Neoliberalism and the Dynamics of Capitalist Development in Latin America

An analysis of the dynamics of capitalist development over the last two decades has been overshadowed by an all too prevalent “globalization ” discourse. It appears that much of the Left has bought into this discourse, tacitly accepting globalization as an irresistible fact and that in many ways it is progressive, needing only for the corporate agenda to be derailed and an abandonment of neoliberalism. This is certainly the case in Latin America where the Left has focused its concern almost exclusively on the bankruptcy of “neoliberalism”, with reference to the agenda pursued and package of policy reforms implemented by virtually every government in the region by the dint of ideology if not the demands of the global capital or political opportunism. In this concern, imperialism and capitalism per se, as opposed to neoliberalism, have been pushed off the agenda, and as a result, excepting Chavéz’s Bolivarian Revolution, the project of building socialism has virtually disappeared as an object of theory and practice. In this paper we would like to contribute towards turning this around—to resurrect the socialist project; to do so by deconstructing the discourse on “neoliberal globalization ” and reconstructing the actual contemporary dynamics of capitalist development.