Underdevelopment in Peru: A Profile of Peripheral Capitalism [Hardcover]

At a time when Peru continues to reel from the impact of COVID-19 and the eruption of corruption scandals involving five former presidents, this book analyses the persistence and the structural underpinnings of underdevelopment in Peru.

At a time when Peru continues to reel from the impact of Covid-19 and the eruption of corruption scandals involving five former presidents, this book analyzes the persistence and the structural underpinnings of underdevelopment in Peru.

During the commodities boom of 20042011, Peru experienced strong levels of economic growth, bringing poverty down and increasing the middle-class population. In the Covid-19 pandemic, however, the severe lack of structural economic and social improvements has been exposed. With the arrival of the pandemic, hospitals collapsed, oxygen supplies dwindled, and informality rose, with dire consequences for the vulnerable, and for those already working on subsistence wages. Delving into the history of the country, Jan Lust outlines the structural problems that came about following Perus post-colonial entrance into the world economy and the subsequent neoliberal extractive development model adopted in the 1990s. Only by understanding Perus specific political, economic, and social conditions can a path towards development be found.

This book will be of interest to researchers working within politics, economics, critical development studies, and Latin American studies.

1. Capital and peripheral economic development  2. The peripheral capitalist development of Peru  3. Peru in the world economy  4. The business structure of capitalist development  5. The social class structure  6. Labor  7. Social segmentation  8. The state  9. Covid-19: the state, the economy, and the people  10. Conclusions

Jan Lust