50 Experts Warn of Neoliberal Threat in Ecuador Before Election

More than 50 economists from around the world published an open letter Sunday warning that the neoliberal proposals championed by right-wing former banker and presidential candidate Guillermo Lasso could turn Ecuador back to its undesireable past of austerity and greater social and economic inequality. 

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The economists argued that over the past 10 years, Ecuador has achieved major economic and social advances, and that a return to neoliberal policies threatens to leave Ecuador in the financial and political instability it had from 1996 to 2006, when the country saw eight different presidents in the course of a decade.

"We are concerned that many of these important gains in poverty reduction, wage growth, reduced inequality, and greater social inclusion could be eroded by a return to of the policies of austerity and neoliberalism that prevailed in Ecuador from the 1980s to the early 2000s," wrote the experts, including James K. Galbraith, Ha-Joon Chang, Stephanie Kelton and dozens of other economists. 

The signatories also argued that there has been an abundance of misinformation about Ecuador’s achievements in the last 10 years, where the government of President Rafael Correa played a key role in pushing the country to recover from the 2009 global recession and withstand the fall of world oil prices.

"Neoliberal economic policies have been tried in Ecuador, and have failed to deliver," continued the letter, signed by professors and directors of prestigious economic centers.

The economists who signed the letter hail form Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, Germany, Iran, Ireland, Mexico, Sweden, Turkey, the U.K. and the U.S.

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"Ecuador experienced a considerable economic failure," the statement read. "This failure almost certainly resulted at least in part from the neoliberal policies of cutting spending, privatization, inflation-targeting, deregulation, and others that also made the Ecuadorian economy increasingly vulnerable to external shocks."

Despite global financial crises that have rocked the small South American nation in recent years, Ecuador has managed to achieve landmark social and economic progress in the past decade under the left-wing government of President Rafael Correa, according to a recent report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

The country's most striking achievements in this period include slashing the poverty rate by 38 percent and the extreme poverty rate by 47 percent, fueled by economic growth and employment programs that have offered a boost to many of the country's poorest communities.

While the experts explicitly stated that they do not wish to interfere in Ecuador's elections nor tell Ecuadoreans who to vote for, they stressed the importance of clarifying oft-repeated but inaccurate narratives about the country's political and economic trajectory over the past 10 years. 

"Ecuador deserves leaders who will implement policies that benefit all Ecuadorians ― whoever they may be," the letter concluded. "It would be tragic for Ecuador’s next government to return to a less prosperous, less inclusive past."