512591

arch-article2013

CNC38110.1177/0309816813512591EbenauEbenau

Article

Comparative capitalisms
and Latin American
neodevelopmentalism:
A critical political
economy view

Capital & Class

2014, Vol. 38(1) 102114
The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/0309816813512591
c&c.sagepub.com

Matthias Ebenau

Queen Mary, University of London, UK

Universidad Catlica de Crdoba, Argentina

Abstract
This article engages critically with an emerging Brazilian research programme,
varieties of capitalism and development in Latin America, a perspective which
seeks to ascertain the institutional chances of, and limits to, the implementation of
state-led national development strategies. Adopting a critical political economy
viewpoint, the text discusses the deficiencies inherent in this perspective and its
neoinstitutionalist and neodevelopmentalist fundamentals. In particular, it questions
the vision of the world economy as an arena of free competition and that of the
nation-state as a collective actor, both of which are politically and analytically
problematic. These criticisms are substantiated through evidence drawn from
a case analysis of the recent trajectory of the Argentinian neodevelopmentalist
project.
Keywords
Comparative capitalisms, development, neodevelopmentalism, varieties of
capitalism, Argentina

Introduction
This article seeks to contribute critically to the globalisation of comparative capitalisms
(CC) research by engaging with an emerging (predominantly) Brazilian research programme which seeks to put this fields insights and methodological tools to use for
Corresponding author:
Matthias Ebenau, Queen Mary, University of London, UK.
Email: m.ebenau@qmul.ac.uk

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understanding contemporary economic trajectories in Latin America. For want of a better name, I will refer to this programme as varieties of capitalism and development in
Latin America (VoCD-LA), after one of its key publications (Boschi 2011). In this
introduction, I provide a brief contextualisation of the topic before sketching out the
central argument and structure of the article.
CC research has long had its centre of gravity in the so-called advanced capitalist
world regions. Only over the past few years, CC scholars attention has increasingly
turned to the specific forms capitalism would take outside the traditional centres. From
the late 1990s onwards, a significant body of literature emerged which sought to provide
systematic comparative analyses of post-socialist capitalism in Central and Eastern
Europe (CEE). This was followed by a series of studies focusing on the so-called developing and emerging economies of the Latin American subcontinent (for an overview,
see Ebenau 2013). However, due to the particularities in the forms the capitalist mode of
production assumes in the region and its modes of insertion into the global economy,
approaches that were built on a mere broadening of conventional CC perspectives, such
as VoCs hierarchical market economy (HME) extension, were often found wanting by
critics (see e.g. Ebenau 2012; Fernndez & Alfaro 2011; Schrank 2009; Sheahan 2002;
see also Fishwick in this special issue).
Against this background, the recent emergence of the more home-grown VoCD-LA
programme constitutes an innovative and politically relevant contribution to the ongoing globalisation of CC scholarship, and in particular its expansion to Latin America and
its adoption by researchers based in the region. Taking a critical political economy viewpoint, this article presents an engagement with the research programme itself and its
theoretical and intellectual foundations. Briefly put, its main argument is that VoCD-LA,
while representing a considerable advance over previous attempts to extend CC scholarship to Latin America, still suffers from a number of significant analytical and political
fallacies, rooted in its neoinstitutionalist and neodevelopmentalist fundamentals. These
are related principally to problematic visions of the global economy and the capitalist
nation-state, which will be discussed below.
In the following section, I give an overview of the central tenets of VoCD-LA, followed by a critical, historically grounded analysis of its theoretical suppositions and
political implications. Subsequently, I substantiate the latter by means of a more specific
case study of the recent Argentinian economic trajectory. The conclusion relates this
analysis to the wider argument, and presents elements of an alternative political and
research agenda.

Varieties of capitalism and development in Latin

America
The core of the VoCD-LA research programme consists of a group of scholars around
Renato R. Boschi, most of them Brazilian and working at or in association with the
Ncleo de Estudos de Empresariado, Instituies e Capitalismo at Rio de Janeiro State
University. Politically, VoCD-LA is closely related to neodevelopmentalist thought,
which is being developed by scholars such as Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira. In theoretical

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terms, like most CC scholarship the research programme is rooted in variants of the
neoinstitutionalist paradigm. In order to provide a grounded understanding of
VoCD-LA, I will outline its specific research agenda and policy recommendations in
conjunction with a discussion of these fundamentals.
Neodevelopmentalism is a body of political thought that has developed over the last
ten or so years, particularly in Latin America. Drawing its inspiration principally from the
experiences of the East Asian developmental states, nowadays it is one of the key influences on the more moderate centre-left governments of the region, in countries such as
Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Peru. Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira, a former Brazilian minister and leading thinker on neodevelopmentalism, presents it as a third way between the
discredited neoliberal Washington Consensus and the older, inward-looking developmentalism that had underpinned attempts at import-substitution industrialisation up to the
1970s. Bresser-Pereira and other proponents envisage neodevelopmentalism as the basis
for national development strategies which, in principle, could be universalised to middleincome countries throughout the region and beyond (Bresser-Pereira 2007, 2010;
OConnor 2010; Sics et al. 2007).
Neodevelopmentalism perceives todays global economy as an arena of competition,
not only between capitalist enterprises but also between nation-states, whose representatives seek to support their firms in order to derive maximum benefits for national
development. Globalisation, Bresser-Pereira (2010: 34-44) argues, did not reduce the
importance of states and their governments, but gave them even more strategic significance. The best way to reach the desired national development in the present context is
to pursue an export-oriented approach, while maintaining control over the central macroeconomic variables, especially foreign exchange and interest rates. Key to this programme is the implementation of a national development strategy, defined as concerted
economic action oriented toward economic growth that has the nation as its collective
actor and the state as its basic instrument of collective action (Bresser-Pereira 2010: 59).
Such a national development strategy or project, characterised by an orientation
towards achieving growth and international competitiveness, a form of normative
nationalism, an emphasis on class conciliation, and crucial importance attributed to the
role of government, also constitutes a central theme throughout the writings of scholars
associated with VoCD-LA (e.g. Boschi & Gaitn 2009; Diniz 2011; Gaitn 2011). It can
thus be considered the hinge that connects neodevelopmentalism as a political agenda to
VoCD-LA as a policy-oriented research programme. In this vein, the fundamental intellectual challenge the scholars around Boschi pose themselves could be described as that
of ascertaining the institutional possibilities for governments to articulate and implement the national development strategies to which neodevelopmentalism aspires (e.g.
Boschi & Gaitn 2008: 5; Diniz 2011: 37-9). The neoinstitutionalist CC literature, in
turn, with its focus on political and economic possibilities resulting from the specific
historical trajectories of distinct economies, constitutes an obvious point of theoretical
reference for this purpose. From within the broad neoinstitutionalist paradigm, scholars
associated with VoCD-LA draw on a range of perspectives, including the rational choiceinspired VoC approach as well as historical and sociological variants (e.g. the various
contributions in Boschi 2011).

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Within this broad panorama, arguably the defining trait of VoCD-LA is the emphasis
it places on the role of the state and government. More specifically, the state-centred
(proto-) institutionalism that mainly emerged from debates on the rise of the East Asian
tigers from the 1960s onwards (see particularly Evans 1995; Weiss 1998) constitutes an
important point of orientation for the Brazilian research programme (see e.g. Cond &
Delgado 2009; Diniz 2011). The contributing scholars share its perspective regarding the
central function of state institutions under the aegis of (neo-)developmentalism: to guarantee effective coordination between the public and the private with the aim of augmenting
competitiveness and growth, national rent and, consequently, social welfare (Diniz 2011;
see also Boschi & Gaitn 2008; Gaitn 2011). Through reference to the theoretical-conceptual framework associated with the various forms of neoinstitutionalism, the VoCD-LA
research programme complements and refines the neodevelopmentalist agenda proposed
by Bresser-Pereira and others. In the view of the contributing scholars, government is
responsible, among other things, for directing investment flows, incentivising key sectors,
stimulating competitiveness by exposing enterprises to international competition and, generally, directing the economic behaviour of private actors without depriving them of their
independence. To this end, it is seen to require regulatory and bureaucratic capacity, autonomy vis--vis the private sector, and the ability to effectively implement its decisions.
For all this, it is argued, the political system acquires central significance, especially
with regard to its capacity to process and regulate conflicts between social actors. If this
capacity is high, the strategic elites may be able to constitute a social support coalition,
which can in turn sustain successful collective action in the pursuit of the predetermined
socio-economic goals. Simultaneously, strong private interest associations are needed, in
particular on the business side, to represent capable interlocutors for the state. In this
sense, by forging a public-private synergy, the government and associated state institutions can ultimately make up for the failures of purely market-based coordination and,
conversely, drive forward the formation of durable competitive advantages (Boschi &
Gaitn 2008; 2009; Diniz 2011; Gaitn 2011). Empirically, VoCD-LAs research agenda
is concretised through a series of studies that focus on the institutional foundations and
the comparative performance of the various neodevelopmentalist projects in Latin
America. Many analyses are concerned with specific aspects of the recent Brazilian and
Argentinian experiences, whereby Brazils development bank BNDES is often regarded
as the neodevelopmentalist institution par excellence (see particularly the contributions
in Boschi 2011; Boschi & Santana 2012).
On the basis of this sketch of the outlines of VoCD-LA and its neodevelopmentalist
and neoinstitutionalist fundamentals, in the following section I now present a critical,
historically grounded, theoretical-conceptual engagement with the research programme.

A critical political economy perspective

on VoCD-LA
The VoCD-LA research programme represents an innovative way of applying the insights
and tools developed in CC scholarship to better understand contemporary Latin
American trajectories and the possibilities of realising strategies capable of bringing

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about the economic and social improvements conventionally associated with the term
development. Its merits lie particularly in its critique of the failed neoliberal model of
dependent development and its reappraisal of the potential role of state action in setting
the course for more desirable trajectories. These strengths mean that VoCD-LA is more
successful at grasping the specificities of capitalism in Latin America, including its problems and possible ways of overcoming them, than previous attempts at extending CC
frameworks. Nevertheless, the research programme continues to suffer from significant
shortcomings which are deeply ingrained in neodevelopmentalism and neoinstitutionalist CC. The following discussion is structured around their two main common denominators, namely VoCD-LAs problematic conceptualisations of the global economy and of
the capitalist nation-state.
In conceptual terms, neodevelopmentalism, and along with it the VoCD-LA researchers, conceive of the world economy as an ensemble of national economies which compete with each other through their respective national companies. Politically, they
recommend that governments and firms from middle-income countries such as Brazil or
Argentina embrace global economic competition as a means of achieving their national
development aims. An important problem here is the envisioning of transnational economic competition as a positive-sum game which promises gains for all sorts of firms and
countries, whatever their initial position, if only they tackle the task of competitive insertion in the right way. This masks the fact that the undirected struggle for global market
shares has produced structural unemployment and excess capacities in a great many productive sectors, which is related to the general tendency towards over-accumulation on a
world scale. This tendency is highlighted by critical political economy scholarship rooted
in the Marxian tradition (cf. Kaplinsky 2005; see also Clarke 2001). In such a situation,
the success of some producers will necessarily come at the cost of others, be they already
established or aspiring competitors (Kaplinsky 2005: 229-31). In other words, the optimism of VoCD-LA proponents regarding the chances held by global competitive insertion is questionable due to an important fallacy of composition in the underlying
argument.
Moreover, despite neodevelopmentalists insistence on the continued importance of
government action for seizing the potential benefits of global competition, the fact
remains that governments strategic capacities are extremely unevenly distributed. Of
course, the quality of institutions and economic policies, factors that are emphasised by
proponents of VoCD-LA, is important. But there are also structural issues, such as capital and resource endowments, the predominant insertion of local producers into global
networks, etc., which individual governments would find very difficult and often
impossible to change. In this regard, the insistence on policy and institutional quality
in VoCD-LA is excessively monothematic and thus underpinned by unproblematised
West-centric assumptions about capitalist modernity (Hauck et al. 2013). Crucially,
scant attention is paid to how the paradigmatic East Asian tiger economies rise was
made possible not only by the strength of their state apparatuses, but also by specific
historical and exceptionally favourable economic and geopolitical conditions (see e.g.
Chibber 1999). Such conditions cannot simply be assumed to hold in the same way for
present-day Latin America, especially given the general durability of the structural posi-

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tioning of given territories in the world economy, as highlighted by world systems theorists, among others (cf. Babones 2012).
In sum, the fact that global competition presently produces far more losers than winners is a result of the general tendency towards overaccumulation and the highly unequal
and durable structures that frame it. In consequence, while the governments of some
countries may be successful at fostering an improvement in the positioning of local firms
in global competition, this is not an economic strategy that is likely to bring about the
desired results throughout poorer world regions. Neodevelopmentalism as a mere competition strategy may help to elevate the position of some middle-income countries, but
will, in turn, cement the peripheral status of a great many other economies (see also
Hardy in this special issue).
A second area in which a critical political economy perspective calls into question the
VoCD-LA research programme is its conceptualisation of the capitalist nation-state (see
also Gallas in this special issue). As sketched out above, the state, represented principally
by government, is seen as capable of constituting and leading the nation as a collective
actor, and consequently guiding it onto a virtuous economic path. Thus, both conceptually and politically, government appears as the central actor of the political economy. A
state-business alliance, in turn, is regarded as fundamental for the pursuit of competitiveness and growth. For its part, labour is only considered insofar as an adequate distribution
of rents is assumed to be necessary to secure sufficient internal demand and the stability
of the neodevelopmentalist social support coalition. Thus, while VoCD-LA only occasionally exhibits the authoritarian undertones of many of the neo-Listian perspectives on
the East Asian developmental states (cf. Selwyn 2009: 162-7), the absence of social and
labour conflict is still seen as a hallmark of success of neodevelopmentalist projects.
Nevertheless, historical evidence on the great social conquests under capitalism, such as
the creation of the more effective welfare states in the 20th century, calls such a view into
question, since it shows that they were achieved precisely through organised labour militancy and class politics (see e.g. Esping-Andersen 1990; see also Bailey & Shibata in this
special issue on contestation). Conversely, their weakness and/or suppression in the case
of earlier developmentalist projects has limited their beneficial social effects, not least in
the case of Brazil itself (cf. Chibber 2005; on Brazil, see Ebenau & Liberatore 2013).
A related shortcoming of the VoCD-LA research programme is the unproblematic
assumption of the national orientation of capitals that are chiefly anchored in a given
country. Without doubt, physical space and cultural place continue to constitute relevant factors in shaping business strategies. But this does not mean that there is a straightforward association of interests between a nationally defined society and firms that
operate under its name. Rather, firms home societies, not unlike other local contexts,
are sites of a permanent tug of war between capitals, state actors and labour regarding the
appropriation of socially produced wealth, whose outcomes depend on the relative power
positions of these different players (Dicken 2011: 221-38). It follows that the statebusiness coalitions, which are seen in VoCD-LA as the basic units of neodevelopmentalist political projects, will have to involve a much higher degree of disciplining and
coercion if they are to bring about positive results for the majority of the populations in
question. The above-cited historical evidence supports such an argument.

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In sum, the rather nave conceptualisation of the national state inherent in neodevelopmentalism and VoCD-LA fails to adequately capture the connection between the conflictual relations among social classes and state institutions, concrete government policies,
and so on. From a critical political economy perspective, there is no such thing as a genuine national interest, but rather a conflictual relationship between classes, to which the
state apparatuses are constitutively connected. Neodevelopmentalist rhetoric regarding
national projects, if successful, will in fact cover up the class character of the respective
political strategies which privilege an alliance with business over a proactive role for
labour in pushing for increased social protection, a more equal distribution of the fruits
of production, and eventually a democratisation of the economy (cf. Babacan & Gehring
2013, on Turkey).
The purpose of the next section is to provide more detailed empirical evidence supporting the general critical considerations regarding the VoCD-LA research programme
and its neodevelopmentalist and neoinstitutionalist fundamentals. This will be drawn
from an analysis of some aspects of the recent trajectory of the Argentinian economy (see
also Fishwick in this special issue for said trajectorys historical basis).

The Argentinian miracle revisited

In 2003, following a socially devastating crisis of the previous neoliberal model,
Argentinians elected a centre-left government. It was based on a labour and social movement platform, and of a clear neodevelopmentalist orientation. The evolution of the
Argentinian economy under the presidency of Nstor Kirchner (2003-7) and later that
of his wife and successor Cristina Fernndez de Kirchner (since 2007) presents us with
an interesting case for the discussion at hand. Not only does it figure extensively in the
empirical studies conducted by researchers associated with VoCD-LA, but some analysts
even consider it a particularly successful instance of neodevelopmentalism, especially
during the earlier years of this political project (see e.g. Batista Jr. 2005; Bresser-Pereira
2010: 47f, 119). I will first provide a short general sketch of the recent trajectory, before
turning to a critical evaluation, focusing as an example on the problems that beset a more
beneficial competitive insertion of Argentinian producers into the global economy.
Arguably the single most important policy change following the crisis of 2001-2
was the replacement of currency convertibility with a managed exchange rate regime.
Further significant policy changes in line with the agenda proposed by neodevelopmentalists and the VoCD-LA research programme included the establishment of an
expansive fiscal policy, and a strengthening of social and labour policy. Also, a series
of new programmes to foment firms export competitiveness were created (Ebenau &
Liberatore 2013). Until now, Argentinian neodevelopmentalism has proven a relatively successful policy paradigm. For some years, output and export growth rates
have been very dynamic, and considerable social progress has been made, leading to
a recuperation and partial improvement on the pre-crisis levels of relevant economic
and social indicators. Especially on the social side, the performance of indicators such
as disposable incomes and economic (in-)equality has far surpassed that of neighbouring Brazil. An important component of these developments was a strong industrial recovery and expansion. Still, significant old contradictions remain, and new

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ones have emerged. These contradictions are growing, thus calling into question the
continued adequacy of the neodevelopmentalist strategy and associated research
efforts (for synthetic critical evaluations, see e.g. Ebenau & Liberatore 2013; Fliz
2012; Varesi 2010).
Despite a pronounced increase in exports, the quality of the international insertion of
Argentinian producers has remained almost unchanged. From 2000 to 2011, the value
of total exports has climbed from US$26.3 to US$84 billion, while the value of imports
rose from US$25.2 to US$73.9 billion. However, the greatest increase originated from
agricultural products and lightly processed commodities such as crude vegetable oils, soy
pellets, etc. Taken together, these continue to account for about 64 per cent of export
values and a full 91 per cent of volumes. These activities correspond to the traditional
profile of Argentinian exports and are largely based on static comparative advantages.
Due to their low ratios of in situ value added and technology intensity, their positive
effects for the productive development, employment generation, etc. to which neodevelopmentalism aspires are scarce (Bisang et al. 2009; Lpez & Ramos 2009). At the same
time, the manufacturing sector has returned to producing large trade deficits, reaching
US$30 billion in 2011. These document the very weak interlinking of exporters with the
local productive structure.
In sum, despite the generalised expansion in world trade and other favourable macro
conditions, Argentinian producers possibilities for a more beneficial global insertion in
high technology and high value-added activities themselves are quite limited. This is
not only due to their incapacity to take advantage of existing opportunities, but also to
the structurally problematic competitive position of Argentinian firms, shared by those
of many other countries with similar wage/productivity relations (Kaplinsky 2005).
The latter are caught in the middle between their counterparts from localities with low
wage costs such as China and also Brazil, that outcompete them on the low road of
mature, more standardised manufacturing segments, and those from high-wage, highproductivity zones such as Western Germany, which dominate in the so-called high
road activities at the cutting edge of technological development (Fliz & Lpez 2012:
1026). Generally speaking, an industrial policy strategy can be very valuable when it
comes to exploiting existing opportunities; but unless it effectively puts Argentinian
producers into a position in which they can compete successfully in either strategic segment, its reach will remain limited. These options render more visible the class character of the choice of economic strategies, given that each will play more or less to the
interests of specific socio-economic groups.
The policy of maintaining low labour costs in dollar terms has in recent years been
complemented by the governments permissive stance regarding price-driven inflation,
adopted as a response to firms complaints about shrinking international competitiveness
and profit margins. Taken together, these factors point towards a low road direction. In
their wake, the positive developments of real wages and other social indicators, which
had characterised the first years of the neodevelopmentalist project, have slowed down
considerably or even come to a halt in some cases (CIFRA-CTA 2012). This, in turn, has
exacerbated the faltering of industrial expansion, given that this was based principally on
the recuperation of domestic markets, transmitted for instance through the demand for
construction.

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On the other hand, assuming that Argentinian firms could eventually outcompete
already established producers in high road activities, successfully taking this path
requires, as exponents of the VoCD-LA research programme remark, competent and
sympathetic interlocutors on the business side. However, a closer analysis of the current
Argentinian scenario supports the doubts raised regarding the mere assumption of this
willingness in the context of a national development strategy. While the neodevelopmentalist governments appealed from their beginnings to the need to (re-)build a
national bourgeoisie as part of a broader national project (cf. Chibber 2005: 2268),
and have led several initiatives to form sectorial compacts in both the agrarian and the
manufacturing sectors, these have met with lukewarm responses from business. Especially
the agrarian bourgeoisie, which controls the traditional powerhouse of the Argentinian
economy, continues to show all characteristics of a dependent capitalist fraction (cf.
Marini 1981: 4955), accommodating itself to the position of peripheral economic
insertion while taking no special interest in productive upgrading or the expansion of the
domestic market. More specifically, over recent years this segment of the bourgeoisie has
benefited from elevated commodity rents while upholding an intense struggle with the
government over the share appropriated by the latter in order to finance social policy and
initiatives geared towards fostering higher value-added production and exports (Ebenau
& Suau Arinci 2012).
Thus, the neodevelopmentalist project that emerged from the crisis of Argentinian
neoliberalism is, on the one hand, exposed to permanent contestation from important
fractions of the business elites. On the other hand, the project seems to be gradually losing the support from organised labour and popular movements that it originally enjoyed,
due to its apparent inability to sustain the social improvements of the earlier years in the
face of this contestation and the structural limits imposed by the global economic context. This loss of support becomes evident, for instance, in declining approval rates for
the Fernndez government and the fracturing of its union support bloc (Ebenau &
Liberatore 2013).
In sum, the neodevelopmentalist project in Argentina presently seems to be caught
between a rock and a hard place. In the final section, I will relate the findings of this
analysis of the structural limits and contradictions that beset the Argentinian miracle to
the critique of the VoCD-LA research programme, and draw conclusions for an alternative policy and research agenda.

Conclusions
Scholars associated with the VoCD-LA research programme have rightly pointed out the
role played by institutional and policy weaknesses, in particular the lack of a viable longterm industrial strategy, in maintaining and aggravating the situation just described.
They have also argued that Argentina fares worse in institutional terms when compared
to Brazil (see e.g. Balestro 2012; Gaitn 2012). Such or similar diagnoses are widely
shared by students of the contemporary Argentinian economy, whatever their position
regarding the desired approach for overcoming its problems (e.g. Azpiazu & Schorr
2010: 22788; Baruj et al. 2009: 11923).

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Still, our analysis of Argentinian neodevelopmentalism after 2003 has also documented a number of noteworthy aspects with regards to the lacunae and contradictions
of this rather restricted perspective. First, the possibilities for Argentinian producers to
achieve a more beneficial insertion into the global economy have remained limited,
despite favourable macro-conditions, due to fierce competition from both high road
and low road locations. Government initiatives to help set producers onto a high road
path have often met with indifference and sometimes outright hostility by influential
business fractions. Attempts at appeasing business, in turn, are leading to an increasing
alienation of labour and social movements. Still, these problems did not prevent the
Argentinian neodevelopmentalist project from achieving partially impressive social
improvements.
Taken together, these results lend support to the political economy critique of
VoCD-LA set out in this article, in particular its insistence on a more realistic conceptualisation of the potential benefits to be derived from global competition for the populations of countries such as Brazil and Argentina; on paying greater attention to the limits
of the strategic capacities of such countries governments; on being aware of the productive role of class politics and labour militancy; and on the importance of societys disciplinary capacities vis--vis capitalist enterprises if business success is to be converted into
social progress.
So what are the implications for future research on capitalist variegation and possible future trajectories in Latin America, and in territories outside the world economys traditional centres more generally? As should have become clear throughout this
text, many problems raised by VoCD-LA, such as the necessity of studying the institutional conditions for implementing efficient industrial policy strategies, are and remain
highly relevant. At the same time, however, these need to be complemented by critical
analyses of the positioning of the specific forms of capitalism in the global economy,
and the consequences for the chances and limits of local policy formulation (cf. May
2013). Finally, we need to study more extensively, and without the problem-solving
bias inherent in VoCD-LA, issues related to class agency and the necessary disciplining
of capital. For all this, the globalisation of CC research must be further enriched with
an appraisal of theories and concepts from the critical political economy family, such
as dependency perspectives (Ebenau 2012; see also Weiss in this special issue).
Politically, these arguments obviously tie in with demands for a more egalitarian and
democratic global economic order, and for a democratisation and socialisation of
production.
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to Moiss Balestro, Ian Bruff, Christian May, Andreas Nlke, Facundo Pars and
Ben Selwyn for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

Notes
1. Apart from the cited secondary sources, this analysis is also based on approximately forty indepth qualitative interviews which I, alongside Victoria Liberatore, Facundo Pars and Luca
Suau Arinci, have conducted with entrepreneurs from both the agrarian and the automobile

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2.

Capital & Class 38(1)

sectors, authorities of sectoral business associations, trade union officials and relevant government officials, as part of the project Condiciones institucionales y relacionales de la competititivdad empresarial y su relacin con un buen desempeo socio-econmico, which is based at the
Catholic University of Crdoba, Argentina.
My calculations, based on data retrieved from CEPALs BADECEL database, at <http://websie.eclac.cl/badecel/basededatos.asp>, last accessed 7 March 2013.

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Author biography
Matthias Ebenau is a lecturer in business and political economy at the trade union IG Metalls
education centre in Beverungen, Germany. He is currently concluding his doctoral studies at
Queen Mary, University of London; moreover, he is an adjunct researcher at Catholic University
of Crdoba, Argentina. He takes a special interest in global socioeconomic inequalities and NorthSouth relations, and has published on these subjects in English, German and Spanish.

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Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without
permission.