CEPAL Review - Volume 1990, Issue 42, 1990

I would like you to know, first of all, that welcoming you to the opening session of this seminar is not just another routine event for me. It is the affirmation of an institutional identity which unquestionably bears the original stamp of Raúl Prebisch. It is a gathering of people who have helped to make ECLAC what it is, people who, although belonging to a number of different generations, have many things in common: firstly, their identity and calling as Latin Americans; secondly, their commitment to integral development; and thirdly, the fact that they approach their work in a way that strives to reconcile theory with praxis or, in other words, to bridge the gap between thought and action. These three traits have given this institution an identity of its own throughout the 42 years of its existence, an identity which sets it apart from other United Nations bodies and institutions and which, indeed, makes it unique among organizations of its type.

In the author’s opinion, Prebisch’s greatest contribution was his idea of a structural rift in the international economy caused by the slow spread of technical progress and kept in being by the international division of labour which existed at that time. According to this approach, external trade was no longer viewed as an extension of the domestic economy but was considered to have a dynamism of its own which depended on the linkages between the central economies and the efficiency of the principal centre in exercising its “regulatory” functions.

This article recalls two periods in the author’s relationship with Prebisch. The first relates to Prebisch’s teaching at the University of Buenos Aires in 1948, and the second to his work as economic advisor to the Argentine Government that followed the overthrow of Perón in 1955.

This article is a critical reflection on the long-term deveiopment strategies currentiy being proposed by the neo-liberal and neo-structuralist schools. Obviously, a given theoretical programme can turn out to be substantially different when put into practice and can be conditioned by the particular characteristics of each country. Nevertheless, we choose to limit our consideration to the proposals themselves in order to place the discussion on the most objective and most realistic level possible.

The subject of styles of development represents a systematization, carried out largely in ECLAC during the periods following those of Prebisch. However, it is based on the fundamental themes of two works on peripheral capitalism: the evolution of the periphery, its social structure, income distribution, the appropriation of surplus, the opposition between centre and periphery, the criticism of economic liberalism, crisis and transformation.

The models that dominated economic science and policy in the first three decades of the post-war period have broken down and there are no consummate replacements. The outlook seems to be conservative. The late 1970s turned back the clock which was moving for two centuries in the direction of morally justifying Stale intervention Intended to moderate or correct the social inequalities produced by market operations. Part I of this article explores these trends.

This article analyses the importance of the public sector in Latin America and the Caribbean for the development of the region, although, due to its preliminary nature, it does not explore the differences to be observed between the various nationai economies.

Inflation was a major concern for Prebisch from his time in central banking np to the end of his career, when he stressed the need for new thinking by Latin American economists about stabilization policy. The topic is of vital importance, not only for Latin America, but also for the world in general, for specialists in industrialized countries have also been unable to elaborate policy recommendations for their governments that will resolve the dilemma between inflation and monetary restriction.

This paper reviews some of Prebisch*$ ideas on Inflation and comments on the article by Felipe Pazos which appears in this number of the Review.

The economic integration of the region reached a turning point in early 1984. From that moment on, there has been a growing number of initiatives that have given dynamism to what was a languishing process. According to the author, this new surge towards integration is the region’s response to a world that seems to be restructuring itself into large economic groupings.

Has the idea of integration in Central America been abandoned for the 1990s, while strategies for economic “openness” and other forms of entry into world markets are adopted? Are there any other ways? According to the author, there are grounds for moderate optimism as regards reinforcing Central American integration in this decade.

The diveisity of the economies of the region -a qualification that usually precedes any overall interpretations of its underdevelopment- in fact expresses an idea going far beyond a simple statement of dissimilar situations. Thus, it Is crucial not only to qualify and quantify this disparity, but also to understand the reasons why it is so pronounced. Countries abundantly endowed with natural resources have not managed to generate vigorous and continuing industrial processes nor, even less, have they been able to develop a social cohesion compatible with a consolidated national State. This would seem to be the nub of the problem.

At the end of the 1940s, Radi Prebisch, in Economic Survey of Latin America: 1949 (CEPAL, 1951), identified the main problems of Latin American economies on the basis of an analysis of their evolution during the first half of the century. The present study refers back to that analysis and compares its findings with contemporary development challenges and limitations.

This article was originally conceived as an argument against the illusions of the ultra-liberal An^o-Saxon school, which always preaches, with its Victorian morality, that the right way to achieve happiness is via austerity and the free market. Later it became a tribute to Raúl Prebisch, the first Latin American political economist to have a critical view of the dominant economic thinking and to propose a framework for interpreting the “historical situation of the periphery”.