Celso
Furtado's contributions to structuralism and their relevance today
By Ricardo Bielschowsky - 2006
This article examines Celso Furtado’s three main analytical
contributions to structuralism: (i) the historical-structural method, which
incorporates the histories of Brazil and other Latin American countries in
structuralist formulations; (ii) the belief that underdevelopment in the Latin
American periphery has tended to persist over long periods owing to the
difficulty of overcoming underemployment and to inadequate
diversification of production; and (iii) the idea that the pattern of
investments in the periphery is predetermined by the composition of
demand, which mirrors and tends to preserve income and wealth
concentration. Events in Latin America in the past twenty-five years show
that Furtado’s analysis has lost none of its relevance.
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Beyond
economics: interactions between politics and economic development
By Fernando Henrique Cardoso - 2004
Theories about a necessary link between authoritarianism and progress have
been discredited by history. Now democracy and development are prominent (though
not inseparable) values on nations' agendas. The link between the two is not a
given; it is established by recognizing that democracy is justified in itself as
a universal value that can be accepted by all. Democracy legitimizes public
policies because it is based on deliberation and a negotiated trade-off of
interests, under transparent rules. Democratic procedures can be used to cope
with unexpected difficulties and strengthen the confidence of outsiders. The way
to deal with the asymmetrical effects of globalization is to participate in the
international economy on more advantageous terms, affirming the ability of
democracy to shape a form of development that is nonexclusive, unlike that which
we experienced in the past. This is no easy task, and if people are not rewarded
by a higher quality of life, then not only will democracy be in jeopardy, but
the economy will not prosper.
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Róbinson
Rojas - 1992
Notes on ECLAC's structuralism and dependency theory
The main theoretical tenet of ECLA's approach was that former colonies
and non-industrialized nations were "structurally" different from
industrialized countries, and, therefore, the former needed different
recipes for economic modernization than the latter.
ECLA argued that colonization transformed former colonies' economies
in "structures especialized in producing raw materials, cash crops and
foodstuff at low prices to meet the needs of the colonizer's economies".
That created economically "fractured" societies, in which a modern
sector was being constrained by international trade, and a traditional-
backward sector was blocking any process of economic modernization. These
structures were creating a dynamic that was impoverishing former
colonies instead of promoting capitalist industrialisation.
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From Encyclopaedia Britannica - 1994
Social Structure and Change
The term structure has been used with reference to human societies
since the 19th century. Before that time, it had been already applied
to other fields, particularly construction and biology. Its biological
connotations are evident in the work of several social theorists of the
19th and early 20th centuries, such as Herbert Spencer in England.
He and others conceived of society as an organism, the parts of which
are interdependent and thereby form a structure that is similar to the
anatomy of a living body.
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J.T. Rourke, 2001
International politics on the world stage(chap. 14)
Whether or not you subscribe to economic structuralist theory, it is clear that
the world is generally divided into two economic spheres: a wealthy North and a
much less wealthy South. There are some overlaps between the two spheres, but in
general the vast majority of the people and countries of the South are much less
wealthy and industrially developed than the countries of the North and their
people. The South also has a history of direct and indirect colonial control by
countries of the North. |
L. Yapa - 2000
Penn State
University
A note on neoliberalism
The best-known brand of development economics that arose in the 1950s is called
the structuralist school. Unlike
neoclassical economists, who assumed a smoothly working market-price system,
some of the early development economists adopted a more structuralist approach
to development problems where they adopted a more pessimistic view about the
ability of the free market to eradicate poverty. Economists such as Gunnar
Myrdal, Raul Prebisch, and Hans Singer were especially prominent in questioning
the possibility of development through export of primary products. |
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| On peripheral capitalism: |
The Latin American Periphery in the Global System of Capitalism
By Raúl Prebisch - 1981
Peripheral development is an integral part of the world system of capitalism, but the conditions in which it
takes place are different from those in the centres, whence the specificity of peripheral capitalism. Technology plays
a fundamental role in this: its development in the centres is accompanied by continous changes in their social structure, and
this is also tru of the peripheral countries when the same technology penetrates them much later. The relations between the two correspondingly alter...
While exerting considerable influence on peripheral development, the dynamics of the centres is limited in scope, on account of the centripetal nature of capitalism.
Thus it fosters peripheral development only to the extent that concerns the interests of the dominant groups in the centres.
On Peripheral Capitalism and its Transformation
Comments by Octavio Rodríguez
I have already twice commented on some aspects of Raúl Prebisch's latest work: I shall now attempt a more comprehensive critique
Comments by Alberto Couriel
In his analysis, Raul Prebisch lays great emphasis on the insufficient dynamism of accumulation to absorb, in technical layers of rising
productivity, the unemployed population and the manpower in the technical layers at lower levels of productivity...
Comments on Peripheral Capitalism and its Transformation
Comments by Lucio Geller
...this area of coincidence can be broken down into two propositions: firstly, that the crisis of the system in the Latin American countries
is a structural crisis, a theoretical understanding of which calls for analysis of the specific forms of capital
accumulation, and of the social and political conflicts linked with these; and, secondly, that the analysis of the dynamic operation of the structure in
question must begin with the internal factors...
Comments by Jose Ibarra
I am in full agreement with Raúl Prebisch both as regards his criticism that the arguments of neoclassical theory were evolved "in the void,
outside time and space", which constitutes a very serious limitation of their explanatory force, and with respect to the necessity of taking
into account social structures and their historical evolution in economic theories...
Comments by Pedro Vuskovic
The articles by Raúl Prebisch constitute a complete and well-knit system of interpretation, designed to remedy two weaknesses existing in
earlier versions: they seek to go more deeply into the "specificities" of dependent capitalism, where this is virgin ground; and they aim at explicitily
introducing the political dimension of the development process, in its twofold role of conditioning factor and consequence
Dialogue on Friedman and Hayek (From the standpoint of the periphery)
By Raúl Prebisch - 1981
The swing of the ideological pendulum has now brought neoclassicism freshly to the fore, and to Milton Friedman belongs the merit of being its
supreme disseminator. For some time past I had been reading his various studies, without, however, finding his arguments and propositions at all
convincing, until the appearance of his book Free to Choose, written in collaboration with Mrs. Friedman. I felt drawn to read it,
since it presumably constituted a complete presentation of the eminent economist's ideas. I carefully perused its pages, prepared to
revise my original opinions, but I must confess that what I read still failed to convince me; rather did it strenghten my frankly critical
position...
Monetarism, open-economy policies and the ideological crisis
By Raúl Prebisch - 1981
Attempts to interpret peripheral development within the framework of neoclassical theories are pointless if they do not take into account the
structure of society and the phenomena which occur as technology from the centres penetrates into it...the dynamic of the system is based
on social inequality whose origin lies in the structural phenomenon of the economic surplus which is appropriated by the upper strata
of society, where most of the means of production are concentrated...Note: the portion of the increase in productivity which is not
transferred to the labour force is the economic surplus
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Los 50 años de la CEPAL:
Presentación , Oscar Altimir
Cincuenta años de la CEPAL , José A.
Ocampo
El nuevo capitalismo
Celso Furtado - 1998
Asistimos, en este fin de siglo, a la adopción generalizada de la tesis de que
el proceso de globalización de los mercados se va a imponer en todo el mundo,
cualquiera sea la política que los países vayan a seguir. Es como si se tratase
de un imperativo tecnológico, semejante al que comandó el proceso de
industrialización que moldeó la sociedad moderna en los últimos dos
siglos.
Sin embargo, la imbricación de los mercados y el desmoronamiento
consiguiente de los actuales sistemas estatales en que encuadran las actividades
económicas están generando grandes cambios estructurales que se traducen en la
creciente concentración del ingreso y en formas de exclusión social que se
manifiestan en todos los países. Esas consecuencias negativas hay quien llega a
presentarlas como condiciones previas para una nueva forma de crecimiento
economico cuyos contornos aún no están definidos.
En otras palabras, en
este fin de siglo, el crecimiento económico tendría imperativamente como
contrapartida el nacimiento de una nueva forma de organización social. Puede
interpretarse esa simple observación como una amenaza o como un desafío, o por
lo menos, como el presagio de una era de transición, y también de
incertidumbre.
Evolución de las ideas de la CEPAL
Ricardo
Bielschowsky, 1998
El punto de partida para entender la
contribución de la CEPAL a la historia de las ideas económicas debe ser el
reconocimiento de que se trata de un cuerpo analítico específico aplicable a
condiciones históricas propias de la periferia latinoamericana. Tal vez
sea por eso que cuando se busca el pensamiento cepalino en los principales
compendios de historia de la teoría económica son escasas las referencias,
circunscritas cuando mucho a la tesis del deterioro de los términos del
intercambio y a la tesis estructuralista de la inflación. Esa ausencia lleva a
veces a desconocer la fuerza explicativa de ese cuerpo analítico, que deriva de
un fértil cruce entre un método esencialmente histórico e inductivo, por un
lado, y una referencia abstractoteórica propia -la teoría estructuralista
del subdesarrollo periférico latinoamericano-, por el otro.
La CEPAL y la teoría de la industrialización
Valpy, FitzGerald
La industrialización mediante sustitución de importaciones ha tenido un papel
central en el desarrollo económico de América Latina en este siglo. No obstante,
se ha impugnado categóricamente la eficiencia de este proceso como base para el
crecimiento económico sustentable, la elevación de los niveles de vida y la
modernización social. La crítica de la industrialización sustitutivo no es sólo
un problema de interpretación de un período particular de la historia económica,
sino también un prisma para evaluar la estrategia económica actual de la
región que se basa en la creciente integración a los mercados mundiales
y una menor intervención del Estado en la industria, estrategia definida a
menudo explícitamente por contraposición a la estrategia anterior de
industrialización sustitutivo
Aprendizaje tecnológico ayer y hoy , Jorge
Katz
Shocks externos en economías vulnerables: una
reconsideración de Prebisch , Nancy Birdsall y Carlos Lozada
Estructura, coordinación intertemporal y
fluctuaciones macroeconómicas , Daniel Heymann
La reconstrucción del Estado en América
Latina, Luiz Carlos Bresser Pereira
Globalización, moneda y finanzas ,
David Ibarra
La globalización y la gobernabilidad de los
países en desarrollo , Roberto Bouzas y, Ricardo Ffrench-Davis
La globalización del capital financiero ,
David Felix
América Latina y la globalización ,
Aldo Ferrer
Un nuevo centro y una nueva periferia ,
Richard Mallon
La visión centro-periferia hoy , Armando
Di Filippo
Globalización y democracia en América Latina
, Alberto Couriel
Los desafíos de la globalización para
Centroamérica , Gert Rosenthal
La CEPAL y la integración económica de
América Latina , Maria da Conceiqo Tavares y Gerson Gomes
Desarrollo e integración regional: ¿otra
oportunidad para una promesa incumplida? , Osvaldo Sunkel
El área de libre comercio de las Américas ,
Víctor Bulmer-Thomas
Incidentes de integración en Centromérica y
Panamá, 1952-1958 , Víctor L. Urquidi
La CEPAL y el sistema interamericano ,
Vivianne Ventura-Dias
Medina Echavarría y el orden internacional:
una revisión , Joseph Hodara
La búsqueda de la equidad , Héctor
Assael
Pobreza y desigualdad: un desafío que perdura,
Nora Lustig
Heterogeneidad estructural y empleo, Octavio
Rodríguez
La apuesta educativa en América Latina, Ernesto
Ottone
Las tareas de la pequeña y mediana empresa en
América Latina, Alberto Berry
El futuro de los partidos políticos en la
Argentina, Torcuato S. Di Tella
Cultura y desarrollo, Luciano Tomassini
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