In late June 1965, the Mexican newspaper El Día published an article by sociologist and anthropologist Rodolfo Stavenhagen that would go down in history. Titled Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America, the piece not only clarified the concept of the region’s structural dependency but also warned about the illusory nature of the development ideologies popular at the time. Sixty years later, in the midst of global upheaval, it’s worth asking whether those terms of structural dependency have changed—and if so, what new progressive fantasies might be feeding into them.

Progressivism in the 1960s

When Stavenhagen’s fiery essay was first circulated, regional debates were shaped by two seemingly opposing schools of thought. From the imperial centers, the image of a “decade of development” had taken hold—epitomized by the Alliance for Progress (1961) and supported by theorists like W.W. Rostow, who predicted a prosperous “take-off” for Latin America. On the other side, critical voices sought to dismantle this dominant ideology by emphasizing regional polarization and duality. According to this view, Latin America’s primary resource exploitation was sustained by traditional, quasi-feudal regimes in rural areas, while capitalist practices prevailed in urban centers, giving rise to hopes of progressive development.

A structuralist critique

Stavenhagen rejected the “dual society” hypothesis, arguing that under international pressures, “the progress of modern, urban, industrialized areas of Latin America has come at the expense of backward, archaic, and traditional zones.” In his view, what appeared as duality was actually internal colonialism, a reproduction within peripheral countries of the global economic system. This internal logic undermined certain development assumptions: that middle-class progressives and entrepreneurs would drive national progress; that national identities were built on mestizaje and therefore dismissed Indigenous roots; or that alliances between urban workers and rural peasants could underpin progressive coalitions.

The upheavals of the 21st century: similar, but different

In today’s global economy, capital accumulation and reproduction are still heavily tied to the intensive exploitation of primary resources in the periphery—including Latin America. But there are notable differences compared to the colonial and neocolonial regimes Stavenhagen denounced with such clarity.

The most striking image of 21st-century neocolonialism is that of an inverted mirror. The “progressive” glow no longer radiates from large cities. Quite the opposite: Latin American urban centers are now beset by poverty, insecurity, and drug violence. Meanwhile, the alluring glow of smartphone screens fuels collective alienation and cognitive decline among people navigating everyday life with their devices in hand.

Resurrecting the myth of El Dorado

At the same time, perceptions of backwardness and archaism long associated with rural populations and territories have reversed. Today, the concentration of critical minerals in these very same areas—many devastated by Spanish conquest and colonization—is seen as a new source of prosperity, from the Andes of Peru and Bolivia to regions of Chile and Argentina. How to explain this shift?

A collective dream saturates countless messages, memes, and slogans, broadcast hypnotically through screens and reinforced by so-called “experts.” The wonders attributed to information and communication technologies (ICTs) demand a new kind of thinking that, as Patrick McGee reminds us, was first projected onto Apple’s rebellious founders and then spread to the prophets of the electronic marketplace—Big Tech. These magical powers of transformation are now ascribed to elements extracted from critical minerals said to be revolutionizing life on Earth: from medical devices to energy systems… and also to ever-more-lethal weaponry developed by the defense industry.

Ironically, populations swept up in these futuristic fantasies often ignore the stark contrast between these high-tech applications and the brutal, primitive extraction methods used to obtain the raw materials—methods that have been deployed even in the imperial powers’ own backyards. A recent New York Times article (June 10, China’s Upper Hand: Rare Earth Metals) detailed the environmental degradation caused by the early 1990s exploitation of rare earths in Mountain Pass, California, and later in impoverished regions of central and southern China. Both cases are far removed from the utopian visions fed to the public via glowing screens.

New terms of economic integration with the imperial core: enclaves and supply chains for critical resource extraction

Under Joe Biden’s administration, a new economic integration architecture has been floated to ensure the steady supply of minerals essential to ICTs. The most visible initiative, launched in November 2023, carries the lofty name Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP). But after a brief institutional rollout—and in light of investment proposals from firms across the U.S., China, and Europe—it no longer seems necessary to establish elaborate legal frameworks. The existing tools—public procurement rules in next-generation free trade agreements, investment promotion and protection treaties, and “high-level” bilateral dialogues—are proving sufficient to pressure Latin American governments into signing public-private deals for the location and extraction of their primary resources.

Thus, new enclaves are emerging, managed by transnational corporations whose financial structures are so complex they are nearly impossible to trace in cases of environmental harm. These enclaves become the first link in supply chains that transport raw materials to refining centers in the Global North. Outside these enclaves, territories engaged in other productive activities are pushed to the sidelines, destined for prolonged stagnation. Meanwhile, the enclaves themselves are subject to indefinite lifespans—at least until the next technological disruption renders their current raw materials obsolete.

Could it be that we’re once again witnessing the same fatal cycle of boom and bust that Stavenhagen so lucidly described?

_{*Machine translation proofread by Ricardo Aceves.}