Abstract

This work, to begin with, draws attention to the clear contrast between the
intensity and evolution of the crisis of the thirties and the one that bursts into the early eighties,
originating the so-called “lost decade” which, in fact and except for few exceptions, has
not yet been overcome. Several main issues are emphasized. On the one hand, the incidence
of the first crisis was substantially more serious than the second. On the other, the external
circumstances were more disadvantageous and prolonged due to the repercussion of the crisis
on the “central economies” and the incidence of the Second World War. In spite of these
circumstances, most of the Latin American countries could initiate their recuperation and
maintain their so-called “inward development” up to, approximately, the sixties. In the last
part, after analysing different facts which influenced the evolution – mainly, the role played
by the central economies in the two recalled crisis –, emphasis is made on the fact that we
“live in another Latin America” and that it is necessary, above all, to constitute other sociopolitical
agglomerations inherent to the internal and external realities of present time.

JEL Classification: E66; N16.