask ourselves this question than to place an easy label that solves the problem of moral rejection but does not help us to understand reality or to transform it. Because if you answer that Milei summoned the anguish of an impoverished society, then it is clear that the issue is poverty. If Milei spoke to a youth that has no rights, then there is a generation of people who did not have access to the rights that people used to have in the 50s, 60s or 2000. Therein lies the problem that progressivism and the left must address to curb the extreme right and fascism.

It is necessary to detect the problems that prompt extreme right-wingers to question society because their growth is also a symptom of the failure of the left and progressivism. They do not come out of the blue, but only after progressivism did not dare, could not, would not, did not see, did not understand the class and the precarious youth, and did not grasp the meaning of poverty and economy over identity rights. That is what is important at present. This does not mean that you should not talk about identity, but that you should instead prioritize understanding that the fundamental problem is the economy, the inflation, and the money that slips out of people's pockets. And we cannot forget that identity itself has a dimension of economic and political power, which is ultimately what determines subalternity. In the case of Bolivia, for example, indigenous identity gained recognition by first assuming political power and, gradually, the economic power within society. The fundamental social link of the modern world is money, an alienated but still fundamental social link which slips away from you and erases all your beliefs and loyalties. That is the issue that needs to be addressed by the left and progressivism. I believe that the left must learn from its failures and establish a pedagogy in order to find the qualifiers to denounce or label some political phenomenon, as in this case they are doing with the extreme right.

TOP: Going back to popular projects, what are the main challenges for progressivism to overcome these crises and these failures you were talking about? Is the extreme right now back only because they haven't been able to understand or interpret the demands of citizens accurately?

AGL: Money is today the elemental, basic, classic, traditional economic and political problem of our time. In times of crisis, the economy rules, period. Overcome that problem first and then work on the rest. This is a historical time when progressivism and the extreme right are emerging and the classic neoliberal, traditional and universalist center-right is in decline. Why? Due to the economy. It is the economy that rules our world. Progressivism, the left and the proposals coming from the citizens must overcome this issue in the first place. But the society which overcame its economic issues in some countries with the first wave of progressivism in the 50s and 60s is different from our current society. The left has always prioritized the sector of the formal salaried working class, and today the informal working class is unknown to progressivism. The sphere of informal work under the concept of "popular economy" is not well known by a section of the left, who neither know nor understand it, and have no productive plans for it other than mere relief measures. In Latin America, this sector makes up 60% of the population. And it is not a transitory presence that will disappear later and become formal. Not at all. Our social future will be informal. It will be that small worker, small farmer, small entrepreneur, informal worker, who has a family and interesting local and regional tie involved in situations where capital-labor relations are not as clear as in a formal company. That world will exist for the next 50 years and involve the majority of the Latin American population. What can you say to those people? How do you care about their life, their income, their salary, their living conditions, their consumption?

These two issues are key to contemporary Latin American progressivism and the left: solving the economic crisis by considering the informal economy, which involves most of the working population in Latin America. What does this mean? What tools are used? Doubtlessly, expropriations, nationalizations, distribution of wealth, expansion of rights, etc. These are the tools, but the objective is to improve the living conditions and the productive fabric of the 80% of the population, unionized and non-unionized, formal and informal, that make up the Latin American popular sector. And an increased participation of society in decision-making. People want to be heard; they want to participate. The fourth issue is environmental: environmental justice with social and economic justice, never being separated and never prioritizing one over the other.

TOP: You are here in Colombia to attend a series of talks coordinated by philosopher Luciana Cadahia for the Ministry of Culture. What changes can you see here with the triumph of the Historical Pact and the leadership of Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez? Do you think that Colombia is leading progressivism in the region?

AGL: Considering the historical background of contemporary Colombia, in which at least two generations of social fighters and leftist activists have been assassinated or exiled, in which legal forms of collective action have been cornered by paramilitarism and in which the US has attempted to create not only a state-wide military base but also a pivot of cultural cooptation, it is heroic that a leftist candidate has won the elections. And of course, when you feel the powerful thirst emerging in the neighborhoods and communities deep inside Colombia, you understand the social outburst that took place in 2021 and the reason behind that victory.

The fact that a progressive electoral triumph is preceded by collective mobilizations enables a willingness to perform social changes. And that is why, despite parliamentary limitations, President Petro's government is now the most radical of this second continental progressive wave.

Two actions place Petro's administration at the forefront of the rest of the left-wing presidents. On the one hand, the application of the progressive tax reform, that is to say, the measure that imposes higher taxes on those who have more money. In most other Latin American countries, the most important source of tax revenue is the VAT, which clearly forces higher taxation on those who have less.

On the other hand, the progress made in the energy transition. Clearly no country in the world, not even the ones that pollute the most like the US, Europe, and China, has abandoned fossil fuels overnight. A few decades of transition have been proposed, and even, still, a few more years of record production of these fuels. However, Colombia, along with Greenland, Denmark, Spain, and Ireland, are the only countries in the world that have banned any new oil exploration activity. The Colombian example is more relevant, because in this case, oil exports represent more than half of the country's total exports, which makes this decision much bolder and more advanced in comparison.

These are reforms that certainly point ahead in a way that show commitment to life, and that lead the way for other progressive measures in the short term.

However, for these decisions, and others that are still necessary to establish the necessary conditions for economic equality, to be sustainable over time, we should not neglect the continuous improvement of the incomes of the Colombian popular classes, since any climate justice without social justice would nothing more than liberal environmentalism. This will require millimetric coupling between the revenues that the State will cease to receive in the following years, with new ones that it will have to guarantee through other exports, higher taxes on the rich and tangible improvements in the living conditions of the popular majorities.

TOP: I would like to conclude with you explaining the potential role of Latin America and the Caribbean in the world. Or rather, what political role can we play in a scenario of radical transformations such as the ones we are currently experiencing.

AGL: At the beginning of the 21st century, Latin America was the first region to signal the exhaustion of the cycle of neoliberal reforms that had been in place globally since the 1980s. This is where the search for a hybrid regime between protectionism and free trade began, which then, from 2018 to the present date, has gradually started to be tested in the United States and various European countries. At this point, despite occasional melancholic relapses into a short-legged paleoliberalism as in Brazil with Bolsonaro and Argentina with Milei, the world is heading towards a new regime of accumulation and legitimization that will replace neoliberal globalism.

However, at this point, the continent is somewhat exhausted to continue leading global reforms. The post-neoliberal transition will need to advance first on a global scale for Latin America to renew its forces in order to regain its initial momentum. The possibility of second-generation post-neoliberal structural reforms, or even more radical ones, that help recover the continental transformative force, will have to wait for greater global changes and, of course, a new wave of plebeian collective actions that modify the field of imagined and possible transformations. As long as this does not happen, the continent will actively show pendulum swings between short popular victories and short conservative victories, between short popular defeats and equally short oligarchic defeats.

Image: Álvaro García Linera, Buenos Aires, 2020. (Ariel Feldman)