THE DEBT CRISIS IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE/73into all the factors that enabled Japan's shift from feudalism to
capitalism (see Anderson, 1976).
Latin American External Debt Crises in the Nineteenth and
Twentieth centuries
Since gaining independence in the 1820s, the countries of Latin
America have gone through four debt crises (Vilas, 1993).
The first such crisis took place during the 18 2 Os, while the different
countries were attaining independence. The second one took place in
the 18 70s. During this crisis, Venezuela refused to meet its payments
and entered into direct conflict with US, German, British and French
imperialism. In 19 0 2, these countries sent a multilateral naval force
to blockade the port of Caracas. Thanks to this gunboat diplomacy,
Venezuela was forced to resume debt payments; these debts were not
paid off until 1943 (Medina, 1996).
This chapter will provide an analysis of the third Latin American
debt crisis, which took place in the 1930s. The fourth crisis, in the
1980s, will be taken up in a following chapter.
Is there a link between the outbreak and deepening of these four
crises, on the one hand, and the long waves of capitalism? The long
waves of capitalist development since the early nineteenth century
have been analysed by a number of authors - among whom Ernest
Mandel, who made a major contribution, especially with respect to
the role of political factors in the development and conclusion of long
waves (Mandel 1971, and especially 1978). Much work remains to
be done in this line of study.
The link between debt and long waves certainly makes for an
interesting subject of research. Indeed, at first glance, there seems to
be a very strong link:
- between the first modern crisis of commodity overproduction
(1826), which opened the door to a long wave of slow growth
(1826-47), and the first Latin American debt crisis (which
began in the 1820s); - between the long depression of the industrialised economies
from 1873 to 1893 and the 1870s Latin American debt crisis; - between the 1930s worldwide depression and the Latin
American debt crisis. This time, however, the crisis opened the
way for higher levels of growth than in the crisis-ridden