Álvaro García Linera, the former Vice President of Bolivia, argues that Latin America is facing a wave of the authoritarian far right which, unlike the neoliberalism of the 1980s, promises neither prosperity nor market-driven peace.
By Álvaro García Linera – Sep 16, 2026
A reactionary wave is sweeping across the Latin American continent. With the exception of Mexico and Brazil—the region’s two powers—as well as Uruguay and Guatemala, the remaining countries have seen authoritarian far-right governments claim electoral victories. They have done so by narrow margins, yet they hold power and give voice to a mood of resentment and anti-egalitarian political aggression among a segment of the population.
We are not dealing with the traditional liberal right that characterized the triumphant neoliberalism of the 1980s. Today’s far right does not promise a future of global peace built on markets; instead, it promises an apocalyptic purging of the “godless” who oppose the “natural” hierarchies—of the boss over the wage-earner, of men over women, of “white” skin over the rest, and of the rich over the poor. Rather than a utopia, what they champion is a “holy war” against communism, against migrants, and against rights and public goods. They are convinced that the world no longer holds enough wealth to share among all human beings and that it must be concentrated for the benefit of a select few—the “winners”—while casting the rest, the “losers,” into the fires of hell. This fanatical far right grew as regional neoliberalism entered a crisis, taking power wherever progressive administrations failed to meet the expectations of well-being of the needy classes. Yet, unlike previous cycles that lasted 30 years, this movement rides a stunted, short-sighted societal project that—economically speaking—runs counter to emerging global trends.
While the United States, China, and the European Union raise tariffs, promote industrial policies, and set goals for energy or technological sovereignty, far-right governments across the continent cling anachronistically to nostalgia for a defunct free-market globalism. They have imposed brutal fiscal austerity in the hope that foreign direct investment (FDI) would come flooding in.
But the world of 2026 is not that of 1995. FDI, which reached between 4% and 5% of global GDP in the 1990s, today barely hovers around 1%. In Argentina, it hit 8.5% of GDP in 1999; under the “libertarian” government, it fell to 0.5% in 2025. Moreover, this is “enclave investment”—geared toward raw material extraction, with profits siphoned off to the countries of origin—a situation strikingly similar to the colonial enclave economies of the 16th century.
Cuts to public spending, tax breaks for the wealthy, and privatization do not represent a fresh injection of capital into the economy. They are merely forms of predatory extraction of public resources, transferring them into private hands accustomed to rent-seeking. The result is a structurally stagnant economy, prone to intense cycles of social unrest. Latin America’s far-right movements have become mired in a stale, globalist neoliberalism with a severed future—one that tends to turn nations into colonial protectorates of major powers. Why, despite their early economic failure, do they maintain a base of political support ranging from 20% to 40% of the electorate? The disappointments spawned by the left and progressive movements play a part, but that is not the whole story. Far-right movements have emerged wielding two swords: one promising to end key aspects of the economic crisis and the other offering moral vindication to those aggrieved by it.
The first sword is crumbling rapidly and irreversibly, yet the second is brandished with fiery skill. Revanchist hatred—transformed into state policy directed at migrants, “lefties,” communists, Indigenous people, feminists, or any hint of social egalitarianism—serves as a form of collective atonement. If there is no prosperous future to look forward to, there is at least the pleasure of cruelty inflicted upon those deemed irreducibly different.
This moral perversion of hope tears at the social fabric, and its consequences for collective cohesion will be enduring. The way to combat it is not merely through a form of inverted rage; what is required, above all, is the bold restoration of a plausible hope centered on a project of productivism and social justice—one capable of shaking the very foundations of old, debased economic and mental structures. For if the left is to have another chance at leading the nation, it cannot simply aim to manage the conditions of stagnation and disaster.
This piece is a summary of Álvaro García Linera’s full article, “The Short-Termist Project of Latin American Right-Wing Movements” (“El proyecto cortoplacista de las derechas latinoamericanas”), published in Ant/agón on September 12, 2026.
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Translation: Orinoco Tribune
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