Progress in Latin America: Farewell to Modernity?

• Published date: 01 January 2022
• Date: 01 January 2022
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211024918
• Author: Sidney Reinaldo da Silva
• Subject Matter: Articles: Reflections on Historical Thought

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X211024918

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 242, Vol. 49 No. 1, January 2022, 123–137

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X211024918

© 2021 Latin American Perspectives

123

Progress in Latin America

Farewell to Modernity?

by

Sidney Reinaldo da Silva

Translated by

Heather Hayes

Progress marks a way of understanding Latin America in terms of what it lacks, what

it should be yearning for and seeking. Historically, the idea of progress served to legitimate

the region’s submission to a world order marked by colonial capitalist and imperialist rule.

Comparison of the modern ideal of progress with developmentalism, particularly as

defined by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, and criticism

of “progress” as legitimation arising out of the intersection of postdevelopmentalist

thought with the ideology of Good Living shows that the idea continues to haunt the post-

colonial pursuit of a free Latin America.

O progresso baliza uma forma de abordagem da América Latina pela falta, pelo o que

ela deve ansiar e buscar. Historicamente, a ideia de progresso passou a legitimar a sub-

missão da região a uma ordem mundial marcada pelo domínio capitalista colonial e impe-

rialista. Frente ao ideário moderno de progresso, as formas tomadas pelo desenvolvimentismo,

marcadamente no âmbito das orientaçãoes da Comissão Econômica para a América Latina

e o Caribe, e as críticas ao progresso como legitimação surgidas no bojo do entrecruza-

mento do pensamento pós-desenvolvimentista com o ideário do Bem Viver mostram que a

ideia de progresso se mantém como um fantasma perante abordagens pós-coloniais das

possibilidades de livre desabrochamento latino-americano.

Keywords: Latin America, Progress, Post/developmentalism, Good Living,

Modernity

Modernity is marked by the belief in the infallibility of market self-regula-

tion and of the state as a guarantor of its operating conditions, the constant

improvement of production techniques, and the autonomy and the flourishing

of the capacities of individuals and peoples as a form of self-preservation. To

modernize means to liberate the abilities and the means of human improve-

ment or prosperity as the basis for personal self-realization. In the context of

modernity, the idea of progress is burdened with normative content—at once

ideological and legitimating.

It is common to come across recommendations, opposition, praise, or con-

demnation of something in the name of a country’s “development.” The idea

Sidney Reinaldo da Silva is a professor in the Graduate Program for Science, Technology, and

Society at the Instituto Federal do Paraná, Paranaguá Campus. Heather Hayes is a translator liv-

ing in Quito, Ecuador.

1024918LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X211024918Latin American PerspectivesSilva / Progress in Latin America

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