Is South America's 'Progressive Cycle' At an End?
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- Published on Thursday, 03 March 2016 22:15
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A Socialist Project e-bulletin .... No. 1229 .... March 4, 2016
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In this ambitious and compelling overview of the strategic and programmatic issues at stake in South America today, Argentine political economist Claudio Katz expands on many of the observations he made in an earlier interview while critically analyzing contrasting approaches to development that are being pursued or proposed. Translation from the Spanish and endnotes are by me.
— Richard Fidler.
Is South America’s ‘Progressive Cycle’ At an End?
Neo-Developmentalist Attempts and Socialist Projects
Claudio Katz
The progressive cycle emerged from popular rebellions that altered power relations in South America. There were social improvements and democratic conquests, and imperialist aggression was curbed. But export-oriented extractivism increased and trade became more balkanized. The agreements with China made by each country reveal fractures in continental integration that have... facilitated the reappearance of free trade treaties. Progressivism has suffered from unsuccessful neo-developmentalist attempts that failed to channel agro-export rents into productive activities. Social spending helped to ease protest but discontent has expanded under the centre-left governments. The Right has won the Presidency in Argentina because of the inconsistencies of Kirchnerism, has been strengthened in Brazil by the conservative mutation of the Workers’ Party (PT), and is gaining new life in Ecuador owing to the deceitfulness of the official discourse. The conservatives conceal the corruption, drug trafficking and inequality that continue to be associated with their governments.
Venezuela is battling the U.S. attempt to regain control of its oil. A Chavista counter-attack requires communal power if it is to eradicate the foreign exchange fraud that enriches the bureaucracy. The Bolivarian process will be radicalized or it will regress. Characterizations of the progressive cycle as a post-liberal period omit the continuities with the previous phase and ignore the conflicts with the popular movement. But the pre-eminence of extractivism does not make all governments the same or convert the centre-left administrations into repressive regimes. Socialist projects offer the best outcome in the current stage.