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Chapter Seven. Caring for Earthly Needs: The Program for Economic Development
- University of Texas Press
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Caring for Earthly Needs: The Program for Economic Development 177 Gabriel García Moreno was in many ways an unusual conservative politician . On one hand, he believed in conservative Catholic values as a means of unifying the country, as explained in the last chapter, while on the other hand, he strongly advocated economic and technical modernization. This chapter will focus on that second facet, the one that dwelled on the realm of the practical. Like nearly every nineteenth-century Latin American leader, he embraced the notion of progress—or in twenty-first-century nomenclature , economic development. Having lived in Paris, traveled extensively throughout Western Europe, and visited the eastern seaboard of the United States in the 1850s, he knew firsthand that Ecuador lagged behind by comparison. His diplomatic venture in 1866 further opened his eyes to Ecuador’s backwardness: Both Chile and Peru had achieved greater prosperity than Ecuador in the half century since independence. Determined to reverse this course of events, García Moreno pledged to follow policies that would develop commerce, bring additional revenue into the treasury, and raise the living standards of ordinary citizens. The word “progress” emanated constantly from his pen: “We must have hope and faith in the dogma of progress” (my emphasis). “As you know, my principal desire for the country is to . . . bring progress and civilization.”1 The question of why Ecuador, and for that matter Latin America, has developed only modestly has puzzled economists and historians alike, bringing forth a host of competing explanations. For decades, even going back to García Moreno’s time, many thought the explanation a cultural one. The Spanish colonial authoritarian tradition, the presence of the Catholic Church, the lack of a “Protestant” work ethic, and the presence of unassimilated (in terms of values) indigenous people in the Andean nations and Mexico seemingly explained Latin American “backwardness.”2 Caring for Earthly Needs: The Program for Economic Development Chapter Seven 178 gabriel garcía moreno and conservative state formation Of course such explanations are tainted with notions of racial or ethnic superiority, which renders them suspect. In the 1970s and 1980s, the theory of dependency came into vogue, arguing that the tentacles of capitalism generated from the metropolis (Europe and the United States) acted to impoverish the periphery (Latin America and the developing world) by controlling prices and maximizing profits for international corporations. Although this overly mechanistic and formulaic theory has generally fallen into disrepute, it contains grains of truth under some circumstances. For example, beginning in the 1890s, Ecuador became overly dependent on export earnings from the cacao trade, suffering grave consequences when the boom ended in the 1920s.3 As critics of the dependency model have pointed out, however, Latin Americans made a rational choice to export raw materials, especially after 1850, because they earned high prices in European markets where demand outstripped supply. Real development occurred , however, only in those instances where a Latin American nation exported goods that needed processing or required foreign investment elsewhere in the economy—which in turn generated profits internally.4 Currently no real consensus has emerged about the causes of Latin American underdevelopment. Regardless of the theoretical debate, leaders like Garc ía Moreno believed in the idea of progress and sought to implement it rapidly. Having visualized progress on his foreign excursions, García Moreno understood the rather self-evident formula for modernization. First, a country needed to achieve political stability, for instability not only disrupted investment and trade but also diminished revenues. Instability also made a nation inhospitable to foreign immigrants, necessary in García Moreno’s opinion to bring progressive work-ethic values to the country. Capital migrated to those nations demonstrating that they had a primary product or products worthy of exploitation. Although many Latin American nations have suffered from being monocultures (i.e., reliant on a single export crop), García Moreno hoped to diversify his country’s economy. To improve the movement of goods to market, a nation needed the technology related to transportation and communication. Finally, a country required a positive legal environment where business could flourish. As García Moreno’s second term began, nearly all of these factors were but dreams. García Moreno could claim, however, that Ecuador had achieved stability. Ever since the 1865 battle of Jambelí, the exiles and their internal allies had been silenced. Because stability had only been achieved recently compared to other nations like Chile and Brazil, Ecuador still [3.91...