This deterioration of America is directly derivative of the Darwinian creed which claims without question that the only values in life are expressed by self-interest in the market. That is very wrong about the past, the present and the future. And in the emerging markets, a moral dilemma of great proportions was set in motion by the export of this oversimplified creed to societies which want to grow economically but not at the expense of their values. In Russia , eastern Europe , and Asia , societies seem to have an ability to merge the globalization of markets, finance, technology and information into their cultures, and the have begun to grow. But in societies influenced by Catholicism , like Venezuela , or by Islam , like Iran , or by animism , like Zaire , the merger is enormously problematic.
Some Latin societies have histories or cultures which have made the transition easier.
Costa Rica and Chile come to mind. But others appear stopped in their tracks by this dilemma. Cuba and Venezuela are two of those. Driven by an obsession for socialist values, or subsidized by wasted oil resources, Cuba and Venezuela have isolated themselves from the excesses of commercialization and commodification which appear to them necessary to drive values, families, community and idealism over the cliff. The wrenching irony here is that resistance to the market neither protects human values nor grows the economy.