The Latin American “Pink Tide” governments rose to power demanding a rupture from the neoliberal order. Their victory sent shockwaves throughout the Left. For the first time in decades another world seemed possible, and scholars, policymakers, and activists vigorously debated what alternatives could look like.

One idea that gained salience was a return to the national developmentalist models of the twentieth century. The notion has particular resonance in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina, where rapid economic growth in the 1940s and ’50s was accompanied by substantial improvements in social welfare.

Given the achievements of that era, a desire to return to the past is understandable. But as the current turbulence in the Pink Tide project shows, nostalgia for this “Golden Age” of capitalist development risks repeating prior mistakes. Indeed, a closer examination of twentieth-century Latin American developmentalism reveals the limitations and structural contradictions inherent in these reformist projects. The tensions led to an impasse that was eventually overcome through the imposition of neoliberal economic policies — a process that also holds important insights for understanding the present unraveling.