ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to characterize the shared peculiarities of social change, reviews the important differences among Latin American nations and focuses on the class structures and conflicts that have resulted. Latin American urbanization bears little relationship to the pattern of urbanization in the industrial nations, which was closely linked to economic changes. A characteristic feature of Latin America’s delayed development pattern was the inability of the industrial sector to absorb a large share of the urban labor force. The pricing and protective discriminations that supported import-substitution industrialization in Latin America hurt efforts to mediate among different sectors of economic activity, because the interests of the industrial sector required continued discrimination against other sectors of employment. The proportion of families capable of achieving living standards comparable to the middle classes elsewhere is a small and insecure minority of Latin American populations.
