The Washington Post reports from La Paz, Bolivia:

People in this high-altitude metropolis once schlepped to work through the mud. Now they commute via ­Disney-esque aerial cable cars. Brick hovels have been replaced by whimsical mansions. The poorest are reveling in a basic convenience they lacked before massive investment in state infrastructure: indoor toilets.

“We used to do our ‘business’ in bags, and bring them down to the river,” said Vidal Colorado ­Mamani, community association president in Huancané, an indigenous neighborhood in southern La Paz. “It was humiliating.

“Now we have the dignity of toilets. Our lives are nothing like they were before.”

For years now, opponents of socialism have pointed at collapsing Venezuela as Exhibit A in the argument against the political left. But here in the shadow of the Andes, Bolivians are living the mirror image: an upwardly mobile society where, at least on paper, socialism has worked.

Critics of President Evo Morales, a 59-year-old socialist whose image pops up on T-shirts in left-wing cafes from La Paz to Paris, say Bolivia’s first indigenous head of state has co-opted its young democracy, weakened its institutions and abused his authority to run for another term in office .

But 13 years after his Movement for Socialism won at the ballot box, it’s indisputable that Bolivians are healthier, wealthier, better educated, living longer and more equal than at any time in this South American nation’s history. [Continue reading…]