Sharpening Our Tools, Linking Our Endeavors: Research on Recent Transformations of Latin America's Capitalist Class, Corporate Strategies and the Role of Economic Elites (original) (raw)

In Search of the Latin American Variety of Capitalism

2015

he classical endeavor of comparing national models of capitalism has fortunately returned to the center of political science. Its resurgence can be attributed to the publication of Varieties of Capitalism (HALL and SOSKICE, 2001) and the multiple debates triggered by this book. Almost a decade later, Ben Ross Schneider has published Hierarchical Capitalism in Latin America, the first comprehensive and systematic effort to apply the framework of VoC to Latin America. This inspiring book feeds the growing community of scholars who are calling for a renovation of the traditionally vibrant but recently stagnant field of Latin American political economy (LUNA, MURILLO, and SCHRANK, 2014). The book presents new arguments and empirical evidence to support the critical diagnosis that if we do not strengthen the study of business actors and how politics and markets are mutually shaped, we will continue to miss extremely important political processes and outcomes in this region. Schneider's book utilizes institutional complementarities-VoC's core and most elegant analytical device-to build the novel concept of hierarchical market economy (HME), which, he argues, defines the distinctive nature of capitalism in Latin America. Four elements characterize HMEs: diversified business groups, multinational corporations (MNCs), segmented labor markets, and low levels of education and vocational skills. The book dedicates one chapter to each of the four * http://dx.

Confronting capitalism in twentieth-century Latin America

Socialism, Internationalism, and Development in the Third World, 2024

There are important lessons, both positive and cautionary, to be learned from socialists in twentieth-century Latin America. The region’s Left has always been richer and more complex than its critics allege, including with respect to ideas about economic development. Moreover, Latin Americans have made vital contributions to the broader anti-imperialist tradition. Studying this history is important for excavating lost possibilities. It can also help clarify the challenges for which the Left has not yet found answers. This essay draws from existing literature, both new and old, on the theory and practice of socialism on the Latin American Left. I touch on the economics of socialist development and also related questions that preoccupied twentieth-century revolutionaries, including the relationship of consciousness to economic change, worker decision making and communal autonomy, the need for international cooperation, and the proper way to end gender, sexual, race, and ethnic hierarchies. I focus on socialists in the Marxist and anarchist sense, meaning those committed to the notion that the working class should control the means of production.

The Mexican business class and the processes of globalization: Trends and counter-trends

1996

This thesis discusses the globalising processes undergone by a segment of the Mexican business class, notably: the spaces of the world economy they control; their links to social and political networks of global scope, as well as to global movements and currents of thought; and the interests, strategies, projects and perceptions which they share with their counterparts around the world. It argues that they have become one of the main and most powerful forces for the integration of the country in the global capitalist system. Globalising processes lived and promoted by the Mexican business class are contradictory in several respects: on one hand, modernisation, institutionalisation and depersonalisation of corporate structures and of the system of business representation is hindered by business clientelism and corruption in party funding. On the other hand, increasing opportunities of expansion, globalisation and modernisation for Mexican corporations do not always correspond with pr...

Dominant Elites in Latin America

Springer eBooks, 2018

Latin American Political Economy publishes new, relevant, and empirically-grounded scholarship that deepens our understanding of contemporary Latin American political economy and contributes to the formulation and evaluation of new theories that are both context-sensitive and subject to broader comparisons. Inspired by the need to provide new analytical perspectives for understanding the massive social, political, and economic transformations underway in Latin America, the series is directed at researchers and practitioners interested in resurrecting political economy as a primary research area in the developing world. In thematic terms, the series seeks to promote vital debate on the interactions between economic, political, and social processes; it is especially concerned with how findings may further our understanding of development models, the socio-political institutions that sustain them, and the practical problems they confront. In methodological terms, the series showcases cross-disciplinary research that is empirically rich and sensitive to context and that leads to new forms of description, concept formation, causal inference, and theoretical innovation. The series editors welcome submissions that address patterns of democratic politics, dependency and development, state formation and the rule of law, inequality and identity, and global linkages. The series editors and advisory board members belong to Red para el Estudio

Egalitarianism and the Corporate State in Latin America

2020

Th e demise of the Pink Tide in Latin America has sparked much discussion as to whether this represents the end of left ist governmental experiments in the region and a return to what seems to be the status quo domination of right-wing conservative politics. Perhaps a more indicting implication of this debate is whether the Pink Tide represents an alternative to neoliberalism or whether it constitutes a particular typology of this system. Left -leaning scholars (Ackerman 2016; García Linera 2006; López Segrera 2016, among others) and activists counter this view by arguing that the Pink Tide has suffi ciently overturned traditional structures of domination and provided many disenfranchised groups with the concrete possibility of accessing political power. While we share the perception that the Pink Tide has indeed eff ected long-lasting transformations in Latin American political imaginaries and opened concrete lines for change, we are here concerned with the processes of structural ...