What if Latin America Ruled the World? How the South will Take the North into the 22nd Century.

• Author: Lynch, Brian
• Position: Book review

WHAT IF LATIN AMERICA RULED THE WORLD?

How the South will Take the North into the 22nd Century

Author: Oscar Guardiola-Rivera

Published by: Bloomsbury Press, London, 2010, 480pp, 20 [pounds sterling].

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The 11 September 2010 issue of The Economist had a thoroughly readable and revealing report on Latin America. Its theme was that 'something remarkable is happening' in the continent. After some decades of indifferent effort, real economic growth was now averaging over 5 per cent per annum and was coupled with low inflation. Equally significant, this serious economic progress was proceeding hand in hand with measurable social advances. Better democratic processes were bedding-in. More pragmatic but soundly based policies had enabled the region to cope with the recent global recession better than most. It was time for other regions, not least the neighbours to the immediate north, and the multinationals to take more notice of the quite dramatic changes underway.

This book also appeared first in 2010. Its dominant theme is not wholly concordant but not dissimilar to that of The Economist report. The argument put is that the region, or much of it, was better able to withstand the rigours of the recent recessions because the modern generation of Latin American leaders have resisted the superficial appeal of neo-liberalism and the discredited purist recipes of the free trade economists. The region has become more resilient and has found its own path forward. In the process this has involved pioneering innovative new development policies underpinned by novel, socially-conscious concepts. The author argues that there are lessons here for other regions that are faring less well in their struggle with globalisation in its most unfettered forms.

Primarily this new Latin American thinking has addressed questions around what the author calls 'the most important issue of our time': the right to social ownership of a common good rather than private ownership held in place only by accumulated masses of private debt (the latter being what noted economist Joseph Stiglitz has termed the 'dark underbelly of the previous decade's financial boom'). This was the progressive path along which a successful South America could guide its economically stagnant northern neighbours into the next century, assisted in the case of the United States by the fact that the Latino diaspora has become its second-largest ethnic group.

Guardiola-Rivera is proud...