ABSTRACT
This chapter puts in the Latin American context the dynamics of three development-and-resistance cycles that have unfolded across the world since the end of the Second World War. The first cycle relates to the capitalist development process associated with what has been described as the ‘developmental state’ and the forces of resistance generated by this development process – forces that involve a class war and a protracted struggle for land and for improvements in the social condition of the working classes. The second cycle relates to the so-called neoliberal era of capitalist development, which dates to the early 1980s with the installation of a ‘new world order’ designed to liberate the ‘forces of economic freedom’, specifically the flow of capital in the form of foreign direct investments, from the regulatory constraints of the development state. The third development-resistance cycle unfolded in the new millennium with the expansion of ‘resource-seeking’ extractive capital. The chapter analyzes the economic and political dynamics of this development cycle in the Latin American context.
