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The Cepalinos’ Global Fight against Inequality

April 25, 2022 • Sky Michael Johnston • Season 10 • Episode 4

“In mid-twentieth-century Latin America, an intellectual movement that changed the region, the world, and the global economy emerged. The members of the movement were called cepalinos…”

So begins today’s story from Dr. Margarita Fajardo.

For further reading:

The World That Latin America Created: The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America in the Development Era by Margarita Fajardo (Harvard University Press, 2022)

90 Second Narratives
Season 10: “Seeking Justice”
Episode 4: “The Cepalinos’ Global Fight against Inequality”

Sky Michael Johnston:

Hello and welcome! You are listening to 90 Second Narratives, the podcast that brings you “little stories with BIG historical significance.” I am the creator and host of 90 Second Narratives, Sky Michael Johnston. I’m pleased to introduce today’s storyteller, Dr. Margarita Fajardo, a Professor at Sarah Lawrence College where she holds the Alice Stone Ilchman Chair in Comparative and International Studies. Listen now as Dr. Fajardo shares the story, “The Cepalinos’ Global Fight against Inequality.”

Margarita Fajardo:

In mid-twentieth-century Latin America, an intellectual movement that changed the region, the world, and the global economy emerged. The members of the movement were called cepalinos because they came together through the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, whose acronym is CEPAL in Spanish and Portuguese. The institution, located in Santiago, Chile became a springboard for cepalinos in their efforts to fight against inequality at the global level. Cepalinos were concerned with the inequalities between the rich industrial centers and the poor raw material producing peripheries, especially the inequalities brought about by international trade between the two.

To promote global justice, cepalinos championed the monetary cooperation of the periphery, among other initiatives, and in the process, they found a powerful opponent. Or rather, I must say, this powerful opponent found cepalinos blocking their way. The staff of the International Monetary Fund, one of the key institutions of the global economic order, saw the cepalino initiative as an encroachment in a territory they believed was their own. The tension between the institutions grew over time, especially as the IMF staff saw cepalino setting the economic policy agenda in the region. The cepalino ideas about inflation became tools to contest the IMF stabilization plans in the late 1950s. A few years later, the IMF staff was forced to concede defeat and recognized that they had not produced compelling ideas of their own. At the moment, they acknowledged that cepalinos had won the so-called debating cup.

The story of these and other cepalinos are important because they remind us of the extent to which Latin America and the global south sidelined more powerful opponents and shaped the institutions of global economic governance in the North. It is also important because it shows that ideas do and did matter; that the financial resources of an institution like the IMF became a liability in the battle of ideas won by cepalinos at the peak of their influence in the region and the world.

It was with this and other initiatives that cepalinos created a world from and for Latin America.

Sky Michael Johnston:

Dr. Fajardo’s story is drawn from her new book, The World That Latin America Created: The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America in the Development Era. It was published in early 2022 by Harvard University Press. You can find links to the publisher’s webpage for the book in the episode description and episode transcript.

Thank you for joining me today. Please subscribe to 90 Second Narratives and listen as Season 10 continues with more stories on the theme of “Seeking Justice.”