Beyond Development: Alternative Visions from Latin America

to read the 198-page "Beyond Development: Alternatives from Latin America" from the Rosa Luxemburg foundation, click on

http://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/sonst_publikationen/BeyondDevelopment.pdf

Ulrich Brand is a professor of International Relations at the University of Vienna. His article "The Role of the State and of Public Processes in Transformation Processes" can be downloaded at pp.106-115.

The multi-faceted crisis sweeping the world has worsened in the last few years. Financial markets have managed to weaken even the strongest economies in the industrialised countries. !e grabbing of agricultural land for financial speculation or agrofuel production is aggravating the rise in food prices and leading us into a food crisis. Thee technologies used to extract oil, gas and minerals from the most remote corners of the planet are becoming more and more expensive, risky and environmentally destructive: the sea bed is being drilled at a depth of several kilometres, sands are being stripped of their small percentage of tar to produce oil, chemicals are being pumped into rocks to release natural gas, gigantic craters are being dug to extract the mere 0.1% of copper that the soil contains. These practices are essential to maintain a specific way of life – the idea of success and happiness proposed by the global North for the whole of humanity, whose hegemony is currently unquestionable.