Latin Americanists have long debated the possibilities, limits, and contradictions of economies dependent on the extraction and export of natural resources. During the Cold War era, revolutionary leaders, such as Salvador Allende in Chile, nationalized foreign-owned companies but did not question their countries' dependency on commodities. Indeed, they envisioned the new nationalized mining and energy companies as the engine of economic and social development. In the last 30 years, globalization has intensified the exploitation of the earth, and a global commodity boom has created an insatiable thirst for natural resources. This new cycle of extractivism has been particularly violent, destroying the environment, displacing Indigenous people, and contributing to political corruption. However, when state regulations have been in place, commodity booms have financed social policies and redistributed benefits to the population.
Why have twenty-first-century progressive governments repeatedly failed to turn away from extractivism? Authors such as Eduardo Gudynas and Maristella Svampa...