THE POLITICAL DEGRADATION OF PERU AND THE ILLEGAL ECONOMY
The Political Degradation of Peru and the Illegal Economy By Silvio Dragunsky Introduction: the illegal economy and political crisis The political degradation of Peru is inseparable from the sustained growth of the illegal economy and from the culture it has ultimately imposed. In Peruvian public debate, a question charged with moral bewilderment is repeatedly asked: how is it possible that Congress keeps getting worse and that the country elects, time and again, improvised presidents? The usual answers point to voter ignorance, flaws in constitutional design, or an alleged ethical decay of politics. This article proposes a different—and less comforting—hypothesis: Peru’s political degradation is inseparable from the sustained growth of the illegal economy and the culture it has come to impose. Over recent decades, Peru has experienced a persistent deterioration of its political life and, particularly visibly, of the quality of its congresses. Extreme fragmentation, the vol...
