Section 1 Summary: “An Impotent Talisman”

While most private investments in Latin America once belonged to various European countries, much of these investments now come from the US. After World War II, European interests in Latin America declined. With new interest from the US, the industries of focus shifted from mining to petroleum and manufacturing. Galeano describes US private investments in Latin America as a “new-model imperialism” (227) in which inequality and wealth disparity becomes further exacerbated through the new terms of participation in the global capitalist market. The US frames their investments as having to do with “progress and national liberation” (228). However, by forcing Latin American countries to become further indebted to the US through loans and participation in an international banking system that does not benefit them, this new form of imperialism only furthers the poverty within Latin American countries.

According to Galeano, modern-day global capitalism brings the rise of the industrial bourgeoisie, a ruling class within Latin American countries that orchestrates economic decisions that sustains the free trade power imbalance between their own countries and the US. While in the past, the bourgeoisie or middle-class could encourage social change on a systemic level, Galeano believes that modern-day capitalism has not produced a bourgeoisie that is “strong and creative enough to reshoulder the task [of social change] and follow it through to its end” (228).