Introduction

Reflecting on development in the course of one of the most major crises ever faced in the modern world allows us to put things in perspective. Perhaps neoliberalism is finally going under – along with global economic prosperity and growth – regardless of the relative strength of the emerging East. In any case, while it is doubtful whether deeper changes will alter neoliberal economics and social policy as well as the widening inequality they entailed, a financeled model of accumulation has proved untenable and will have to be changed in order to unburden the “real economy” processes wherein technological change and capital accumulation have proceeded apace in the last two decades. This is, in a more oblique way, the object of the present discussion which concerns the policies adopted thus far as well as the alternatives in respect to development in the contemporary world, with particular attention to the issue in the periphery and the semi-periphery.

This chapter will proceed through the following steps: first, I will briefly define the field of development and some basic issues to be investigated. Next, I will take up such issues in relation to Latin America. Economic development, underdevelopment and dependency, along with social conditions and social policy, will be outlined and discussed in both general and specific terms. Backwardness in technological terms as well as a dependent insertion in the world economy (increasingly via the export of primary products, but also to some extent due to a turn towards development sustained by increasing internal demand and targeted social policies with some improvement of overall social conditions) will be encountered.