Latin America culture and society

Latin American Culture

What has the use of the Development Model meant to Latin America? According to an article in Social Policy & Administration (Draibe, et al., 2009, p. 333) some "foreign multinational" companies benefited "considerably" [from the Development Model] by acquiring "privatized state companies at a bargain." However, especially in Chile, the middle sectors of the population were left "largely unprotected" and jobs / livelihoods became "precarious… in the fact of globalization" (Draibe, 334). This paper peers deeper into the issues that were manifest due to the Development Model in Latin America.

The Literature on Latin American and the Development Model

In his 1990 book The Politics of Latin American Development, author Gary Wynia asserts that "Dissatisfaction runs deep in Latin America" due to the fact that Latin Americans are denied "…justice, wealth, security [and] liberty" (Wynia, 1990, p. 3). Why such misery in Latin America in that era? Wynia uses a "fictional president" to portray the problems the development model has brought to Latin America. Five percent of this president's people are in the "upper stratum"; 15% are in the "upper middle stratum"; another 30% are in the "lower middle stratum"; and 50% are in the "lowest stratum" (Wynia, 4). The richest 5% own 50% of arable land, Wynia continues, and the average income per capita is $2,000 annually. Foreign capital is "heavily" relied upon and yet the lower class has been ignored and "violent rebellion" from the masses of poor people has been averted, at lease temporarily, Wynia writes.

After World War II the government of this fictional Latin American country (based on real world Latin American economic circumstances) tried to finance development by raising taxes on "incomes, business, sales, and imports" but citizens are "very adept at avoiding taxes" and the bureaucracy has been incompetent to collect taxes. Hence, there are two sources of revenue available to finance investments: a) "multinational corporations" that will build factories in the country; and b) "multinational banks that will loan money to our government and private businesses" (Wynia, 12). Both of those sources leave Latin Americans beholding to outsiders. Hence, a great portion of the economic demise reflected in the above-mentioned scenario can be attributed to the development model in place during that era.

Margarita Cervantes-Rodriguez explains that Nicaragua's developmentalism in the 1960s and 1970s under Somoza was manipulated by the United States, which was butting into Nicaraguan politics simply to deter the socialist influences of Cuba and the Soviet Union. But what happened as a result of U.S. meddling is that the Somoza family's dictatorial government was kept in power until "…the escalation of violent scenarios… as the authority of the Somozas was challenged" by the Sandinistas (Cervantes-Rodriguez, 2009, p. 198). When the rebel Sandinistas overthrew the Somoza dictatorship, hostile relations with the U.S. resulted in "economic sanctions" against Nicaragua. Moreover, Cervantes-Rodriguez explains that the "macroeconomic and social engineering" efforts of the Sandinistas led to a worsening of the population's living conditions "in many respects"; also there was a "sharp decline in economic indicators" and "dramatic increases" of external and internal debt (198). The developmentalism of the Somoza era (over 40 years of repressive government) was "part of a comprehensive strategy" by the U.S. to: a) keep the Somoza family in power; b) to ward off influences by Cuba and the U.S.S.R.; and c) create "internationally backed institutions" like the "Nicaraguan Investment Corporation" (Cervantes-Rodriguez, 200).

Meanwhile, another updated view reflects that today a few Latin America nations are emerging from "traditional agrarian to an urban industrial economy" (Riesco, 2009, p. S22) -- but other Latin American countries are just "taking early steps," Riesco explains. There have been two distinct development strategies employed in Latin America, including "state developmentalism" in the period between the 1920s roughly to the 1980s, which Riesco explains has been successful in terms of meeting economic and social progress (S22).

And in the last few decades several Latin American countries adopted what Riesco refers to as "the Washington consensus" which places importance on "business" in a "globalization" framework. Who has benefited from this phase of the Latin American developmental transition? Writing in the International Journal of Social Welfare, Riesco claims the "affluent few" are the beneficiaries of the move toward globalization, but the author adds that a "new developmental welfare state model is in the making" (S22).

On any typical day there will indeed be highly paid professionals employed by private multinational corporations going to work in Latin American countries, making good money. The vast majority of workers however -- descending by the "tens of millions" before the sun comes up -- will be packed into "noisy buses that inch through tortuous traffic" to huge factories where they will work "long hours, even on Saturdays, Sundays, and fiestas de guardar" (Riesco, S23).