Where Is Latin America Going? FTAA or “Twenty-first-Century Socialism”?

Abstract

The current political and economic situation in Latin America is characterized by a marked difference between South American countries, on one side, and Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean, on the other. While the former have seen the resuscitation of pseudo-import-substitution-industrialization policies by neopopulist governments, the latter are increasingly attached to the neoliberal project. This difference was apparent at the Fourth Summit of the Americas in 2005 with regard to the declaration of support for the Free Trade Area of the Americas pushed forward by Mexico. It is an expression of the distinct forms of integration of the two regions into the new international division of labor and therefore of the different specific forms of development of their national processes of capital accumulation. In South America, capital still accumulates through the appropriation/recovery of a portion of its abundant ground rent. In Mexico and most of the Caribbean Basin, capital accumulates through the production, exploiting a relatively cheap and disciplined labor force, of industrial goods for the world market.