When compared to Latin America, Asian economies since 1980 have grown faster and have done so with relatively modest inequalities. Why? A comparison of Asia and Latin America underlines the superiority of the nationalist capitalist model of development, which has often been pursued more explicitly in Asia, over that of a dependent capitalist model, which has often been pursued in Latin America. In comparison to Latin America, the Asian model has facilitated higher and less volatile rates of economic growth and a greater political room to pursue social democratic policies. The "tap root" of these alternate pathways is relative autonomy from global constraints: states and economies in Asia have been more nationalist and autonomous than in Latin America.

Today the Washington Consensus on development lies in tatters. The recent history of the developing world has been unkind to the core claim that a nation that opens its economy and keeps government's role to a minimum invariably experiences rapid economic growth. The evidence against this claim is strong: the developing world as a whole grew faster during the era of state intervention and import substitution (1950-1980) than in the more recent era of structural adjustment (1990-2005); and the recent economic performance of both Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africaregions that truly embraced neoliberalismhas lagged well behind that of many Asian economies, which have instead pursued judicial and unorthodox combinations of state intervention and economic openness. As scholars and policy makers reconstruct alternatives to the Washington Consensus on development, it is important to underline that prudent and effective state intervention and selective integration with the global economy have been responsible for development success in the past; they are also likely to remain the recipes for upward mobility in the global economy in the future."

Today the Washington Consensus on development lies in tatters. The recent history of the developing world has been unkind to the core claim that a nation that opens its economy and keeps government's role to a minimum invariably experiences rapid economic growth. There is strong evidence that the developing world grew faster during the era of state intervention and import substitution than in the more recent era of structural adjustment; and the recent economic performance of both Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa -regions that truly embraced neoliberalism- has lagged well behind that of many Asian economies, which have instead pursued judicial and unorthodox combinations of state intervention and economic openness. As scholars and policy makers reconstruct alternatives to the Washington Consensus it is important to underline that prudent and effective state intervention and selective integration with the global economy have been responsible for development success in the past and that they are also likely to remain the recipes for upward mobility in the global economy in the future.

Hoy en día el Consenso de Washington sobre el desarrollo está desacreditado. La historia reciente del mundo en desarrollo ha sido poco amable con la afirmación acerca de que una nación que abre su economía y que mantiene el rol del gobierno al mínimo experimentará, invariablemente, un rápido crecimiento económico. Existe evidencia sólida de que el mundo en desarrollo en su conjunto creció más rápido durante la era de intervención estatal y la sustitución de importaciones (1950-1980) que en la época más reciente del ajuste estructural (1990-2005); y el desempeño económico reciente de las Economías Latinoamericanas y del África Subsahariana -regiones ligadas al liberalismo- ha quedado bastante rezagado en relación con el de las economías asiáticas, quienes llevaron a cabo una combinación no ortodoxa de intervención estatal y apertura económica. Mientras académicos y políticos reconstruyen alternativas al Consenso de Washington, es importante señalar no solo que una intervención estatal efectiva con una integración selectiva a la economía global han sido los responsables del éxito desarrollista en el pasado, sino que son recetas de una movilidad creciente de la economía global en el futuro.