Refeudalization and the Crisis of Civilization: Political Essays on Latin America

To discuss the civilization crisis and processes of refeudalization, this vol-
ume brings the dialogue of two of the most creative approaches, in Olaf
Kaltmeier and Edgardo Lander, to rethink capitalism in the 21st century.
In Chapter 1, Edgardo Lander urgently assesses the current state and
political legacy of the “Pink Tide” governments in his chapter “Crisis of
Civilization.” Reviewing the past two decades of the new millennium,
Lander critiques the failure of these governments to provide alterna-
tives to extractivism and economic dependencies. In Chapter 2, Olaf
Kaltmeier takes issue with the state of social inequality in the region,
highlighting the concentration of wealth within the upper 1% of soci-
ety in Latin America. Comparing the current economic situation with
the ancient regime, the discussion centers around new phenomena like
billionaires as president, increased luxury consumption, an emerging
culture of distinction, and the intensification of land and spatial segre-
gation. Finally, Hans-Jrgen Burchardt connects the arguments through
interviews where both authors sum their efforts to open the issues to
future dialogue.
Refeudalization and the Crisis of Civilization provides an accessible
and thought-provoking political diagnosis from the Global South which
departs from the oft idiosyncratic and cyclical debates of the Global
North to offer a new vocabulary for social change. It will create interest in
scholars and students of global studies, sociology, and political science.
Olaf Kaltmeier is a Professor of Iberoamerican History at Bielefeld Uni-
versity. He is the director of CALAS, the Maria Sibylla Merian Center for
Advanced Latin American Studies in the Humanities and Social Science,
and the founding director of the Center for InterAmerican Studies (CIAS)
at Bielefeld University. He has done research and teaching in Mexico,
Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, and the USA.