The most common mistake of Latin American politicians is following the desire for utopias

In his satire “Utopia,” published in 1516, Thomas More was careful not to specify an exact location for his imaginary island with its perfect society. However, the reader learns that it was located off the coast of Brazil. That is no coincidence.

The idea of utopia may be universal, but since Columbus and the Europeans’ encounter with America, which took place not long before More’s satire was written, it has had a particular association with Latin America.

This association was nourished by the myths of El Dorado and the Amazons, by tales of the mighty civilizations of ancient Mexico and the Incas, and by European notions of the New World as a natural paradise populated by Rousseau’s “noble savages” and as a blank page on which any project could be written.

“We have clung to utopia because we were founded as utopia, because the memory of the good society is in our origins and also at the end of the road, as the fulfillment of our hopes,” as Carlos Fuentes, a Mexican writer, wrote.

This tendency continues in Latin American politics to this day. The utopian impulse is to “refound” countries rather than reform them, expressed in new constitutions or the disqualification of political opponents. It is often at odds with the more modest but achievable goals of good governance and steady progress.

Take, for example, the proposal for a new constitution presented this month in Chile. The 110 articles in the “Fundamental Rights and Guarantees” chapter are a detailed blueprint for an ideal society in which no one is discriminated against, and everyone has equal rights, albeit some more than others.

Among other things, it guarantees everyone the right to “neurodiversity,” to the “free development” of “personality, identity, and life plans,” and to “leisure, recreation, and free time.” In addition, the state must promote and guarantee “the harmonious interrelation and respect of all symbolic and cultural expressions and heritage.”

Never mind that these aspirations are hopelessly insubstantial, often contradict each other, and are highly unlikely to be realized.

Or the newly elected president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro. He originally proposed not only to ban all new oil, gas, and mineral exploration in a country that relies on mining and oil for more than half of its exports, but he also promised that the state would provide jobs for the 11% of the workforce that is unemployed (his appointed finance minister says this will not happen).

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, promises not a humdrum policy and administration but a “fourth transformation,” similar to his country’s independence or the 1910-17 revolution.

And outsiders, from Butch Cassidy, an American train robber who died in Bolivia, to a group of German Covid-19-tyranny critics who set up a commune in the Paraguayan countryside during the pandemic, continue to see Latin America as a place where they can pursue their dreams unmolested by laws and restrictions.

The problem with this pursuit of utopia is that it goes hand in hand with a generally lousy government. It can’t be a coincidence.

As Colombian essayist Carlos Granés pointed out in “Delirio Americano,” a monumental examination of Latin American culture and politics in the 20th century published earlier this year, the utopian infatuation of the region’s intellectuals with nationalism and revolution led them to despise liberal democracy and embrace authoritarian leaders from the right or left.

These impulses have become a Latin American political hallmark. “If we renounce utopias and revolutions, what place would Latin America have in the concert of nations?” asked Mr. Granés.

His cult reached its peak with Che Guevara, liberation theology, and Subcomandante Marcos and his Zapatista Army of National Liberation, with their respective examples of sacrifice and redemption through guerrilla warfare against imperialism, the glorification of the poor, and what Mr. Granés calls “revolution as performance art.”

The longing for utopia is a reaction to the injustices and inequalities in Latin American societies. But it can exacerbate those problems. Utopia easily slides into a dystopia of poverty and a police state, as in Fidel Castro’s Cuba, Daniel Ortega’s Nicaragua, and Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela.

Even when this is not the case, it can lead to frustration and reaction, as it might in Chile. It is better if Latin American politicians honestly show their citizens the limits of what is possible and follow the path of steady progress rather than the pursuit of paradise.

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