As its very name suggests, Ecuador is geographically located in the middle of the world. And now, from all appearances, neoliberalism has decided to carry out its end-of-the-world maneuvers in this country. That is perhaps the reason it is coming to the realization that the Ecuadorean people is a tough, if not impossible obstacle to overcome.
As everyone knows these days, neoliberalism’s deep interconnectedness with the interests of finance capital makes it the most antisocial version of global capitalism. It recognizes no other freedom than economic freedom, and so finds it easy to sacrifice all other freedoms.
The specificity of economic freedom lies in the fact that it is exercised strictly on the basis of one’s economic power to exercise it. This, in turn, always entails a measure of asymmetrical imposition upon those social groups that are lacking in power and a measure of brutal violence upon those who have no power at all, which happens to be the vast majority of the world’s impoverished population.
