“Crisis, development and new models in Latin America ”

1. “Crisis, development and new models in Latin America” 3rd IIRE Economy Seminar 2014 Claudio Katz National Council of Science and Technology (CNCT) and teaches at the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina)

2. “Crisis, development and new models in Latin America” • Economy • Social transformations • The neoliberal axis • Region’s capitalist bloc • Anti-imperialist radical block • Uprisings • Debates

3. 1. Economy • Neoliberal restructuring, following a pattern of specialization in the exportation of basic goods. • Export crops, surface mining, industrial decline of Brazil and Argentina, assembly plants (maquilas) in Mexico and Central America. • Emigration, new movement of remittances, and tourism

4. 1. Economy • The tendencies continued after the global crisis of 2008. • The crisis has a limited effect. Contrast with the great depression of 1930. • The high prices of commodities and the affluence of foreign investment remain.

5. 2. Social Transformations • Transformation of the old national bourgeoisie in local bourgeoisie. • Shift from the priority of the internal market to the promotion of exportations. • Peasants lose cohesion, the number of people excluded from society rises, and the situation of labour is unstable.

6. 2.Social Transformations • The hardships of the middle class continue. • The decrease of poverty and unemployment in the last decade was only a small cyclical improvement established in welfare-ism/ government handouts

7. 3. Neoliberal axis • The United States remains at the top of external investors, the presence of Spain-Europe is decreasing. • China is a big commercial threat, but is not competing for geopolitical control.

8. 3. Neoliberal axis • Free-market counterattack with the Pacific Alliance, social-liberal ideology defending globalization and right-wing governments of Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Peru. • Institutional coups reappear in Haiti, Paraguay, and Honduras, but fail in bigger attempts.

9. 4. Region’s capitalist bloc • Lead by Brazil with the help of autonomous political and economic strategies. • No break from the empire nor any rejection of neocolonial subordination.

10. 4. Region’s capitalist bloc • Attempt to create own customs structure, but MERCOSUR is not moving forward. This stagnation contrasts with the geopolitical activism of the South American block. • Brazil is ambivalent and Argentina is returning to its classic tensions.

11. 4.Region’s capitalist bloc • New developmentalist theories towards a larger state intervention in order to stop industrial decline. • However, the Argentinean test is failing.

12. 4. Region’s capitalist bloc • Gobiernos de centro-izquierdas. Lulismo y el kirchnerismo: dos variantes actuando en marcos muy distintos

13. 5. Anti-capitalist radical bloc • Cuba resisted isolation and is now reforming the market in order to avoid a return to capitalism. • Venezuela: social improvements and “bolibourgeoisie” undermining the process from the inside. • Bolivia: huge poverty and internal arguments about projects.

14. 5. Anti-capitalist radical bloc • Governments from the radical block with policies that are closer to the centre-left. • Ex. Ecuador, Nicaragua, El Salvador • The ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) introduced solidarity mechanisms of exchange and an anti-imperialist agenda.

15. 5. Anti-capitalist radical bloc • The theories of social development establish the redistribution of income and growth pushed by demand. • Socialist approaches promote the beginning of an anti-capitalist transition.

16. 6. Uprisings • Peculiarity of Latin America: partially successful uprisings. • They weren't social revolutions, but they changed the relations of strength and forced concessions from capitalists.

17. 7. Debates • ”Post-liberalism” thesis. There is a new progressive stage. However, this characterisation would only be valid for the radical axis. The presence of the economical pattern created under neoliberalism is omitted.

18. 7. Debates 2. “Agreement of commodities” thesis. There is a general turn towards extractivism. But this doesn't recognise the differences between governments. Extractivism conditions the pattern of reproduction, but it does not define the political regime.

19. 7. Debates 3. There is a contradiction between political transformations and a continued specialisation in primary resource exports.

20. 7. Debates 4. This duality will have to be settled. Either radicalization becomes established or the bourgeoisie will resume their offensive.