Abstract
A wide-ranging study on Latin America’s “pink tide” governments, and the social formations underpinning them, raised again the debate on 21st Century socialism. If the period 1990-2010 saw renewed popular insurgency after the Soviet bloc collapse, progressive forces have lately been confronted by low intensity reaction from the combined might of local and imperial bourgeoisies. US hegemony faces renewed anti-neoliberalism, but now assails popular regimes viaconstitutional rather than military coups.
Highlights
To paraphrase Marx, a specter is again haunting the Americas.And again it is socialism, albeit in new garb
In a comprehensive co-authored work on theme — Latin America’s Turbulent Transitions (2013) — Roger Burbach, Michael Fox and Federico Fuentes set out to analyze two related, volatile processes: the gradual demise of US hegemony in Latin America and the Caribbean ( Latin America), and the advent of a Left alternative generally known as 21st Century Socialism
Whilst the authors’ interpretation of 21st Century Socialism relies heavily on Chilean philosopher Marta Harnecker’s 2012 account, all acknowledge its debt to Michael Lebowitz, borne out by his definitive Build it : Socialism for the Twenty-First Century (LEBOWITZ, 2006, p. 13-30; 61-72) and later integration of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez’s 2007 definition of an “elementary triangle” of socialism: “[a] social ownership of the means of production, which is a basis for [b] social production organized by workers in order to [c] satisfy communal needs and communal purposes.” (Lebowitz, 2010)1
Summary
To paraphrase Marx, a specter is again haunting the Americas. And again it is socialism, albeit in new garb. By the end of the short twentieth century in 1991 (see Hobsbawm, 1997), the Washington Consensus — IMF loans conditioned by neoliberal structural reforms — was under pressure across Latin America, as the new social movements, combined with the internal contradictions of late capitalism, challenged its neoliberal regimes to the point where most presently collapsed (whether dictatorships or formal democracies) This paved the way for the pink tide of Left or reforming nationalist regimes in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, and for Cuba’s reintegration into the region as the Organization of American States slid into oblivion. Sobered by this history until publication in 2013, the authors are cautious not to overstate the revolutionary potential of their focus countries
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