Putting care for life at the center

This chapter seeks to recover the influential Latin American thinkers Raúl Prebisch and Celso Furtado to offer an original interpretation of surplus production, its appropriation, and use, which appear as a sine qua non requirement for generating conditions that allow for the design of strategies to overcome underdevelopment. It highlights that there is a long tradition of studies on economic surplus in the Latin American region, noting that for Celso Furtado, in particular, the most complex social formation within underdevelopment is one that consists of three productive logics within its economic structure: one oriented to the external market linked to the export sector; another related to the internal market with typical demand stimulation chains; and the productive logic related to the subsistence sector and non-monetized experiences in social reproduction. In other words, it is about recognizing the economic diversity of a plural economy.