Some commentators of current Latin American political issues (see for example the article by Jorge Castañeda in the last number of Foreign Affairs) have recently focused their attention on the distinction between two types of left emerging in the continent: a populist extremist left and a social-democratic moderate left. The populist left, exemplified by Chavez, Kirchner, Morales, Humala and López Obrador,  which Castañeda defines as the “wrong” type, would only be driven by its interest in holding tightly the reins of power with no real interest in the development of their countries. On the other hand the moderate social-democratic left, the “right” left, represented by Bachelet, Lula and Vázquez, would be involved in more responsible and sustainable policy-making. 

Without delving into the appropriateness of this classification, it seems important to underline a different type of distinction, transversal to the previous one: that between countries sustained by booming commodity sectors and the other countries. In the former type of countries, which includes Venezuela (with oil), Argentina (soy) and Chile (copper), governments have been recently enjoying significant windfall revenues from increased international prices in the main export sectors. Chavez and Kirchner seem to be using these windfall revenues to fund short-term expenditures (e.g. distributing money to the poor, increasing wages in the public sector), which look very similar to populist policies aimed to build consensus rather than to long-term policies aimed at sustainable development. These policies appear to be in contrast to the (long-term) ones proposed by the Chilean government, such as the creation of an "Economic and Social Stability Fund", which has the objective of saving the fiscal surplus to finance the budget in years of deficit. Here the populist vs. moderate left distinction may be useful to understand the different policies emerging out of a common exogenous shock (commodity boom).

However, such distinction seems to fall short in highlighting another structural difference: that between the populist governments with booming commodities and the populist governments without booming commodities. The most significant example in the latter category is probably the government led by Evo Morales, whose populism, unlike that of his Venezuelan and Argentine colleagues, has not been funded by windfall revenues. To be sure, the price of natural gas (the main natural resource of the country) has been on the increase for some time, and the government has just raised the tax rate imposed on the companies in the sector. Other things being equal, this should allow Evo to enjoy a boost in resources to manage that may be similar to that enjoyed by Chavez and Kirchner. The problem is that Evo may have to avoid the short-sightedness of the other South American populists if Bolivia is to continue exporting its gas and benefiting from higher fiscal revenues from that. Indeed, unlike Argentina and Venezuela, Bolivia does not have a domestic industry able to exploit competitively its main natural resource, and it has a structural fiscal deficit, which consistently reduces the room for manoeuvre of the public sector.