All of these leaders were fighting the oligarchies while creating coalitions that produced new oligarchies and not more homogeneous and egalitarian societies. Latin America remains still marked by structural heterogeneity, both productive and notably social. Despite their very real differences, these populist platforms pursued in the various Latin American countries were marked by a dynamic of popular inclusion while benefitting from massive popular support which was engendered by a new urban industrial working class and which in turn was swiftly and steadily coopted by the political leaders –all of which was accompanied by the rise of new elites. [...]
But we have been through a third wave of populism. This came in the wake of the Pink Tide and was marked by a political shift in the populist tradition through the rise of a radical populism committed to refounding the “nation and reinventing twenty-first century socialism. Chaves, Morales and Correa were swept to power by the excluded masses – namely the urban poor and lower classes, destitute peasants as well as the impoverished and repressed Indigenous communities, those who continued to be the genuine outsiders in our societies, though now integrated into market relations. The “true people” were once more mobilized against the elites and oligarchies. [...]
The most immediate consequence was that natural resources, such a precious and outstanding differential, have been commodified in a disgraceful and irresponsible fashion. In agriculture as well as in large-scale mining projects, extractivism has stolen the scene and made the development model a corollary of violence, blood, and the denial of the most fundamental rights of those populations traditionally marginalized by growth. Extractivism went a step beyond, dominating the agricultural and animal husbandry sector. The spread of genetically modified organisms in Argentina and Brazil helped to wipe out native species. The environmental costs are extraordinarily high, and may not be reversible. Indigenous and peasant resistance to extractivism, meanwhile, has resulted in violent criminalization and numerous deaths. The death toll of environmental activists and nature defenders has never been so high in Latin America. We are back to colonial times, marked by violence, incarceration and expropriation.
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