In the context of the profound civilizational crisis that humanity is experiencing, there is also a severe crisis of the left in different parts of the world. The alternative proposals that were represented by the so-called progressive governments in Latin America fundamentally failed in terms of the transformative objectives they set for themselves. The inability of the "official" left to reflect analytically and self-critically on these experiences impedes learning from them, which can only deepen the crisis of the left as an alternative to capitalism and, more broadly, to civilization in crisis.

Edgardo Lander is a retired professor of sociology at the Central University of Venezuela. He is an associate of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam and a member of Plataforma Ciudadana en Defensa de la Constitución as well as the Permanent Working Group on Alternatives to Development (RLS, Quito). He was a former guest researcher at CALAS in 2018.

Santiago Arconada Rodríguez is a member of the Plataforma Ciudadana en Defensa de la Constitución and Participant of the international movement Reclaiming Public Water. He is a co-founder of the Technical Tables and Community Water Councils and an activist, through the Amerindian Cause Foundation, of the territorial demarcation process of the Venezuelan indigenous peoples.