“Viral Contagion, Economic Contagion” by Pierre Salama

CLACSO and ALAS, in a joint publishing effort, have released the essay “Viral Contagion, Economic Contagion,” by renowned Latin Americanist Pierre Salama. Latin America is suffering from a trend toward economic stagnation. It is a structural crisis. The pandemic has profoundly exacerbated this crisis and, with it, the already unsustainable inequalities. The future is neither known nor inevitable. Trends are predictable and depend both on uncontrollable exogenous factors and on the evolution of power relations generated by the crisis. It can be argued that, for all countries, the magnitude of the economic crisis favors the development of new forms of state domination. However, if the crisis persists and deepens, with its procession of newly impoverished people joining those already living in poverty, and with the impoverishment of the middle classes, as is likely to occur in Latin America, then the state will appear increasingly incapable of finding solutions to alleviate its social cost.

However, the pandemic can also be an opportunity for profound change and to decide on a set of structural measures that favor both social and environmental aspects, in order to finally take the path of sustainable development.

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