Market Liberalizations and Emigration from Latin America

Jon Jonakin is Emeritus Professor of Economics at Tennessee Technological University, USA

"Market Liberalizations deftly dismantles the technocratic mystifications of neoliberal ideology to expose the invisible hand around workers’ throats. This historically-grounded sharp and witty exposé of the fallacies of "free" trade, which liberalizes global flows of capital and goods while repressing labor mobility, illuminates today’s staggering global inequality and rising xenophobia." — Richard Stahler-Sholk, Professor of Political Science, Eastern Michigan University, USA"A form of globalization that privileged capital over labor movements was always going to cause trouble. Just how problematic is shown in this insightful book about Latin America by Jon Jonakin, where the links between liberalization, privatization and labor emigration in the last three decades are carefully explored." — Victor Bulmer-Thomas, Honorary Professor, Institute of the Americas, University College London, UK"Jonakin takes complex economic theories and processes and translates them into a clear, highly readable narrative that gets right to the heart of current contradictions and paradoxes. Market Liberalizations offers a powerful call for a new, heterodox approach focused on re-regulation, industrial policy, national safety nets, and the real freedom to choose, or to refrain from, emigration." — Rose Spalding, Professor, Political Science and Vincent dePaul Professor, DePaul University, USA"Market Liberalizations and Emigration from Latin America offers an important angle of analysis to our knowledge of contemporary immigration. Too much of our discussion is based on a simplistic understanding of the "pull" rather than the "push" factors driving migration. Jonakin takes orthodox economics to task in its theoretical assumptions and practical consequences. Market Liberalizations is a must read for those interested in immigration and more broadly in neoliberal globalization." — Mae Ngai, Professor of History, Columbia University, USA, author of Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America"Jonakin’s book describes in detail how the ‘free trade’ policies instituted in the 1980s and 1990s in Latin America favoured capital over labour and the devastating effects these policies had on economic and social development. It lays bare the fictional assumptions of the orthodox trade model, while exposing the economics profession’s double standard with respect to the free movement of labour. An important book that should be required reading for policymakers in both the North and South." — Janine Berg, Senior Economist, International Labour Office, Geneva, Switzerland"This well-written and engaging volume deftly dissects how the adoption of market liberalization policies since the 1980s has contributed to worsening, rather than alleviating, the economic woes of Latin America. Combining cogent theoretical critiques, massive empirical evidence, and in-depth case studies, Jon Jonakin deconstructs the conventional arguments for orthodox or ‘Washington Consensus’ policies and demonstrates how those policies usually achieved the opposite of their stated intentions." — Robert A. Blecker, Professor of Economics, American University, Washington DC, USA

• Chapter 1: Troubled Economic Narratives in a Time of ‘Globalization’Chapter 2: Through the Looking Glass: Structural Change and Latin America’s Refracted RealityChapter 3: Shrinking Options While Enthusing About ‘Choice’: Labor Market Deregulation, Informality, and Emigrant ExodusChapter 4: The Global Liberalization That Went Missing: Undocumented Immigration and A Slew of Troubled NarrativesChapter 5: Mexico: Liberalization’s Poster Child That EmigratedChapter 6: The Contradictions and Consequences of Market Liberalizations in ‘Petro-States’: the Evolutions of Venezuela and EcuadorChapter 7: Succumbing to Ideology: Asymmetric Rules, Disarticulated Structures, and Faux Choices