Surplus Production and Unequal Development in Latin America: A Comparative Study With the US From a Political Economy Perspective

This chapter analyzes the process of surplus generation in Latin America based on the Penn World Tables, also with a comparison with the United States. The reference period is 1950–2019, revealing long-run evolution as well as certain differences between a State-driven industrialization strategy, the turn toward neoliberalism beginning in the 1980s, and a neo-developmentalist period in the twenty-first century. The research shows a steep decline in the rate of profit in Latin America until the early 1990s, with stabilization thereafter but without reversal of the downward trend. However, the turning point in terms of capital accumulation, surplus generation, and productivity indicators occurred in the early 1980s. In addition, divergence vis-à-vis the United States has been growing in the capacity to generate surplus, labor productivity, and GDP per capita.