AOn April 15 there was an overflow crowd
at
Excedra Books, people who turned out to hear talk of ---
sociology. It was the presentation of University of Panama
sociologist Ligia Herrera’s new study, “Regiones de
Desarrollo Socioeconomico de Panamá,” and most of
the people in the audience were not sociologists.
It’s hard
to imagine such a thing in the United States. There, sociology
has been given this dreadful jargon to make it appear more
mystical and somehow thus a deeper intellectual pursuit to
those
who would discount it along with the other social sciences.
There, the study of sociology is closely linked to the social
work industry, this corps of mediators between the welfare
state
and oppressed people of the sort who are usually left to fend
for themselves in Panama. There, sociology has often been
corrupted by political manipulators seeking a
“scientific” mantle for their ideological prejudices,
for examples many of the unscientific exaggerations and
distortions used to promote the conservatives’ War on
Drugs
and the huge increase in the American prison population (which
in turn created more jobs for social workers), and in an
earlier
generation to promote liberal notions that therapists are the
solution to crime.
In Panama our
social problems are starker and more fundamental. Maybe
that’s why so many well educated people turned out to hear
Dr. Herrera. Maybe that’s also why I was the only one
wearing chancletas and why there were hardly any BMWs in the
parking lot. Most of the rich dismiss the problem with denial
and scorn, and most of the poor can’t spare money for
books
or even bus fare to attend events like this, but the middle
classes who yearn for more economic opportunities and fear
their
or their children’s demotion into the mass of people
struggling to get by day to day take Panama’s social and
economic development very seriously.
So, too, should
people who are thinking about investing in businesses here. Do
you want to know where people can afford the goods or services
that you want to sell? Do you want to know which parts of
Panama
are so desperate for the jobs that your business would create
that people will work for less? Do yo want to know where the
lack of health care, or of quality education, creates problems
or opportunities? Professor Herrera's work is a useful
reference.
She looked at
socioeconomic development according to four basic variables,
with various sub-indices of each, on a district-by-district
basis around the Republic of Panama. The variables were health,
nutrition, education and family income. She charted each
district over the decades of the 70s, 80s and 90s according to
each of these factors.
No surprise,
small group of geographically districts with relatively low
populations are the poorest of all --- places like Tole in
Chiriqui and Sambu in the Darien, places with unassimilated
indigenous majorities. Herrera noted that most of the wealth in
this country is concentrated in the capital district, with a
significant pocket of affluence in Chiriqui as well.
Herrera noted
that, while the 80s are generally known as Panama’s
“lost decade,” a time when absolute median income
fell
all across the country, she also found that in the 90s only one
of this country’s provinces --- Herrera --- saw median
income adjusted for inflation rise during the 90s.
The professor,
a
University of Chile PhD who has been a key player in the United
Nations Development Program studies of this country, concluded
that “improvement simply hasn’t happened” for
Panama’s lower and middle income groups. She also
emphasized the geographical differences in income distribution.
“Panama’s a privileged district, even if there are
big
variations within it,” she concluded.
Professor
Herrera thinks that Panama, even though it’s a small
country, has some advantages that give us possibilities for
improvement. However, she says that on the road to a better
tomorrow we have to confront a number of serious problems, most
especially the rural poverty that not only retards development
outside of the capital but continues to manifest itself in
migration to the metro area. She added that the neo-liberal
economic policies that have been imposed on Panama along with
the rest of Latin America for more than two decades have
failed.
“They haven’t accomplished the goals that were
set,” she said, and urged the audience to think about
different approaches to our nation’s development.
Also in this
section:
Business & Economy Briefs
Panama's development,
district by district
American fugitive runs
Bocas scam
