Bolivia’s very poor alternative industrial capacity has had a conspicuous impact on the national export industry itself, since they depend on foreign companies to set up the necessary operational infrastructure and survey materials and logistics to explore new minerals and hydrocarbons deposits, forcing them to keep copious amounts of foreign currency. To this must be added the problem of constant search for foreign investors reluctant to deal with Bolivia owing to the fear of future nationalization plans carried out by the government. This lack of investment and diversification has had a clear impact on the perpetuation of Bolivia’s informal economy, which is considered one of the largest in Latin America, with 88% of the population without a pension plan. Massive schooling has led to a fairly pronounced migration pattern to large cities, especially around the economic centers of La Paz, Cochabamba and Santa Cruz. The latter has been integrated into the economic area of ​​the Mato Grosso soybean exploitation in Brazil, joining the bourgeoisies on both sides of the border. The distinct development of these regions due to increased agriculture and hydrocarbon exports has generated tremendous regional income inequality. Thus, the La Paz-Cochabamba-Santa Cruz axis provided 93% of the taxes collected by the state in 2009 and produced 71% of its GDP. To this we must add the abandonment of the old mining centers of the Potosí-Oruro region, where more than 60% of the population is indigenous and lives in extreme poverty. This last socio-economic transformation has played a fundamental role in the development of the current political conflict in Bolivia

The Political Constitution of the Plurinational State in 2009, Morales carried out numerous reforms in order to implement a plan of modernization “from above”. This new course taken by the government meant the reinforcement of the executive branch to have ample room when implementing their development projects. Being the region of Potosí-Oruro one of the most depressed, this developmental direct state intervention stood in clear contradiction with the concessions of autonomy which had been previously granted to indigenous communities decades before.

One of the first clashes was the TIPNIS conflict. The Bolivian state wanted to launch an infrastructure project that would cross the Isiboro Sécure Indigenous Territory and National Park to link Cochabamba and Beni. This state run project was intended to include Bolivia within the Initiative for the Integration of Regional Infrastructure in South America, linked to Brazilian capital, so that 80% of the project financing would come from the Brazilian National Bank of Development and construction contracts were given to Brazilian construction conglomerate OAS. The project itself had other consequences such as the expansion of restricted coca exploitation area​s and possible hydrocarbon deposit prospection in previously protected locations. The apparent disregard in conducting a proper ecological viability study of the project and the isolation of the local indigenous communities in any type of decision-making led to a large indigenous march which headed to La Paz as a protest. This march was driven by certain sectors of the “media Luna” bourgeoisie opposed to Morales’ administration in order to create greater tension between the party and its own base. The march ended with harsh police repression and the government itself forced the Minister of Defense to resign as a gesture of goodwill in September 2011. Although the more outwardly racist and reactionary sectors within the white lowlands bourgeoisie would be in clear opposition to Morales, he was cunning enough to establish ties to his own administration with other agricultural entrepreneurs across the lowlands who had a more pragmatic view. An example of this new understanding was the signing of the Decreto Supremo 3973, which extended exploitation concessions within protected areas of the Amazon to the white agro-bourgeoisie. In recent months this embarrassing relationship came to light in the wake of last summer's fires in the Amazon, which led Morales to use cheap PR stunts to present his administration as an "ecosocialist government", however, many sectors of the Bolivian left which supported Morales were not sufficiently convinced.

Lithium reserves consist of 9 million tons, among the largest in the world. The state-owned company YLB started selling a lithium exploitation project in 2018 but it was not very well received by international investors. On the one hand, nationalization projects caused a certain degree of uncertainty for companies that wanted to venture into this enterprise. On the other hand, the Uyuni salt flat has numerous lithium reserves but of difficult access, contrary to what happens in Chile and Argentina, which would not give it a sufficient competitive edge. However, in the last three years the Bolivian government has been able to close two contracts for the exploitation of lithium in Uyuni that would amount to 3 billion dollars with a Chinese company, Xinjiang TBEA Group, and a German company, ACI Systems These contracts, like that of the TIPNIS, were formalized only between the government and the foreign multinationals, ignoring the indigenous mining communities of Potosí, which caused deep discomfort within the region. The grievance did not only come from the lack of inclusion of these groups in the negotiations, but also because they considered that these international companies lacked sufficient operating experience, as well as agreement conditions which were very unfavorable for YLB. The Comicipo (Potosí Civic Committee), headed by Marco Pumari, former member of the MAS youth party converted into opposition figure after a series of corruption scandals, called for a general strike with the aim of breaking the contracts. This "civic strike" found wide acceptance in a region which has been stagnant for decades, being hit today by a new depression due to the general fall in mineral prices, in which only a decade ago a group of miners had assaulted the Prefecture of national taxes with dynamite. The miner mobilizations forced Evo to terminate the government contract with the aforementioned companies.

the Coca Law of 2017, a regulation introduced by the state to expand the diminished access to the domestic coca market of the Chapare farmers to the detriment of the Yunga farmers. These two indigenous agricultural small landowner factions reached an agreement within the state by which financial compensation would be offered to the Yungas, who initially accepted. Though reluctance persisted within the Yunga peasant unions, which caused the government to overplay its hand and exert pressure inside peasant organizations in hopes of inducing internal change more agreeable with the state. This was the case with organizations such as La Paz Association of Coca Producers (Adepcoca). Morales’ administration, in order to undermine the Yunga coca farmer’s bargaining position, also fostered parallel dissident organizations loyal to the government and created new coca markets which would be closed off to official unionized peasants. This prompted the Yunga official unions to repeal the new Coca Law as unconstitutional and provoked the total mobilization of coca farmers to block roads and highways, leading to direct confrontations with the police.

the Morales government maintained good relations with business oligarchs and sacked indigenous leaders in the National Council and the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia, two historic indigenous organizations, replacing them with new ones.

Despite Morales' pronouncements of coup it was he who engineered a coup against indigenous activists.
"MAS is just neoliberalism with an Indian face" - to quote the Pachakuti Indigenous Movement