70 Year Magazine Archive

What Hope for Latin America?

by William S. Stokes

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Mr. Stokes has come forward with a revolutionary thesis: Latin American countries, he suggests, will do better if they fire their planners and try free enterprise

Although some students of Latin American affairs will not always defend to the death the statistical compendia and projections of national and international officialdom, they seem to be unanimous in believing that the population is increasing rapidly in both urban and rural areas virtually everywhere in Latin America. Fecundity and reduction in the incidence of infant mortality and eradication or control of such diseases as yellow fever, encephalitis, and malaria may help to explain a rate of population increase over-all of about 3 per cent per year. If present trends continue (which no one can guarantee), the Latin American countries could expect over 600 million people by the end of this century. Many are expected, and all will be enlisted in the “revolution of rising expectations.”

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