Western Thought in the Formation of “Ecosocialism” in Latin America

The turn of the 20th — 21st centuries had a negative impact on the development of many Latin American countries, bringing political destabilization and economic imbalance among the main participants. The imbalances in development were largely explained by the fact that the countries failed to cope with structural dependence, which was much written about by the “dependentists” led by Raul Prebish. In addition, the region began to face new challenges that required attention and resources. These include, in particular, addressing environmental issues in political discourse. The socio-environmental issues accumulated over many years of exploitation of the rental economy have become a catalyst for the formation of new political actors — social movements that have adopted the practices of the indigenous population of the region aimed at preserving a healthy environment. Against the background of the “left drift”, this process resulted in the emergence of intercultural ecosocialism, which was especially manifested in Bolivia and Ecuador, where environmental sustainability issues influenced the formation of the public agenda. The radical management of natural resources within the framework of ecosocialism as a social project, which it was, was based not only on the Indian traditions of reverence for Mother Nature and harmony with her, but also used the intellectual reserve accumulated by Western thought. For a detailed consideration of the above-mentioned trend, the main stages of the formation of such areas as political ecology and post-development theory, as well as other areas of socio-ecological thought of the 70—80’s were analyzed. The twentieth century. To explain the peculiarities of the functioning of rental economies in the region, the author of the article turned to the center-peripheral model, which is used in the theory of dependent development, as well as in world-system analysis. In general, it is worth emphasizing that the discussions that were conducted within the framework of the approach of the ecosocialists of Ecuador and Bolivia are a challenge to the established economic model in which the environment is overexploited. The experience of the Andean subregion has for a long time demonstrated new interpretations of human and economic development, where along the way the authorities tried to use a more pragmatic approach to environmental rights. The ideas of abandoning the established anthropocentric model in favor of balanced relations between society and the environment continue to find their followers. However, their success depends entirely on the degree of attractiveness of these alternative projects for all participants.