The Latin American World Model (a.k.a. the Bariloche model): three decades ago

Almost twenty five years ago, “Catastrophe and New Society. A Latin American World Model” was published [Herrera AO et al. Catastrophe or New Society? A Latin American World Model. Canada: DRC, 1976]. It described the work of a group of Latin American researchers, led by the late Amilcar O. Herrera, and it represented both a response to the diagnostic and proposal embodied in World 3, the first world model sponsored by the Club of Rome [Meadows D, et al. The Limits to Growth. New York: Universe Books, 1972], and a new proposal for the global system. It remains to date the only global model made in the South. The present paper is a personal reflection by one of the authors of the Latin American World Model (LAWM) on what the model meant (and what it may still mean) in the context of the limits debate and the more general issue of the future(s) of the world system.