Mexico: Why a Few Are Rich and the People Poor

4. Free Traders and Capitalists

53 FOUR Free Traders and Capitalists i The nineteenth century, celebrated as the glorious age of independence and the Reforma, and the bellwether of the Liberal Party, handed over the National Palace to exuberant disciples of José María Luis Mora, a dyed-in-the-wool free trader, and the English ideologues Adam Smith and David Ricardo. For the victors, talk of a national industry took a backseat to the prevailing doctrines of Western Europe. Capitalists and free traders, more and more of them mestizos, sat the helm of the ship of state. Their ascendancy set the stage for the thirty-year rule of Porfirio Díaz, an era of neocolonialism, social Darwinism, and pomposity. How did the glory of independence settle into this lamentable scene? The explanation starts with the character of independence, a triumph largely for the status quo. 54 f r e e t r a d e r s a n d c a p i t a l i s t s i i In 1808, the French legions of Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Spain, forced King Ferdinand, contrite and cowardly, to abdicate, and put Joseph, the Frenchman’s brother, known as Pepe Botella because of his insatiable fondness for wine, on the throne. Most criollos, having endured years under the tutelage of peninsulares, had no desire to grovel at Napoleon’s feet. Before long, their clandestine societies honeycombed New Spain, debating what should be done. The club in Querétaro included influential criollos from as far away as Guanajuato. One was Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a criollo priest. History remembers him as the father of Mexican independence. From Mexico City, it was a four-day ride by horseback to the Bajío, a fertileplainthatstretchedfromCelayatoLeónandembracedGuanajuato. The Bajío was dotted with ranchos, homes of mestizos, but nearly half of its inhabitants were Indians, though rapidly losing their identity, many of the pueblos having lost their lands to rapacious hacendados. In this heartland, one of the most progressive of New Spain, Hidalgo unfurled the banner of rebellion in 1810.1 As in much of the colony, population growth had outstripped the harvests of corn and beans, driving up the prices of the basic staples of the popular diet. At the same time, everywhere in New Spain the real wages of campesinos and urban laborers had stayed stagnant or had taken a precipitous drop, exacerbating the plight of the poor. Unemployment and rural flight to cities and towns had taken on a life of their own. Silver production, especially important in the Bajío, had its ups and downs, fluctuating between poor and terrible periods. Inequality of wealth and income had gone from bad to worse, an ill exacerbated by droughts, famines, inflationary spirals, and embargos on exports imposed by the British navy.2 An economic downturn, dating from the last years of the eighteenth century, lingered on.3 For New Spain, the last decades of the century were hardly memorable for their largesse; for the poor, whether Indian or not, it was a time of hunger. This sheds light on why so many of them joined the battle to usurp Spanish authority, even though it was led by criollo exploiters. f r e e t r a d e r s a n d c a p i t a l i s t s 55 The prosperity of the criollos best explains why they severed the umbilical cord. A majority of them were well off, but they were denied a political voice at the higher echelons of power. Many of them, merchants especially, had chafed under tight restrictions on trade with Europe imposed by crown reforms. During the heyday of smuggling, they had stuffed their pockets with lucrative profits that came their way from trade with English, Dutch, and French merchants. They had outgrown the need for the crown; on things that mattered the criollos and the crown were at loggerheads. The criollos believed that trade with Europe, as well as domestic questions, could be better handled by them. Whatever doubts they had about their relationship with Spain were exacerbated during the interlude of European wars, when Spain joined France to fight England and then embraced John Bull to expel Napoleon. While the fighting lingered on, many criollos fared well despite the blockade of the colony by English frigates that relegated Spanish trade restrictions to the dustbin. Hacendados wanted...