"After Years in Solitary, an Austere Life as Uruguay's President"

One of the reasons it's so hard to get behind leftist leaders is because they are almost always obvious hypocrites. Fidel Castro is said to be worth upwards of $200 million. Kim Jong Il, the President of North Korea, lived like s plutocrat while his people starved. The leaders of the former Soviet Union enjoyed lives of luxury well beyond the reach of non-Party members. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's family is now said to be worth 2.7 billion dollars. Inside Barack Obama beats the heart of a socialist, but he and his wife take more ostentatious vacations than any President in recent memory. The list goes on.

But there seems to be an exception. The NY Times ran an article yesterday morning worth drawing attention to, about Uruguary's President Jose Mujica:

[Mujica] lives in a run-down house on Montevideo’s outskirts with no servants at all. His security detail: two plainclothes officers parked on a dirt road.

In a deliberate statement to this cattle-exporting nation of 3.3 million people, Mr. Mujica, 77, shunned the opulent Suárez y Reyes presidential mansion, with its staff of 42, remaining instead in the home where he and his wife have lived for years, on a plot of land where they grow chrysanthemums for sale in local markets.

Visitors reach Mr. Mujica’s austere dwelling after driving down O’Higgins Road, past groves of lemon trees. His net worth upon taking office in 2010 amounted to about $1,800 — the value of the 1987 Volkswagen Beetle parked in his garage. He never wears a tie and donates about 90 percent of his salary, largely to a program for expanding housing for the poor.

His current brand of low-key radicalism — a marked shift from his days wielding weapons in an effort to overthrow the government — exemplifies Uruguay’s emergence as arguably Latin America’s most socially liberal country.

Under Mr. Mujica, who took office in 2010, Uruguay has drawn attention for seeking to legalize marijuana and same-sex marriage, while also enacting one of the region’s most sweeping abortion rights laws and sharply boosting the use of renewable energy sources like wind and biomass.

As illness drives President hugo Chavez of Venezuela from the political stage, suddenly leaving the continent without the larger-than-life figure who has held such sway on the left, Mr. Mujica’s practiced asceticism is a study in contrasts. For democracy to function properly, he argues, elected leaders should be taken down a notch.

If the twentieth century taught us one lesson, it's that communism doesn't work. So far, the twenty-first century seems intent on proving that western European-style socialism doesn't, either. Still it's hard not to admire Mujica for his purity.

The NYT article goes on to state that Mujica was a Tupumaro, or urban guerrilla, in his youth, and that the Tupumaros killed from time to time. So it's possible that Mujica is a murderer as well as a saint. If he is, his current lifestyle certainly doesn't negate his previous crimes; but it does show a certain lack of personal greed that few socialist leaders seem capable of.

The article has Mujica quoting the Roman philosopher Seneca, who said, "It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor." 

I have no idea whether Seneca practiced what he preached. But he has an effective advocate in Mujica.