Capitalism and Pentecostalism in Latin America: Trajectories of Prosperity and Development

Abstract

In the twenty-first century, countries of the developing world still face the challenge of managing progress and protecting people from unjust systems. Yet the path to a better life aspired to by nations continues to involve economics, politics, and sociocultural dimensions. Understandably, economic theorists have invoked economic considerations in their attempt to explain Latin America’s development or lack thereof from the colonial period up to the present global capitalist system. Thus Osvaldo Hurtado, former President of Ecuador, in Las Costumbres de los Ecuatorianos (The Customs of Ecuadorians), examines the relationship between culture and development to understand Ecuador’s lack of progress and the inadequacy of its democratic system.¹ For Hurtado, the answer to Ecuador’s economic problems lies ultimately in its people, even amidst the dire circumstances of the present time. But Hurtado responds: “the cultural values of nations are not immutable, nor inherent to one race, to one religious group, or to one social class. Thankfully, problematic customs, beliefs, and attitudes can change through transformations of the socio-economic structures, by the leading role of political and judicial institutions, by educational programs designed for such purpose, [and] by the indoctrination of churches.”²