At a time when social scientists are building models for purposes of research, teaching, and prediction, it is important to note the publication of two valuable social studies on Latin America. Covering the years 1962 through 1964, both works go well beyond the area of “social” in the strictest sense of the word. The reason is that in preparing these volumes, the Pan American Union set out to describe the social aspects or “dimensions” (the term preferred by the authors) which are generally omitted from the interpretive developmental models currently in use, because they are hard to express in quantities.
Socioeconomic in approach and more often descriptive than analytical, these Estudios sociales consist in large measure of tables containing a wide range of data. Their catholicity of information is evident from these examples: housing for the homeless, education, social security, community development, financing of socioeconomic development in Latin America by both domestic and external sources, public health, and allocation of economic resources. Consequently these volumes will be most useful as references, not only for the Latin American specialist but for the general public as well.
The Estudios societies go beyond a mere presentation of statistics for given years. Their efforts to show basic trends and patterns make them more meaningful and thus more useful. In addition to contemporary data on Latin America, they contain information on factors which, besides influencing the socioeconomic development of Hispanic America, can be measured and thus periodically restudied to evaluate their directions and variations. It is these directions and variations that help establish trends and patterns, because they allow for change. The sections dealing with demography illustrate this point, since they discuss not only the current population explosion in Latin America, but also the principal tendencies of the internal migrations which are modifying the structure of the Latin American labor force and the nature and means of production. This is best revealed in Brazil where the migrations from the Northeast to the South and East have resulted in a dangerous imbalance.
Perhaps the greatest single raison d’etre for the Estudios sociales, apart from their values as reference works, is the guidance which they give to socioeconomic planners. The authors point out that because of its recent demographic explosion, Latin America has an inordinately high percentage of young people who must be reared and educated. The burden is aggravated in that the increasing numbers of persons aged sixty-five and older must be provided with pensions and medical care. In the section on social structure the authors summarize changes in the size and composition of Latin America’s economically active population. Then they define a new dimension, the form or pattern in which the socioeconomic organization of a society is related to its production potential. The Estudios sociales remind planners that in a free and democratic society any effort to impose a rigid program of desired objectives will clash with the spontaneous changes occurring in Latin America. These changes—social, political, or economic—must be channeled and guided into constructive paths for achievement of maximum development in Hispanic America.
Although not imaginatively written, the 1962 and 1963-1964 Social Studies of Latin America constitute a worthy contribution. These books are especially significant because of present emphasis on planning and development, to which Latin American governments have committed themselves by establishing and maintaining programs of social and economic amelioration. The effectiveness of these works in Latin America has been greatly enhanced by their appearance in Spanish. It is hoped that the Organization of American States will continue to publish this timely series, and that an English translation will be issued.
