Here we have a large fancy modern building in far off Santiago, Chile. It was built to house an operation called the UN Economic Commission for Latin America that had been in operation for 21 years at the time of the stamp. It has now been in operation for over 70 years and has added the Caribbean to it’s area and ecology to it’s goals, still out of this building. So, beyond the nice building, what are the achievements of the organization? Good Question? So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays new offering from The Philatelist.
I must say I like the aesthetics of this stamp. This organization’s stated goal is to replace colonialism with a more equitable economic model. A big change. The building with it’s large size and ultra modern design goes a long way to project a positive future through the changes.
Todays stamp is issue A103, a 6 cent stamp issued by the United Nations out of it’s New York office on March 14th, 1969. It was a two stamp issue in different denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether mint or cancelled to order.
Well before the founding of the Latin American Economic Commission by the UN in 1947, the organization’s predecessor the League of Nations had grappled with what they felt were unfair trading between the “rich” north and “poor” south of the globe. The idea was proposed Russian born, German and American trained, American Marxist Economist Paul Baron that by northern hemisphere companies setting prices, they maximized their profits at the expense of the poorer areas low salaries and costs and thus acted to maintain the status quo and now allow the poor south’s resources propel development. His ideas were further developed into a dependency theory that the rich north was dependent of the propping up from the south so owed them a debt.
The result was that the work done by the Latin America Economic Commission was mainly aid to lower the price paid on imports from the rich north to Latin America. This is quite less revolutionary than the ideas of Mr. Baron, but it must be remembered that the Associate Members of the Commission, the rich north west and Japan, notably not the Marxist North East, were who was providing the aid. With the UN there was also much administration expense.
In addition to adding the Caribbean nations in 1984, the commission gradually took more of an interest in the ecology of sustainable development. Ecological economics are an offshoot of Marxist economics so the cross purposes implied are not so straight forward. The Secretary General seat of the now UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean has been vacant of 6 months. The last holder of the seat was Mexican born, Harvard trained Biologist and Public Administrator Alicia Barcena Ibarra. Before her work for the UN, she was the Under Secretary for the Environment in the Mexican Federal cabinet. Knowing what a heck of a job Mexico does on environment, the UN was no doubt lucky to attract her services and now all of Latin America and apparently the UN is dumfounded on who could possibly replace her.
One achievement of the commission that is hard to argue with is the building itself in Santiago. It opened in 1966 and was the work of Chilean architect Emilio Duhart who had been influenced by the earlier work of the French Architect Le Corbusiar. I t is considered one of the best examples of Latin American modern architecture.
Well my drink is empty. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.