Wishful Thinking as an Obstacle to Development in Latin America: A Critique of Street's Internal Frontier

Extract

My task in critiquing James Street's recent article, “The Internal Frontier and Technological Progress in Latin America (LARR 12 no. 3, [1977]), is made doubly difficult because I am in agreement with so much of what he has to say and because he has qualified and strengthened his argument by incorporating in the final version of the essay most of the criticisms I offered on an earlier draft. Our already similar views were brought more into alignment, for instance, by the addition of such statements as the following: ”There is thus an enormous field developing for systematic research in what have been called ‘appropriate’ or ‘intermediate’ technologies“ (p. 50); ”In view of the gravity of the short-term crisis and the distorting pressures of long-term forces that have been described, it is entirely possible, if not probable, that no global strategy will emerge that will alleviate these trends“ (p. 50); ”By its nature an educational process takes time, and the trends described earlier may be moving with such speed that the development problems of Latin America will become increasingly intractable“ (p. 53).