The Sao Paulo Forum: is there a new Latin American left?

Monthly Review, Dec, 1992 by William I. Robinson

Against this backdrop, Latin America is entering an uncertain transition. The entire framework of social and political struggles has shifted; the left and popular sectors are increasingly pitted not against the oligarchies of yesterday but against a new right. In nearly every country, the old oligarchies have given way to this new right. As the dominant class fraction in Latin America, it is overseeing a sweeping social and economic restructuring of the continent in accordance with the neoliberal model. The latter, in turn, is part and parcel of a global economic order in which transnational capital has become hegemonic. In every region of the world, states, economies, and political processes are being transformed under the guidance of a class-conscious transnational bourgeoisie. The new right in Latin America is the local representative of this class.

The magnitude and consequences of late twentieth century neoliberal restructuring of Latin American economic life have been far-reaching. It has uprooted vast numbers of workers and peasants, throwing masses of people into the informal sector where survival demands both legitimate and illegal activities. Restructuring is weakening the state as an instrument of economic regulation, accelerating the outward drainage as well as the internal concentration of wealth, and reducing each country's ability to guide its own national development. It has had devastating social repercussions, creating a whole new class of cast-offs, locked out of any meaningful or productive participation in society.

The Challenges of the New Left

Populism and traditional social democracy have been the dominant political currents in most of Latin America during the years since the Second World War. Both of these currents have largely run their course. In their wake, the new right and the left have become the ascendant forces. Though the former swept to power in the 1980s, it is now facing a mounting crisis of political legitimacy and social tensions brought about by structural adjustment,. The much talkedabout "social explosions" have already begun in several countries.

The contradictions of neoliberalism open up new possibilities as well as enormous challenges for the left. Nearly twenty Latin American countries will hold elections between 1993 and 1996; in many cases, the left stands a good chance of winning the government. The biggest challenge it faces is the lack of a strategic alternative to the neoliberal model. Constructing such an alternative is its most urgent task. Without its own project, based on a viable socioeconomic model, the left runs the risk of stagnating out of government, or even worse, of being reduced--once in government--to administering the crisis of neoliberalism.

Acutely aware of the need for an alternative project, over fifty economists and other experts from a special working group of the Sao Paulo Forum met in Lima, Peru, in late February. Titled "Integration and Alternative Development in Latin America," the meeting's purpose was to begin developing a viable left alternative to neoliberalism. The results of the meeting were then presented to the Forum plenary in Managua. Developing an alternative program will continue in meetings of five regional sub-groups (Southern Cone, Andean bloc, Central America, the Caribbean, and Mexico) scheduled for 1993, with the participation of popular and social movements. The aim is to achieve consensus on national electoral platforms before the series of elections during 19931996 period.