This paper was presented as the inaugural class for the Social Sciences Course at USP, on the 6th of March of 2002. Global economy has been undergoing a number of sweeping changes that have altered the methods, the organization of the production of goods and services, politics and institutions all over the world. These changes have been more marked in countries where State policies exert strict control over the economy and social life. In Latin America, these changes guided the implementation of a new economic policy model, as a means to overcome rising inflation, balance-of-payment deficits, the international debt load, inefficiency and the lack of international competitiveness, all of which had supposedly arisen as the product of traditional developmental policies. However, this new model operates with a devious interpretation of the history of developing countries, by dismissing or not taking into account the fact that countries such as Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, alongside other Asian countries, experienced a faster growth-rate than the USA, England, Germany, France and Canada. The real challenge for those countries lies in the elaboration of strategies for development, including the quality of aspired industrialization, technology, institutions and politics.
Latin America; developing countries; technology; free trade; strategies of development
