by Lawrence E. Harrison

About the author: Lawrence E. Harrison directed USAID missions in five Latin American countries between 1965 and 1981. He is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Academy for International and Area Studies and co-editor of Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress.

The decades-old war on poverty and authoritarianism in the poor countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America has produced more disappointment and frustration than it has victories. The deprivation and despair that prevailed in the mid- twentieth century persist in most of these countries, even a decade after capitalism’s ideological triumph over socialism. Where democratically elected chiefs of state have displaced traditional authoritarian regimes, a pattern most notable in Latin America, the experiments are fragile, and “democracy” often means little more than periodic...