Wednesday, October 28, 2026
News and Views from the Global South
LATIN AMERICA: Centre-Left Seals Buenos Aires Consensus
Marcela Valente
- The left, en route to a comeback in several countries of Latin America, is preparing an attack on neoliberalism ready for the return to power.
Centre-left politicians and intellectuals from all over Latin America released a draft document of the alternative to neoliberalism at a meeting in Buenos Aires Tuesday, built on the bases of earlier meetings in Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica.
The document, entitled “The Buenos Aires Consensus,” is firmly based on the real world situation of today, avoiding the utopic visions doomed to failure in the past.
The name of the document aims to present it as a counterpart to the Washington Consensus – the title of the neoliberal policies recommended by the multilateral credit entities.
Following 18 months of deliberations “in search of the lost paradigm,” the signatories stated “the fundamentalism of the reigning market, along with the protected and populist developmentalism of not so long ago, are inoperable today,” adding there is a shortfall of an alternative model “democratising” the market economy.
Participants at the two-day meeting included mayor-elect of Mexico City, Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, of the Revolutionary Democratic Party, and leaders of the opposition Alliance in Argentina, like Carlos Alvarez and Graciela Fernandez Meijide, who came to power in the October legislative elections.
Other contributions were received from Facundo Guardado, of El Salvador’s Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, Adriana Prado Castro, of the National Liberation Party of Costa Rica, and Chilean democratic christians and socialists like Guillermo Yunge and Carlos Ominami.
Brazilian participants included former president Itamar Franco, Ciro Gomes and Luis Inacion Lula de Silva, amongst others.
The document rejects the inequity of the neoliberal model, the lack of employment and the deficiencies in health, housing and education of the region.
The Buenos Aires Consensus is opposed to the “religious” adoption of neoliberalism, as they believe it has failed in its attempt to generate growth, development and a more fair distribution of wealth and income.
“Our rejection is not limited to only humanising neoliberalism but proposes an alternative focus,” which consists of “democratising the market,” they explained.
The centre-left leaders said the governments of their countries had submitted to speculative international financial logic and had lost the capacity of imposing their will or that of their citizens.
They therefore proposed a series of regulations on “hot capital” and stimuli for direct foreign investment.
The signatories gave their support to strengthening regional integration, going beyond the mere trade aspects.
They proposed an “active” State, well-resourced, capable of encouraging private initiatives but not promoting privatisations as a dogma, rather as a tool for economic policy.
This implies that under any future centre-left government, the State would not give up ownership of a company if the outcome would not be favourable to the nation’s economic and social interests.
“The market must take the main role in assigning resources, but the State must create the conditions for the needs of the poorest sectors to be converted into solvent demands which can be processed by the administration,” they added.
The signatories consider the optimisation of fiscal income raised through transparent practices a “fundamental State” obligation.
They called for the erradication of corruption, dishonesty and inefficiency in order for public sector resources to be used to best effect.
Other items included the principle of funded public education as a guarantee for equal opportunities, with broad discussion of the problem of increases in real salaries, openly identified as one of the “most prickly and controversial” issues, and one which needs to be kept at the head of the agenda.
They also defended stability, stressing the need for internal savings to be encouraged until reaching the value of 30 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, for the welfare savings systems to be supported and for access to credit to be opened up for the poorer sectors and small and medium-sized businesses through new institutions.
As for governability, the instruments available to popular initiative and referendum must be multiplied to prevent policies falling into a vacuum between one election and the next due to the restricted possibilities of public participation.
The signatories, who first met up in Mexico in early 1996 on the initiative of Jorge Castaneda, said “even though not imminent, the moment (of coming to power) is getting nearer all the time,” calling for the formation of alliances and the preparation of government programmes.
“Alliances are being built, intermittent and partial victories are becoming more frequent and ideas are paving the way,” said the participants.
“The doctrine of one-track thinking was propagated world-wide (…), the task of the reformers with thus be limited to humanising this path (…). We, on the contrary, propose a different path, associating a productivist proposal to a redistrbutory strategy,” reads the Buenos Aires Consensus.
This path “joins the strengthening of democracy with the overcoming of the dualism between the economic and the social, combining a strong, active State, supporting the small and medium sized businesses,” it adds.
“This does not consist of the humanisation of the inevitable but rather of the possible and necessary alternative to a fate we do not deserve,” concludes the document.
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