Latin America between two crises

ABSTRACT

This work, to begin with, draws attention to the clear contrast between the intensity and evolution of the crisis of the thirties and the one that bursts into the early eighties, originating the so-called “lost decade” which, in fact and except for few exceptions, has not yet been overcome. Several main issues are emphasized. On the one hand, the incidence of the first crisis was substantially more serious than the second. On the other, the external circumstances were more disadvantageous and prolonged due to the repercussion of the crisis on the “central economies” and the incidence of the Second World War. In spite of these circumstances, most of the Latin American countries could initiate their recuperation and maintain their so-called “inward development” up to, approximately, the sixties. In the last part, after analysing different facts which influenced the evolution - mainly, the role played by the central economies in the two recalled crisis -, emphasis is made on the fact that we “live in another Latin America” and that it is necessary, above all, to constitute other socio-political agglomerations inherent to the internal and external realities of present time.

KEYWORDS:
Economic crisis; economic history of Latin America