Historical Perspectives on Latin American Underdevelopment

Abstract

WHEN ONE THINKS OF LATIN AMERICA, usually its economic underdevelopment is one of the first things that comes to mind. Annual per capita incomes of less than $1,000, life expectancies twenty years less than our own, infant mortality rates many times higher than ours, malnourishment, homelessness, and unemployment are all too common. Latin America is considered to be relatively poor and backward. Indeed, many observers have suggested that poverty south of our border is inevitable and insoluable. Yet the fact is that Latin America has not always been perceived as an impoverished region. For centuries there were many favorable impressions of the area. It was only with the passage of time that the more sanguine views lost influence and the more critical began to predominate. Even then, there was wide disagreement among those who stressed Latin America's underdevelopment about the reasons for its backwardness and the most appropriate solutions. The object of this essay is to briefly chart the evolution of perspectives on Latin American underdevelopment. This intellectual passage through the centuries reveals something about the changing realities in Latin America and, more importantly, much about evolving world views. At first the Spanish did not believe that Latin America was underdeveloped at all. When Columbus first saw the West Indies, he remarked on their wealth, their bountifulness, not their poverty.