Cultura do privilégio: entrave para o desenvolvimento econômico na América Latina[Culture of privilege: An obstacle for economic development in Latin America]

This article aims to contribute to the understanding of the obstacles to an economic development project in contemporary Latin America. The premise raised by the research is that the developmental projects and strategies carried out by vanguard governments in Latin American countries suffer from obstacles and become truncated due to the culture of privilege present in Latin American society. The articlechose to conduct a bibliographical study based on the syntopical reading. The results obtained are that in Latin America a large part of the dominant elite carries introjected contempt for its own people –seen as “subhumans”– and a fascination and subordination towards the colonizer –central economies– seen as models of humans and civilization. This means that there is a culture of privilege responsible for a social horror and a relevant factor for the hindrance to economic development in the region.