Santiago de Chile, (EFE).- The American intellectual and philosopher Noam Chomsky, one of the highest references of progressivism worldwide, said this Wednesday that Latin America can become a “prosperous” region.
He also pointed out that it can play an important role on a global scale if it promotes collaboration between the countries of the region.
“Within Latin America, recent events offer some hope of addressing the ills that have poisoned what should be prosperous and flourishing societies,” Chomsky said.
The philosopher made these statements at a conference in the Chilean capital to which he connected from the US, where he lives.
Chomsky cited organizations such as Unasur, which Argentina and Brazil seek to relaunch, or Celac as examples of regional cooperation.
The Latin American economy has traditionally been “highly exposed to the extraction of resources by foreign capital”, especially from the West.
In addition, the intellectual stressed that this situation has not contributed to the internal economic development of the countries of the region.
For Chomsky, a “successful” model of planned development open to foreign capital has been the East Asian economies.
“Foreign investment in East Asian countries is directed at national planning, at specific development objectives,” he explained.
“In the case of Latin America, imports are mostly luxury goods for the rich, and foreign investment goes into resource extraction,” he added.
“The rich export the capital of the countries”
“The rich in Latin America freely export the capital of the countries. In East Asia that is prohibited, and the capital goes to economic development,” he added.
Chomsky remarked that the international order is changing from a model with a preponderance of the United States to a “more diverse multipolar” system, where there will no longer be a single country that dominates the functioning of some spheres throughout the planet.
“In the emerging world system, Latin America has an opportunity to free itself from being too close to the United States, as it has been historically,” Chomsky said.
In addition, he appealed to “political and economic interference” that the North American country has had in the region, such as in the 1973 military coup against the government of the socialist Salvador Allende, in Chile.
Chomsky supported the change of Constitution in Chile
In 2022, Chomsky was one of the signatories of an international letter in favor of the first proposal for a new Constitution in Chile.
The text had markedly progressive ideas and was intended to replace the Magna Carta, drawn up during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990), but the Chileans rejected it in September.
Chile, with one of the most neoliberal systems in the world, suffered intense protests in October 2019 calling for profound changes in the country.
These demonstrations were the trigger for the start of the constituent process in which it is still immersed.