The Waters Ahead for Latin America Vivianne CHALLENGES AND Ventura-Dias Klaus OPPORTUNITIES FOR Bodemer SOCIAL ECOLOGICAL Roberto - Kreimerman TRANSFORMATION Álvaro Cálix The Waters Ahead for Latin America SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION LIBRARY 1 The Waters Ahead for Latin America Vivianne Ventura-Dias CHALLENGES AND Klaus OPPORTUNITIES FOR Bodemer Roberto SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL Kreimerman TRANSFORMATION Álvaro Cálix SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION LIBRARY The Waters Ahead for Latin America: Challenges and Opportunities for Social-Ecological Transformation © Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Regional Project on Social-Ecological Transformation Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Representation in Mexico Yautepec 55, Col. Condesa, Del. Cuauhtémoc, P.C. 06140, Mexico City Telephone: +52 (55) 5553 5302 FES Transformación Social-Ecológica @fes_tse Proyecto Regional Transformación Social-Ecológica To request a publication, please contact: [email protected]. Editors Christian Denzin Álvaro Cálix Translator Lindsay Walsh www.transculturalmx.com Proofreading Susie Jackson www.sjlanguageservices.com Design Buró Público www.buropublico.com ISBN: 978-607-8642-12-0 The commercial use of all materials edited and published by Friedrich-Ebert- Stiftung (FES) is prohibited without prior written authorization from FES. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of FES. TABLE OF CONTENTS Prologue —christian denzin 9 Introduction —henry mora 11 CHAPTER 1 The Challenges Presented by Global Capitalism for Social-Ecological Transformation in Latin America —vivianne ventura-dias 19 CHAPTER 2 Beyond Neo-Extractivism: Challenges and Opportunities for Active International Insertion of Latin America —klaus bodemer 97 CHAPTER 3 Economic Context in Latin America: Outlook and Trends for Social-Ecological Transformation —roberto kreimerman 163 CHAPTER 4 Political Change in Latin America: Limits and Opportunities for Social-Ecological Transformation —álvaro cálix 217 Author Biographies 273 PROLOGUE In the face of the multiple development crises at the global level – ex- pressed in the extreme concentration of wealth in the hands of the few, severe environmental crises (e.g. the increase in the average tem- perature of the Earth’s atmosphere and the loss of biodiversity), and the increasing number of social and socio-environmental conflicts – progressive political debates have lacked feasible counterproposals to dominant development paradigms. While the more radical left hasn’t been able to come up with politically viable proposals, progres- sive political actors currently in power have generally been unable to move beyond the traditional paradigms to develop proposals and visions that comprehensively answer pressing social, democratic, and environmental challenges. Despite international agreements signed by the majority of governments around the world, such as the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals, traditional ap- proaches and neoclassical economic policies continue to dominate national policy initiatives. Through recognition of planetary limits and the grave social and environmental consequences of deregulated and exploitative economies, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung seeks to use its Regional Proj- ect on Social-Ecological Transformation to contribute a progressive perspective to the ongoing debate in Latin America regarding the development challenges currently facing the region. Headquartered and coordinated in Mexico, the Transformation Working Group consists of distinguished experts from 14 Latin American countries. 9 PROLOGUE They work together to create materials, analyses, and contributions to strengthen the practical and theoretical debate on how the various socio-environmental crises currently facing Latin America and the world can be overcome through democratic means. We are pleased to publish The Waters Ahead for Latin America: Challenges and Opportunities for Social-Ecological Transfor - mation, the first volume in our new Transformation series. This publication contributes to the ongoing discussion regarding the structural changes that must be prioritized in Latin America if the region is to substantially adjust its current unsustainable development patterns, along with industrialized nations and so many other coun- tries in the Global South. The discussions and conferences hosted by the Working Group have engaged and will continue to engage with the complexity of this debate. We hope that this publication, as well as future contributions from the Regional Project, will help enrich the political and social debate in the region and influence the global con- versation regarding the concepts, challenges, and visions necessary for a just and sustainable future. —christian denzin Director of the Regional Project on Social-Ecological Transformation in Latin America Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung 10 INTRODUCTION This publication contains four incisive and well-supported essays that analyze the various international, economic, and political realities that exist in Latin America today. The analyses contained within these essays have been filtered through the debate and criticism of various workshops hosted by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Regional Project on Social-Ecological Transformation in Latin America over the last two years. In their current versions, each essay collects and captures not only the intellectual processes of their individual authors but also the maturation of the Working Group. The publication opens with an extensive and profound reflection from Vivianne Ventura-Dias on the challenges that global capitalism represents for social-ecological transformation in Latin America. Positioning capitalism within a context of modernity, Ventura-Dias first presents the contradictions inherent in this context, as well as its complex interdependency, introducing the reader to the concept of late modernity and its connection with the society of risk as one of its main characteristics. Ventura-Dias also identifies three additional characteristics of the late modernity in which we live: the accelerated pace of modern life, including both consumption and leisure time; the changes in the relationship between the public and private spheres; and the emergence of citizenship, autonomy, and time for care work. One of the most striking and concerning characteristics of global capitalism is, without a doubt, the concentration of wealth, income, and power that has gone hand-in-hand with the financialization of 11 INTRODUCTION the economy and the no-less-concerning criminality. The latter is no longer a phenomenon external to the economy, but rather a conse- quence of globalization itself. Ventura-Dias sums up this concept as “the crime of globalization and the globalization of crime.” Within the framework of Latin America’s necessary interna- tional cooperation, Ventura-Dias emphasizes the search for common goods governance before these goods disappear. However, this effort and other necessary commitments to human rights must not avoid answering the question “Whose rights?” The conclusion is clear, though: A new regulatory framework for global trade and investment is urgently needed. The essay concludes by establishing certain connections between the global dynamic analyzed within the essay and the concrete ex- pression of this dynamic in Latin America. It presents suggestions for the social-ecological transformation of the region, including a full understanding of the myth of welfare capitalism and its possibilities; a definition of the limits that financial capitalism and neoliberal- ism impose on the transformation of production and consumption structures; the necessary and substantial modification of Latin America’s insertion within global value chains; recognition of the possible impact of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution; and a focus on the current controversy regarding the increasing auto- mation of activities associated with manufacturing and services and its impact on the way we work and the type of society that the citizens of Latin America, and the entire planet, want. In the second essay, “Beyond Neo-Extractivism: Challenges and Opportunities for Active International Insertion of Latin America,” author Klaus Bodemer argues that Latin America should ostensibly improve its insertion into the global economy under the banner of sustainability and within a context of change. Bodemer highlights some of the major ongoing transformations, including the emergence of China; trade mega-agreements; demo- graphic changes and immigration; the exacerbation of the environ- mental crisis, particularly climate change; and the acceleration of the technological revolution. These phenomena all underline the need to advance towards a sustainable and more equitable development model. 12 HENRY MORA In addition to this new world (dis)order, the emergence of multiple power centers without global leadership has led to a clear shift away from a core-periphery order that gave rise to the pri- mary Latin American development theories. This has resulted in a decentralized order with competing versions of capitalism and a two-pronged transformation within trade policy: the weakening of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the supposed guarantor of trade multilateralism, and the emergence of preferential and discriminatory trade mega-agreements, such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Where does Latin America stand in this new political