El desafío del desarrollo. Trayectorias de los grandes economistas latinoamericanos del siglo XX

Abstract

This book presents an original proposal through a social history of ideas on Latin American economic development: although its structure addresses the life trajectory of each of the main representatives of the first generation of development theorists in the region, in itineraries that unfold from the first decades of the 20th century to the present, it shows an intellectual and ideological plot that goes beyond the individual paths and ties them to a historical moment in the evolution of ideas and to a certain context of social, cultural and material conditions in which they were developed. We consider that (economic) ideas are discernible structures of meaning, perspective and fidelity to a purpose and, like institutions, have their own relationships, tensions and continuities. It evolves independently in a dialogue and in a cultural fabric that each intellectual has with other thinkers who preceded and accompany him in a specific historical moment. This snippet of reality -the reality of ideas- contains explanatory force in its relative autonomy. Without ideas, without thought, without mentalities, there is no possibility of entering the field of social history. Therefore, on a general level, the book's proposal converges, in research practice and historiographic theorizing, economic and social history with the history of ideas. In this way, each chapter illuminates fundamental aspects of the biographical trajectory of ten great intellectuals of 20th century Latin American economic thought: Raúl Prebisch, Aníbal Pinto, Víctor Urquidi, Celso Furtado, Juan Noyola Vázquez, Horacio Flores de la Peña, Helio Jaguaribe, Aldo Ferrer, Osvaldo Sunkel and María Maria Maria da Conceição Tavares. The collection enables an approach to the analysis of the economic and social potentialities and limitations of the countries in the region, as well as the public policies implemented and the debates that arose regarding the possibilities of accelerating their economic development. It also provides an important part of the history of ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), the UN agency to which most of them were linked. The intellectuals discussed here have been chosen for the relevance and transcendence of their original contributions to the analysis of the problems of Latin American development, respecting a sufficiently wide range of national origins so as to cover different traditions and experiences. The studies are arranged chronologically according to the date of birth of each thinker, as this gives a first idea of the historical place of their actions and theoretical formulation. In sum, this book constitutes an important step from the perspective of the history of ideas by allowing us to identify a clear "epistemic community"; that is, the functioning of a network of actors with experience and competence in a particular professional domain from which we can distinguish an organizing problem-area, Latin American development.