by Immanuel Wallerstein from CADTM.
There are definitely contradictions in the policies being pursued in many of these left oriented Latin American countries. I'm not sure that I would describe them quite like this author does.
One thing they have in common is that they are pursuing many more independent courses of economic development than they have in the past, particularly independent of US interests. However, the ethos of capitalism with its emphasis on economic growth to profit the few is still having a major influence on the decision makers of these countries. This is because the capitalist classes are still very powerful in all of them, thus any efforts to develop their economies democratically for the benefit of all is considerably weakened--it mostly takes the form of rhetoric from their political elites who wish to assert some independence from the Empire.
Until their societies take the ownership of significant economic enterprises away from private ownership and put them into public ownership under the control of thoroughly bottom-up democratic system, we will continue to see these contradictions.