Revalorizando el concepto de crisis de Raúl Prebisch

Abstract

This article offers a review and appraisal of the concept of crisis in the context of the remarkable trajectory and works of argentine economist Raul Prebisch. It argues that the crisis of the 1930s is the foundation of Prebisch’s theoretical proposal on dependency and development in Lat-in America. The crisis of 1929-1930 was the turning point that encour-aged him to revise and reinvent neoclassical economic theory, promote industrialization and import substitution, and, more importantly, to deeply restructure the role of the State in the region. The crisis leads to decision and action, and it implies and orientation towards the future, a new “horizon of expectations.” This horizon throughout the most part of the twentieth century in Latin America was development. The article also puts forward an interpretation of his program at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC/CEPAL), also triggered by the crisis and oriented to the formulation of policies meant to overcome the crisis. Finally, the article shows how through his interactions with CEPAL sociologists, in particular José Medina Echavarría, Prebisch proposes a redefinition of his concept of crisis, shifting from an economic and junctural concept to a structural one: the crisis of peripheral capitalism