Beyond Development

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.

Contents

Prologue
Crisis of civilisation and challenges for the left
Miriam Lang

Debates on development and its alternatives in Latin America.
A brief heterodox guide
Eduardo Gudynas

Critiques and alternatives to development:
a feminist perspective
Margarita Aguinaga, Miriam Lang, Dunia Mokrani, Alejandra Santillana

Extractivism and neoextractism:
two sides of the same curse
Alberto Acosta

Heterogeneous societies
Edgardo Lander

The role of the state and public policies in processes of transformation
Ulrich Brand

Resource extractivism and alternatives:
Latin American perspectives on development
Maristella Svampa

Buen Vivir as a model for state and economy
Raúl Prada

Decolonisation and dismantling patriarchy in order to ‘live well’
Elisa Vega

Transitions to post-extractivism:
directions, options, areas of action
Eduardo Gudynas

Glossary

More in the PDF.

First translated edited edition:
Transnational Institute / Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. August 2013

Originally printed in Spanish ‘Mas alla del desarrollo’ by Fundación Rosa Luxemburg/Abya Yala Ediciones in November 2011.