This paper aims at refuting the current thesis in literature according to which the theories advocated by the economists linked to Cepal in the 1950s and 1960s are due to the direct influence of Keynes. Thus, besides showing differences between the two theoretical frameworks it shows that long before Cepal was founded or the General theory was published, other theses later acclaimed as theirs already had followers in Latin America. Then it calls attention to the complexity of the origin of the Latin American structuralist thought and raises hypotheses about which chains or theories would have influenced it more directly on its beginning. The conclusion is that, more than innovating, the contribution of Cepal was to systematize, within an academically recognized research program, ideas that already existed, though in a fragmented shape, in Latin America.