Michael Reid, forgotten continent. The battle for latin America's soul (New Haven and London: Yale University Press; 2007, pp. 384, ISBN 978-0-300-11616-8).

✍ Scribed by Gian Luca Gardini

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 31 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0954-1748
• DOI: 10.1002/jid.1484

✦ Synopsis

The title and subtitle of Michael Reid's new book capture two of the main features of contemporary Latin America: its relative marginality in the global scenario and the topical debate on its present and future after almost two decades of neo-liberalism and democracy. The image of a 'forgotten continent' refers to the fact that the international agenda consistently prioritises other areas of the world: Latin America does not seem to pose grave threats to international peace and security as the Middle East does; it does not prompt significant fears or unstoppable enthusiasm among economists and investors as China does; finally, it does not cause the concern and compassion with which Africa is at times able to mobilise international public opinion. This relative low profile is not necessarily bad because it allows a genuinely local debate about the real essence of the subcontinent.

In this debate, Reid sees a confrontation between two components of Latin American society, both rooted in the regional history and tradition. On the one hand, there is the 'populist and autocratic' element, embodied by president Chavez of Venezuela. On the other hand is the 'democratic and reformist' camp, represented by current leaders and political developments in Brazil, Chile and Mexico. The two sides have not only different readings of current problems and political and economic choices but also of history. The result is a true 'battle for Latin America's soul'. Among the successes of the book are the avoidance of a clear-cut clash between these two positions and a more nuanced, still systematic analysis of the roots, causes and possible consequences of both views.

The central argument is that Latin America is steadily, although not linearly, moving towards liberal and democratic reforms, and that the quality and quantity of the successes outnumber those of the failures. This is a refreshingly optimistic view of the present and future of Latin America. Although the book's contemporary economic and social analysis is arguably more effective than its historical excursus, the latter persuasively makes two crucial points. First, neo-liberalism has to be understood in the framework of a long historical process at the international and most of all at the local level. Second, there are several Latin Americas and as a consequence there have been several variants of neo-liberalism across Latin America. By the same token, today there are different models of reaction to the shortcomings of the neo-liberal reforms.

One of the most ambitious objectives of the book is to purge debate on the neo-liberal era from politically and ideologically biased distortions. Neo-liberalism-Reid argues-has not to be confused with monetarism, and its key principles are principles of sound economic management acknowledged and implemented in all successful and developed liberal democracies. Indeed, Reid remarks, the majority of the Latin American progressive leaders have based their economic policies on these principles and complemented them, and here is the novel approach, with more attention to social issues and effective redistributive policies. Like any other reform, also the liberal ones have produced positive and less desirable results but a competent and informed assessment should at least take into account the point of departure and the magnitude of the problems. Setting results against objectives, as Reid convincingly does in Chapter 6, macroeconomic stabilisation has been pretty successful and economic opening, privatisation and the fight on poverty and inequalities have not been so disastrous as certain ideologically driven academia and practice pretend. Yet the impression is that Reid tends to emphasise macroeconomic data rather than social and human suffering. A fair compromise would be to acknowledge that ultimately economic policy and the evaluation of its success are more political than technical in nature as they imply value-based judgement and thus remain essentially political choices.