Felipe Antunes de Oliveira
Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
The Political Economy of Permanent Underachievement:
A critique of neoliberalism and neodevelopmentalism in Argentina and Brazil
Summary
In Argentina and Brazil, the future never seems to arrive. Over the last three decades, successive waves of neoliberal and neodevelopmentalist reforms invariably ended in disappointment. The most relevant question defying the contemporary Brazilian and Argentinian political economy literature is why, despite being repeatedly predicted in economic programs and promised in political discourses, catch-up development never materialises? Neoliberal and neodevelopmentalist authors offer apparently contradictory answers to that question. For the former, economic underachievement is a result of insufficient or ill-conceived pro-market reforms. For the latter, it is a consequence of the lack of state-led national development projects. In this thesis, I challenge both mainstream narratives. I claim that the roots of Brazilian and Argentinian permanent underachievement are intrinsically related to the fragilities of neoliberal and neodevelopmentalist development strategies, which result in inherently inconsistent policies. Although representing themselves as complete opposites, both sides actually share two problematic premises: a narrow view of development, understood as capitalist catch-up, and a simplified opposition between state and market. My critique starts from a radical reappraisal of the very concept of development, informed by Leon Trotsky’sidea of uneven and combined development and its contemporary interpretations. Defining development as the dynamic outcome of the interplay between class disputes and international pressures and opportunities, I argue that the shortcomings of the neoliberal and neodevelopmentalist reforms were determined by the specific responses given by dominant class alliances in the face of successive international crises. The argument is advanced through four in-depth case studies of the state reforms carried out in Brazil and Argentina since the 1990s, with particular attention to macroeconomic and foreign policies. By breaking the oligopoly of narratives about Brazilian and Argentinian development shared by neoliberals and neodevelopmentalists, I aim to contribute to the rise of alternative strategies of development from below.
Keywords: Neoliberalism; Neodevelopmentalism; Uneven and combined development; Argentina; Brazil.
A critique of neoliberalism and neodevelopmentalism in Argentina and Brazil.
ChaptersIntroduction – The political economy of permanent underachievement.
Part 1 – Neoliberalism, neodevelopmentalism and beyond
Chapter 1 – Development through the prism of neoliberalism and neodevelopmentalism
Chapter 2 – Uneven and combined development – a radically perspectived concept of development
Part 2 – Neoliberalism and market utopia
Chapter 3 – Neoliberalism in Argentina – the first world is here
Chapter 4 – Neoliberalism in Brazil – ‘A new development project’
Part 3 – Neodevelopmentalism and state utopia
Chapter 5 – Neodevelopmentalism in Brazil – the future that never arrives
Chapter 6 – Neodevelopmentalism in Argentina – from class conciliation to confrontation
Conclusion - Challenging the oligopoly of legitimate development discourses
Acknowledgements...................................................................................................................... iii
Chapters ....................................................................................................................................... iv
Detailed Table of Contents ........................................................................................................... v
List of figures, tables and charts ................................................................................................ viii
List of abbreviations .................................................................................................................. ixx
Introduction – The political economy of permanent underachievement....................................... 2
Part 1 – Neoliberalism, Neodevelopmentalism and Beyond ........................................................ 9 Introduction............................................................................................................................... 9
Chapter 1 – Development through the prism of neoliberalism and neodevelopmentalism .... 12
1.1 – Neoliberalism as a development strategy premised on the market utopia ................. 13
1.1.1 - Neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus.................................................... 16
1.1.2 – Beyond the Washington Consensus, the political economy of the neoliberal development strategy ...................................................................................................... 19
1.1.3 Neoliberalism and Peripheral Realism................................................................... 22
1.2 Neodevelopmentalism as a development strategy premised on the state utopia........... 24
1.2.1 Reformist dependency theory and the forgotten origins of neodevelopmentalism 28
1.2.2 Contemporary expressions of neodevelopmentalism and the ‘Ten Theses’. ......... 32
1.2.3 The geopolitics of neodevelopmentalism............................................................... 37
1.3 – Swallow this bitter medicine: Neoliberalism, Neodevelopmentalism and the disease metaphor ............................................................................................................................. 40
Chapter 2 – Uneven and combined development – a radically perspectived concept of development............................................................................................................................ 44
2.1 – Why development? .................................................................................................... 47
2.2 From Marx to Trotsky – The missing concept of development in historical materialism ............................................................................................................................................ 49
2.3 Contemporary U&CD and its critiques......................................................................... 57
2.4 The political economy of uneven and combined development..................................... 63
Conclusion to Part 1 – Beyond Neoliberalism and Neodevelopmentalism ............................ 70
Chapter 3 – Neoliberalism in Argentina – the first world is here ........................................... 76
3.1 From ‘Salariazo’ to ‘catch-up’ development – the promises of Neoliberalism in Argentina............................................................................................................................. 79
3.2 ‘The Economy of the Garden of Eden’ – and how to pay for it.................................... 82
3.3 – The foreign policy of Carnal Relations...................................................................... 91
3.4 Uneven and combined development in Argentina – or what happens when the whip ofexternal necessity lashes the economy of the ‘garden of Eden’? ........................................ 96
Chapter 4 – Neoliberalism in Brazil – ‘A new development project’................................... 112
4.1 From market fundamentalism to reformism and back: the promises of neoliberalism in Brazil................................................................................................................................. 116
4.2 Brazilian neoliberalism in action: monetary reforms and privatisation ...................... 123
4.3 ‘Autonomy by participation’ and the resynchronisation of foreign policy with the neoliberal development strategy ....................................................................................... 134
4.4 Neoliberalism and uneven and combined development in Brazil............................... 139 Conclusion to Part 2 – Crisis and class struggle ................................................................... 157
Part 3 – Neodevelopmentalism and state utopia ....................................................................... 160 Introduction........................................................................................................................... 160
Chapter 5 – Neodevelopmentalism in Brazil – the future that never arrives. ....................... 163
5.1 Change and social development – the promises of neodevelopmentalism in Brazil .. 166
5.2. – From neoliberal orthodoxy to the ‘new economic matrix’ and back – the three phases of the neodevelopmentalist cycle from a macroeconomic perspective............................. 175
5.3 - Brazil in the age of giants – neodevelopmentalist geopolitics and the national interest .......................................................................................................................................... 191
5.4 Beyond the crises of neodevelopmentalism – uneven and combined development ... 196
Chapter 6 – Neodevelopmentalism in Argentina: from class conciliation to confrontation . 204
6.1 From unity to overcome the crisis to the ‘won decade’ – Neodevelopmentalist political discourse in Argentina ...................................................................................................... 206
6.2 The political economy of confrontation – testing the limits of neodevelopmentalism 217
6.3 Damage control and international space for development - Neodevelopmentalist foreign policy in Argentina. .............................................................................................. 236
6.4 Who exactly won in the ‘Won Decade’? Uneven and combined development in neodevelopmentalist Argentina......................................................................................... 242
Conclusion – Challenging the oligopoly of legitimate development discourses ...................... 252 References................................................................................................................................. 254
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