Made in Mexico: Regions, Nation, and the State in the Rise of Mexican Industrialism, 1920s–1940s

Chapter 6: Recentering The Nation: Industrial Liberty in Postrevolutionary Monterrey

6 recentering the nation Industrial Liberty in Postrevolutionary Monterrey In February 1946, Monterrey business leaders cautioned, ‘‘Currently, there is a divorce between the state government and the ‘active forces’ in the city of Monterrey.’’ This followed comments by the ruling-party governor Arturo de la Garza (1944–49) that condemned the ‘‘rich’’ businesspeople of the city.1 The contretemps occurred a mere two months after a contentious December 1945 municipal election, in which the PRM, the PAN, and the Partido Liberal had fronted candidates. To challenge the PRM-backed Félix González Salinas, who happened to be the brother-in-law of Governor de la Garza, the Monterrey business community had supported local businessman Manuel L. Barragán in the election. Rather than allowing the election to decide the outcome, however, Governor de la Garza had intervened and illegally installed his brother-in-law in office, over the protests of the business community.2 Soon after, local business leaders had launched a campaign to stop paying municipal taxes and pressured the ruling party to recognize that González Salinas had lost the election.3 By the 1940s, Monterrey’s business elites were well versed in political exclusion, having experienced more than twenty years of turbulent dealings with revolutionary leaders. Still, the 1945 municipal election was in some ways surprising. In 1939, the Monterrey Group had forged a pact with the Ávila Camacho campaign to support his presidential bid in exchange for influence in selecting local leaders. Additionally, conflicts between the Monterrey Group and the ruling party had waned in the early 1940s, as the 1. ‘‘El gobierno del estado y la comunidad,’’ Actividad, February 15, 1946; López-Portillo Tostado , Estado e ideologı́a empresarial, 223–24. 2. Niblo, Mexico in the s, 150–51. 3. Shafer, Mexican Business Organizations, 142–44. 206 兩 made in mexico PRM became more moderate and as personal and business connections between national politicians and Monterrey industrialists grew stronger. Under President Alemán, relations further improved, fueled by the government ’s extensive support for Monterrey industries, labor repression, and the president’s close ties to the so-called regiomontano, or Monterrey, elites. Nevertheless, the Monterrey Group continued to challenge the ruling party, as well as the efforts of the central government to extend its influence over Nuevo León at the expense of the business community’s historic regional authority. The Cold War and President Alemán’s 1947 decision to expand trade controls provided an opportunity for the Monterrey Group to express this opposition while preserving the benefits of collaboration with rulingparty officials. On the one hand, the region’s industrialists denounced corporatist labor politics, singling out the CTM for allegedly facilitating the communist infiltration of Mexico. In its place, they embraced scienti fic management as a way to discipline workers to the rhythms of capitalist production and reassert paternal authority over their factories while displacing state-backed unions.4 On the other hand, they modified their liberal opposition to state economic intervention by accommodating broader protectionist policies, which they had long supported for their own industries. However, they continued to stridently oppose state regulation seen as impinging on the rights of private enterprise, such as distribution controls or state oversight of production.5 Like Antioqueño industrialists in Colombia and Paulistas in Brazil, Monterrey ’s industrialists advanced their vision of economic development by crafting an identity for themselves as leaders of a form of nationalist modernization rooted in their region’s distinct social relations and industrial growth.6 The Monterrey Group reinscribed regiomontano identity to contest corporatism and statist industrialism and thereby challenge assertions of the revolutionary state as the guarantor of economic development and defender of the Mexican nation. Monterrey’s elites did not define their economic liberalism in ideological terms. Instead, it was an outgrowth of the region’s rugged frontier past, where individual hard work, thrift, sobriety, ingenuity, commitment , and cooperation were responsible for the city’s industrial modernity . They contrasted this with Mexico City, where they charged that the 4. Similarly, Brazilian industrialists redefined themselves according to understandings of rationalization and scientific management in an attempt to gain national authority. Weinstein, For Social Peace. 5. Melgar Palacios, ‘‘Economic Development in Monterrey,’’ 68–71. 6. Weinstein, For Social Peace; Farnsworth-Alvear, Dulcinea in the Factory. recentering the nation 兩 207 indiscipline of corporatist labor politics and...