Old and New Developmentalism in Latin America: Social Order, Social Policy, and Utopias Fifty Years Later

1960s' and 1970s' Latin American development policies were guided by economic purposes, but there were strong utopias beneath them: a full-employment economy with social protection and accelerated technological progress. An expected trend towards social equality was not uncommon. At the beginning, there was even a belief on a sort of developmentalist spill-over: growth and industrialization would lead to universal well-being. After 30 years of undisputed neoliberalism a new developmentalist era arose. Social protection, economic development, and industrialization returned. But were the utopias the same as before? In this paper we argue that despite economic similarities, social utopias were very different.