ABSTRACT
This chapter examines development strategies pursued at various times in Latin America that have placed the need to tackle inequality through redistribution at the heart of the policy agenda. Severe inequality has long been a characteristic of development in the region, and today Latin American societies remain among the most unequal in the world. Inequality is a problem that politicians ignore at their peril, because it can fuel political unrest and instability and has serious implications for the character – and, indeed, the fate – of democracy (see Chapters 3, 4). Unfair societies are divided societies, and breeding grounds for the intolerance and violence that can work against democratic consolidation. The question of equality has long been at the heart of economic and political debate in Latin America. In the nineteenth century, the ideas held by oligarchs who dominated government were usually dismissive of inequality, regarding it as a natural phenomenon that reflected a social group’s racial or ethnic inheritance (see Chapters 1, 13). Inequality was an inherent characteristic of export-led development prior to ISI, and informed the programmes of anarchist, socialist, communist and nationalist organisations dedicated to radical social change. Structuralists believed autonomous industrial development would inevitably lead to greater prosperity and a fairer distribution of resources, although industrialisation policies exacerbated the differences between social groups. Dependency perspectives advocated egalitarian societies, but were more theoretical than practical, often proposing revolutions that would level the social playing field by abolishing private property completely.
