Wiarda, Howard J. y Kline, Harvey F.
Latin American Politics and Development
Ed. Westview Press. 3ra edición
EE.UU, 1990; pp 33-38


The Early Stages Of Modernization

By the 1850s some order had been brought out of the earlier chaos in most countries. The first generation of postindependence caudillos and criollos had died or faded from the scene, and newer Liberal parties had emerged to vie with the traditional Conservatives. The Liberals were not usually very liberal, however, and usually consisted of one group of rival first families organized to contest the power and privileges held by another elite group. Many times these families were in commercial agriculture instead of owners of self-contained haciendas. The Liberals stood for some of the classic nineteenth-century freedoms, including separation of church and state and free trade. By stimulating a greater competition for power, the rise of the Liberals resulted in an expansion of suffrage and an increase in the voting population to perhaps 3-5 percent.

The 1850s was a period of gradual, incipient socioeconomic changes. Cattle ranches and plantations began to recover from the earlier devastations, and new lands were opened for cultivation. In the Argentine pampa and elsewhere, the practice of common landholdings gave way to private ownership, and the system of large estates started to expand.

There was a commercial quickening, new banks opened, and in the cities a merchant and artisan class, often stimulated by European immigrants, emerged. Foreign capital, chiefly British, provided a catalyst for investment and production. New national industries began to grow: guano in Peru, sugar in Cuba, mining in Chile, agriculture (meat, hides, wool) in Argentina and Uruguay, rubber and coffee in Brazil. The first railroads and highways were built, docks and port facilities were constructed, and national economic infrastructures began to develop. In economic terms, the 1850s and 1860s saw the first stages of modernization. Yet conditions were different in Latin America than in the United States or Europe, simply because the northern countries went through the process first. In many Latin American countries there were debates between policymakers who favored high tariff barriers, in order to encourage nascent industry, and those who favored low tariffs, in order to base economic growth on foreign trade. The key economic fact was that, at least in the short run, British (and later U.S.) manufactured goods were less expensive than those produced locally, because of economies of scale and higher levels of technological development.

Increasingly, the policymakers favoring low tariffs, often but not always calling themselves Liberals, won the debate. The most beneficial policy seemed clear, as indicated in this statement by the Colombian treasury minister Florentino Gonzalez in 1847:

Following what later was to be called "comparative advantage," the decisions made reinforced the dependency position of Latin America that had begun during colonial times. Latin America was cast as an exporter of primary products, and its industry lagged. The ramifications of these decisions were evident from then on in Latin America, even during the energy crisis of the 1970s and the debt crisis of the 1980s. Although there was considerable economic resurgence during the 1850s and 1860s, the political situation had not stabilized. Rival caudillos, frequently heading competing Liberal and Conservative factions, continued to vie for control of the national palaces. Instability remained the rule. In some countries, the Conservatives and the Liberals alternated in the presidency; in others, a Conservative or a Liberal caudillo might manage to hold on to power indefinitely. Despite the frequent instability, however, the economic structure continued inexorably to change, giving rise to new social forces as yet only dimly foreseen. In many countries, Liberal policies led to the consolidation of large commercial farms, with the concurrent loss of holdings by small farmers. In some, the first wars over landwhich continue todaybegan.

In the 1870s and 1880s the political situation began to stabilize. There were two basic patternsa third one was to emerge somewhat later. The first, exemplified by Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, involved the gradual consolidation and joining of older (landed) and newer (commercial) wealth into a system of strong oligarchic rule. With few interruptions, oligarchic rule in these countries continued until 1930, through a period of unprecedented stability and economic growth. Indeed, the entire span from the 1880s to 1930 may be considered the heyday of oligarchic power throughout Latin America.

The second pattern, similarly stabilizing and consolidating, involved the coming to power of a new type of order-and-progress caudillo. Porfirio Díaz in Mexico is the prime example, although in Guatemala, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic the situation was parallel. No longer so unrefined as their man-on-horseback predecessors and no longer interested solely in power for its own sake, the new order-and-progress caudillos sought to promote national economic growth and to bring Latin America abreast of the rest of the world. They surrounded themselves with advisers who brought a positivistic, scientific, and progressive approach to national development. Under both the consolidating oligarchies and the order-and-progress caudillos (frequently intertwined, since the new breed of caudillos often ruled at the behest of powerful national oligarchies), the Latin American nations enjoy significant economic growth for the first time.

Law and order were now established, often brutally. New national armies and police forces were set up, replacing the unprofessional and caudillo-led armed bands of the past. The police and army enforced order in the countryside and served as agencies for increased national and central direction. As oligarchic power was consolidated, the great estates expanded, and peasants and Indians were impressed into the labor force and obliged to sacrifice their communal lands and small holdings.

Along with political consolidation came greater economic growth. New roads and railroads were built, the first telegraphs and telephones were introduced, and import and export facilitiesdocks, storage facilities, shopswere constructed and improved. Large amounts of capital began to flow in, initially chiefly from Europe, but by the 1890s, in at least some of the countries, the United States had replaced Great Britain as the major source of foreign investment and trade. Manufacturing and industry burgeoned, and immigration from Europe was encouraged.

Previously empty areas began to be filled, and new lands were opened for rubber, coffee, sugarcane, cacao, and tobacco production. The number of commercial establishments multiplied, and previously sleepy towns and port cities began to grow and come alive with activity. There was a general economic quickening as more money became available and business and trade picked up. New government agencies were established to administer these new activities, and the national infrastructure bureaucracies, communications structures, armies, and so onstarted to take definitive shape. The drive to modernity had commenced, and some of the historical goals and aspirations of Latin American development policy began to be fulfilled.

It must be remembered, however, that in the majority of the countries, development and modernization occurred under elite, authoritarian, and oligarchic auspices, not democratic ones. Still, the general economic stimulus gave rise to new sociopolitical forces whose growth helped undermine the oligarchic order. A new middle class appeared in the urban areas, and its members began pushing for political influence commensurate with their increased economic wealth. By the first decades of the twentieth century some strong trade unions, often rural as well as urbancane cutters and tobacco workers, for examplehad emerged, and they similarly demanded a bigger piece of the omelet and threatened to scramble it if their demands were not met. These pressures mounted. In 1910 dissatisfaction with the Díaz regime and Mexican middle-class impatience with the barriers to advancement and spoils, coupled with deep-seated and long-smoldering resentment on the part of peasants and Indians because of the encroachment of the big estates onto lands they had previously farmed, led to a revolt against the old dictator that triggered the twentieth century's first great social revolution. In 1916 Argentina's newly enfranchised middle-sector voters wrested control from the oligarchy for the first time, and in 1920 Chile's middle sectors united with the workers to unseat the oligarchy. This pattern would be repeated in numerous countries of the area in 1930, when the big upheaval came.

In addition to the consolidating-oligarchy and order-and-progress caudillo patterns of the period, a third pattern involved direct U.S. intervention in the Caribbean part of Latin America, both to ensure political stability and to secure and expand U.S. economic and strategic interests. In the aftermath of the Spanish American War of 1898 the United States emerged as a major industrial and economic center and an aspiring world power. As a result of that war, the United States acquired Puerto Rico and other areas as territories and established a protectorate over Cuba. Panama also took on independence as a protectorate of the United States, with its national territory divided by the U.S.-controlled Canal Zone. Under the now-infamous Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, the United States intervened in the Dominican Republic in 1904 to prevent European creditors from using force to collect unpaid debts and to take over the administration of all customs receipts. During the first two decades of the twentieth century U.S. Marines intermittently occupied and intervened in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Nicaragua, Panama, and Cuba.

The role of the United States in these countries was in many ways similar to that of the order-and-progress caudillos and produced many of the same results. The marines pacified the countryside and built roads and port facilities. Through the establishment of marine-created national guards, power and administration were centralized just as in the caudillo regimes. Moreover, by bringing order to the nations' finances, conducting land surveys, and reorganizing the national systems of land titles, the United States helped facilitate further U.S. investment and production. Naturally, the people who were in a position to benefit most from these changes (again similar to the order-and-progress caudillos) were the large foreign investors and those Latin Americans who already possessed land, capital, and good connections. The third major developmental pattern of the period thus involved the wedding of foreign and domestic capital with the use of North American military power to join the emerging Latin American bourgeoisie with U.S. strategic and private economic interests. This pattern also served generally in Latin America to reinforce conservative, oligarchic rule.

By the 1920s a change in the situation was due. Pressure for the United States to withdraw its military forces from the Caribbean increased, and the Latin American middle sectors and trade unions were insisting on the need for a national restructuringor else! The military officer corps, no longer drawn solely from the aristocratic ranks, was becoming restless. The final triggering cause was the world market crash of 1929, which ruined the market for Latin America's exports. Oligarchic rule was undermined, and the need for basic change became obvious to all. In 1930 a rash of revolutions brought on by the economic crash swept Latin America and signaled, not just another dreary round of military coupe, but a profound reordering of the sociopolitical structure. The heyday of the oligarchy was over, and a new era of middle-sector-dominated politics had begun.


Conclusions and implications

The weight of the feudal and semifeudal past, of the colonial era and its institutions, hung heavier over Latin America than over North America. Indeed, in many ways the heavy hand of the past still continues to weigh upon and shape Latin American countries in a fashion that is not true for the United States. In many countries, authoritarianism, elitism, a two-class system, hierarchy, patrimonialism, and corporatism have proved to be remarkably persistent, durable features.

But within this context considerable change is nevertheless possible. Latin American history is hardly the total failure that some detractors of the area would have us believe it to be. Indeed, given Latin America's background and the historic geographic, social, and economic barriers to development, the accomplishments have been notable. It must be remembered, however, that the changes ushered in to this point have most often come under oligarchic auspices, not democratic ones. However, these changes have given rise to new social forces, principally labor and the new middle sectors, and these have challenged and helped undermine oligarchic rule.