ISSN No. 2631-2743
U
NIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE CHIMBORAZO
FACULTAD DE
CIENCIAS POLÍTICAS Y
ADMINISTRATIVAS
,
Alegría C. Navas-Labanda
anavas@unach.edu.ec
Universidad Nacional de Chimborazo
(Riobamba – Ecuador)
ORCID: 0000-0002-7818-4845
Recibido: 29/02/24
Aceptado: 29/03/24
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
THOUGHT IN THE XIX
CENTURY, THE CASE OF LATIN
AMERICA
PENSAMIENTO POLÍTICO Y
ECONÓMICO EN EL SIGLO XIX,
EL CASO DE AMÉRICA LATINA
KAIRÓS, Vol. (7) No. 13, pp. 106 - 125, julio - diciembre 2024
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37135/kai.03.13.06
ISSN No. 2631-2743
,
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37135/kai.03.13.06
Resumen
El ensayo analiza la adaptación de las ideas del
liberalismo clásico en América Latina en el siglo
XIX. Dentro de una metodología historiográca,
hermenéutica y analítica de algunos casos que
ejemplican ideas políticas y económicas, se ha llegado
a una conclusión general: las ideas del liberalismo
clásico se convirtieron en una máscara supercial que
ocultaba sistemas democráticos y endebles capitalistas.
En el aspecto político, bajo la máscara se ocultaban
benecios especícos para la Iglesia católica; sin
embargo, en períodos especícos, algunos ejemplos,
incluso con denominaciones liberales, muestran que
la persecución a los clérigos también fue oculta o
subestimada. En el aspecto económico, los benecios
del libre mercado no se verán hasta la segunda mitad
del siglo XIX, cuando la Revolución Industrial hizo
que Europa y Estados Unidos aumentaran su demanda
de materias primas.
Palabras clave: América Latina, Liberalismo
Clásico, política, economía, libertad, democracia
Abstract
The essay analyzes the adjustment of the ideas of
classical liberalism in Latin America in the nineteenth
century. Within a historiographical, hermeneutical, and
analytical methodology of some cases that exemplify
political and economic ideas, a general conclusion
has been reached: the ideas of classical liberalism
became a supercial mask that concealed democratic
systems and imsy capitalists. On the political side,
specic benets to the Catholic Church were hidden
under the mask; however, in specic periods, some
examples, even with liberal denominations, show
that the persecution of clerics was also hidden or
underestimated. On the economic side, the benets
of free markets will not be seen until the second half
of the 19th century, when the Industrial Revolution
caused Europe and the United States to increase their
demand for raw materials.
Keywords: Latin America, Classic Liberalism,
politics, economy, freedom, democracy
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
THOUGHT IN THE XIX
CENTURY, THE CASE OF
LATIN AMERICA
PENSAMIENTO POLÍTICO Y
ECONÓMICO EN EL SIGLO XIX,
EL CASO DE AMÉRICA LATINA
KAIRÓS, Vol. (7) No. 13, pp. 106 - 125, julio - diciembre 2024
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37135/kai.03.13.06
KAIRÓS, revista de ciencias económicas, juridicas y administrativas, 7(13), pp. 106 - 125. Segundo Semestre de
2024 (Ecuador). ISSN 2631-2743. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37135/kai.03.12.06
108
Alegría C. Navas-Labanda
1. Introduction
The emancipation of Latin America and its subsequent path towards the creation and
strengthening of new nations is not only composed as a historical fact, where political and
economic events play an almost all-embracing role but, in this case, it is intended to show how
these events are inuenced by the most relevant political and economic theoretical advances
from the old continent. Behind the birth of the new republics was an adaptation, syncretism,
and even manipulation of the liberal ideas that spread on the American continent during the
19th century. The political and economic ideas of the eighteenth century, coming from various
European sources, such as the Enlightenment or from the inuence of Protestantism, traveled to
Latin America to nd a syncretism with the values of a region that lived between the colony, the
Catholicism, miscegenation, and other cultural elements. This context supposes an appropriation
and adaptation of ideas and concepts that arise in Western Europe, from something that has
come to be called Classical Liberalism, in a sort of accommodation and practicality of ideas
in an Ibero-American world marked by problems dierent from those of Europe (Cardoso,
Marcuzzo and Romero Sotelo, 2014).
The dissemination of these ideas has become an invitation for historians of ideas, as well
as theoretical academics, to trace the sources, evidence, and propagation of some political
and economic assumptions as universal ideas, namely the protection of life, the religious
and economic freedom, democracy, the rule of law, the division of powers, and secularism.
Thus, the main objective of this paper is to carry out a theoretical-contextual analysis of the
adaptation, manipulation, or syncretism of the ideas belonging to classical liberalism from the
emancipation processes of Ibero-America. Thus, the writing takes political ideas and, later,
economic ideas as its starting point. In principle, a brief construction of the study’s conceptual
framework will be carried out. Later, the ideas of political liberalism will be analyzed based on
four elements: freedom, democracy, religion, slavery, and nationalism. The following section
reviews the adaptation of the ideas of economic liberalism in two sections: protectionism as a
prelude to Laissez-faire and then, the region’s economic policies.
Framing the thought
The diusion of political and economic ideas has been studied within the circulation of ideas;
the most relevant approaches are found in the works of Colander and Coats (1989) and Cardoso
(2003). The approach studies the sources and the diusion, transmission, and circulation of
elements that are drawn within the political, cultural, and social aspects and even within the
cosmopolitan spirit of the inhabitants and their ability to appreciate the development of economic
thought. Diusion does not necessarily reach the population in mass, but it rst reaches certain
groups, few in number, that are at the forefront of education and knowledge development. Then,
it spreads, adapted, or syncretized to its circle of inuence. Finally, they land in a population
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Political and economic thought in the xix century, the case of latin america
109
that does not necessarily observe the contributions’ relevance but understands them within their
own cultural and social context.
Politicians and public policy makers are among the rst and second groups who shared these
ideas, however, in an adapted, half-understood, or misunderstood form (Solow, 1989, p. 75).
The awed transmission often leads to the re-categorization of ideas, the formation of schools
or currents that never existed (Cardoso, 2017). Local adaptation is always present and therefore
undeniable (Ophir and Shapin, 1991, p. 5). It is crucial to stress the necessity of historical
studies that aid in understanding the appropriation, adaptation, or rejection of these ideas.
The process of adaptation traverses intricate systems of creativity, ideological diversity, and
cultural contexts, all of which inuence transmission. Therefore, the preservation of the
source within the original conceptual framework is almost inconsequential; what matters is
the appropriation and adaptation of the arguments with a new signicance. This process also
involves translation methods, which necessitate hermeneutics and exegesis, tools that are not
widely used. When viewing knowledge as a subject undergoing translation, it may lose certain
elements, some crucial for analytical understanding, others irrelevant due to their formal nature
(Forget, 2010). The solution lies in the interdisciplinary dialogue between history, politics,
economics, and linguistic approaches (Tymoczko, 2002).
The impact of the Reformation and, later, of the Enlightenment accelerated the growth of
publications on politics, economy, religion, and philosophy in Europe; most of the writings are
drawn within the moral and theological inuence of Christianity, as in the case of Adam Smith
or Thomas Malthus, others, with a more quantitative approach to the functioning of the market,
as in the case of David Ricardo. According to Oz-Salzberger (2006, p. 396), translating these
texts, especially into English, led to a national self-awareness that inuenced the processes of
independence by generating a sense of belonging, not only cultural but also linguistics.
According to Cunha & Suprinyak (2017), several examples of political and economic thought
of classical liberalism applied in Latin America can be identied. In general terms, some
essential elements of liberalism are understood as the protection of life, freedom of the market,
religion or speech, and democracy, which are seen within the division of powers, elections,
and the empire of the law. When carrying out the analytical review, it is noted that in many
cases, a coherent line of thought cannot be found; on some issues, some groups are liberal, and
on others, the same groups are nationalists, conservatives, or even monarchists. Thus, these
currents must be seen as a set of ideas that have been syncretized within the Latin American
context. In this article, an analytical approach to liberal tendencies is made, as seen from
political and economic points of view.
KAIRÓS, revista de ciencias económicas, juridicas y administrativas, 7(13), pp. 106 - 125. Segundo Semestre de
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Alegría C. Navas-Labanda
2. Liberalism in politics
The inuence of Great Britain played an important role. The idea of Laissez-faire collided
mainly with the commercial exclusivity that had been established during the colony. Trade
restrictions were shown as vestiges of the colony. However, internal social divisions, plus a
forged tradition of power and prohibition, cast suspicion on the ideas of Adam Smith (free
market), John Locke (rule of law), Alexis de Tocqueville (checks and balances), Baron De
Montesquieu (division of powers) or Benjamin Constant (freedom and the rule of law).
Although the ideas of these thinkers were intertwined and repeated, they were adapted and
molded into their ways of seeing politics and economics.
Democracy and its adaptation
Luis Suárez (1992, p. 12) argues that Spain was in the process of creating local monarchies
within the colonies, a project that was paralyzed by the Napoleonic invasions. Francisco de
Miranda, Venezuelan, precursor of the Hispano-American emancipation, presented to Great
Britain the project of a monarchy, with an Inca or emperor, with chiefs for life, appointed by
the Inca, as members of the Upper House; and, parliamentarians from the elections as members
of the Lower House (Navas, 2011). The example of Manuel Belgrano, an Argentine politician
who promoted the independence of Latin America, is representative.
Belgrano proposed a constitutional monarchy, based in Cusco, with the Inca as sovereign
(Saord, 1985). This monarchy would have democratic elements, although these were not
entirely clear. The main purpose was independence. Carlota Joaquina, queen of Portugal and
Brazil, sister of Fernando VII of Spain, had even been designated as the legitimate heir to the
kingdom, “the only person who at the moment could carry out this project, because she met
almost all the conditions, was the infant Carlota Joaquina; that is why Belgrano noticed her,
immediately engaging in the necessary negotiations” (Morales, 2008, p. 27).
Similar ideas arose in Mexico, Brazil, and Gran Colombia. In Mexico, General Agustín de
Iturbide, who published the Plan of Iguala in 1821, stipulated that a monarchical government
should be established with Fernando VII as emperor. In Brazil, the case is clearer since the
establishment of a Portuguese monarchy for sixty-ve years, “despite its long duration and
a well-coordinated policy, the monarchy did not take root” (Morales, 2008, p. 21). In Gran
Colombia, the idea of monarchy appeared in characters such as “Sucre, Urdaneta, Páez,
Santander, Restrepo, Vergara, Tanco, Martín, Tovar, and others. As for the Liberator, from his
rst triumphant campaigns, monarchical ambitions and projects were attributed to him”. (p.30).
The examples show that the ideas pertinent to liberal democracy had not fully penetrated the
southern part of the continent. A hybrid idea seemed the solution: a monarchy with certain
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Political and economic thought in the xix century, the case of latin america
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democratic overtones, with an Inca as monarch, even if he came from Portuguese or Spanish
descent, who had certain constitutional limits. The intention also seems clear: to change the
owner from a Spanish monarchy to a local one. However, after the independence processes,
democracy prevailed, although it appeared to be a crude and limited copy of the Anglo-Saxon
democratic systems since local interests and the inuence of the Catholic Church continued to
prevail.
What about religion
On the religious side, classical liberalism stipulated a clear precept of freedom, on the one
hand, and the division between state and church, on the other hand. Religious freedom, as
explained by Ludwig Von Mises in his book Liberalism: The Classical Tradition, in relation to
liberalism mentions that:
the realm of religion, on the other hand, is not of this world. Therefore, liberalism and religion
could coexist without their spheres touching. That they had reached the point of collision was not
the fault of liberalism. It did not transgress its sphere; it did not intrude into the realm of religious
faith or metaphysical doctrine. However, it found the church as a political power that claimed the
right to regulate, according to its judgment, not only man’s relationship with the world to come
but also the aairs of this world. (2005, p. 33)
Concerning the division between state and Church, Thomas Jeerson, in his letter to the
Danbury Baptist Association sent in January 1802, mentioned that religion is a matter that is
only between man and God, prohibiting the legitimate powers of the government from making
any law that imposes a single state religion, “or that prohibits the free exercise of it, thus
building a wall of separation between the Church and the States” (Library of Congress, 1998).
The Anglo-Saxon conservative promoted secularism based on a legal system that protected
natural rights, as seen in the diaries of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. While the
liberals and conservatives in the United States promoted religious freedom without imposing
an ocial religion, the conservatives and various liberals in Latin America promoted a single-
state religion, that of the Catholic Church. The political class did not nd signicant problems
with the privileges and power held by the Catholic Church, the rule of law, the division between
Church and state, or even religious freedom.
These elements were of secondary importance. In many cases, “the Church became the main
obstacle to economic, social and political modernization” (Saord, 1985, p. 385). The concordats
served as a legal instrument to legalize the relationship between the Church and the state; the
political and economic privileges were clear in them. The agreements that were signed with the
Holy See were in Bolivia (1851), Costa Rica (1852), Guatemala (1851, 1884), Haiti (1860),
Honduras (1861), Nicaragua (1861), El Salvador (1862), Venezuela (1862), Ecuador (1861,
KAIRÓS, revista de ciencias económicas, juridicas y administrativas, 7(13), pp. 106 - 125. Segundo Semestre de
2024 (Ecuador). ISSN 2631-2743. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37135/kai.03.12.06
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Alegría C. Navas-Labanda
1881), Colombia (1887, 1891). In the agreements, the governments committed “to preserve the
endowment of the bishops, councils, and seminaries, and to provide the expenses of the cult
and the factory of the Church, from the funds of the National Treasury” (Salinas Araneda 216).
The benets were justied in the diminished tithes or conscated goods. In addition, the new
states were obliged to establish Catholicism as the ocial religion (Osuchowaska, 2014, p. 67).
The relationship between state and Church remained intertwined, for example, in political
decisions, such as the right of patronage through which the proposal of priests was ceded
to the governments while the states committed themselves to providing the means for the
conversion of the indels. In addition, other religions or secret societies were prohibited, while
educational institutes and programs had to be approved or subscribed to the Church. As César
Vidal (2002) puts it, Anglo-Saxon Protestantism promoted literacy and, later, the generation
of knowledge to understand the “mind of God.” In the case of Latin America, the Church’s
control over education prevented the entry of new scientic knowledge because it came from
Protestant heretics. Starting in the second half of the 19th century, “many clerics made an
eort to demonstrate the compatibility between Catholicism and progress, understood as the
Enlightenment or science” (Blancarte, 2008, p. 154).
Although the Church found legal formulas to maintain its position in Ibero-American society,
it is no less criticizable how various “liberal parties” found justication to persecute and
assassinate clerics, as in the case of Ecuador during the Liberal Revolution of 1895. Ideals of
freedom disappeared with anticlerical positions such as the expulsion of the Jesuits, followed
by “the closure of convents or the pure and simple prohibition to enter a monastery” (Blancarte,
2008, p. 157). Many of the so-called liberals promoted religious persecution as a means of
forming a secular state. The separation between state and Church occurred at the end of the
19th century and the beginning of the 20th. In the case of Colombia, it happened in 1853,
Mexico in 1857, Brazil in 1890, Panama in 1904, Ecuador in 1906, Uruguay in 1916, Honduras
in 1924, Chile in 1925, and Cuba in 1940.
End of slavery
In the case of slavery, decision-making is accommodated to local circumstances. Abolitionist
movements in Britain and later in the United States grew stronger within conservative sectors.
William Wilberforce (1759-1833), an evangelical Christian since 1785, and Sir Charles
Middleton and Thomas Clarkson, presented the reform for the abolition of slavery in 1791.
After various vicissitudes, the reform was approved in 1807, although its application began in
1833, three days after Wilberforce’s death (Metaxes, 2007).
In the case of the United States, Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), the sixteenth president,
politically active, aliated with the Republican Party, the American conservative party, signed
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Political and economic thought in the xix century, the case of latin america
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the Emancipation Act on September 22nd, 1862, amid a bloody Civil War, “I am naturally anti-
slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I did not think or
feel that way... It was in the oath I took that, to the best of my ability, I would preserve, protect,
and defend the Constitution of the United States” (Lincoln, 1864).
Saord (1985, p. 387) places the case of slavery in Ibero-America as a line of agreement
between conservatives and liberals. Between the 1830s and 1840s, all parties stopped the
disappearance of slavery, “although conservative establishments generally presided over
the attempts to maintain slavery, did not face serious criticism from liberals. Tomas Lander,
Venezuela’s leading liberal ideologue of the 1830s and 1840s, was an outspoken advocate
of slavery.” Under the inuence of Great Britain, in later years, slavery was abolished as a
consensus between liberal and conservative tendencies: New Granada in 1850, Ecuador in
1852, Argentina in 1853, and Venezuela and Peru in 1854. The last countries to abolish slavery
were Cuba and Brazil in 1888.
On the idea of Nation
Liberal ideas are built within a nation-state, that is, within a jurisdiction that promotes freedom
as the foundation of political, economic, and social life. Therefore, it is essential to analyze
nationalism as a foundation for constructing the nascent American states as a new focal point
of loyalty. The independence processes of the Ibero-American region came hand in hand with
a new sense of belonging to a nation imported, as happens with liberal ideas, from the old
continent. However, in this part of the world, the feeling of belonging was inuenced by separate
currents: some indigenous, others Creole, and others of European descent. Jackson Spielvogel
(2000) argues that from the idea of cultural nationalism came that of political nationalism.
Nationalism was a necessary condition for the foundation of a state with limits, “a necessary
condition of free institutions is that the limits of governments must coincide in the main with
those of nationalities” (pp. 750-51).
The most signicant contribution to nationalism came from Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-
1831); the Nation was seen as the agent that transcends history towards freedom; this would be
possible when citizens found their freedom in conjunction with their identication and belonging
to a nation. Hegel incorporates the economy within a systematic theory of the nation-state; he
maintains that both capitalism and nationalism are products of the state because it ensures
freedom and individual rights (Nakano, 2004). The rst evidence in Latin America of writings
about a sense of national belonging comes from the Peruvian Jesuit Juan Pablo Viscardo y
Guzmán (1748-1798), of Spanish descent, who lived in exile in Italy until the end of his days.
In his document Letter to the American Spaniards, from 1791, published in Spanish in 1801,
he exhorted the Creoles to obtain independence from Spain, “the New World is our country,
its history is ours, and in it we must examine our present situation, to determine ourselves, by
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Alegría C. Navas-Labanda
it, to take the necessary party to preserve our rights, and those of our successors” (Gutiérrez
Escudero, 2007, p. 3).
Shortly after, the rst expression of indigenous nationalism was presented in the rebellion of
Túpac Amaru II in the Viceroyalty of Peru, initiated by José Gabriel Condorcanqui in November
1780, against the Bourbon Reforms. After executing the corregidor Antonio de Arriaga and
murdering thousands of men, women, children, and religious leaders in February 1781, his
revolution won several victories against the Spanish corregidores (Siles Salinas, 2009). Of
mestizo and Inca descent, a messianic aura syncretized with Christianity was generated
around the gure of Túpac Amaru II, “he did not present himself only as king and legitimate
sovereign, but also as redeemer, restorer of the world, savior of the Indians... Túpac Amaru II
armed before the indigenous people who followed him that those who died in battle would
be resurrected on the third day” (Fernández Pozo, 2016, p. 12).
After the independence processes, the Nation was also seen within protectionist policies, which
were mixed with feelings of identity belonging and were seen as the product of a miscegenation
common to the Spanish colonies. However, a few decades after emancipation, the word
nationalism began to have a dierent connotation: a greater participation of the state as the
central entity of the economy, politics, and society. This connotation moved away from the idea
of a nation as an entity for the assurance of freedom. It came closer to the idea of a nation as
the central agent of a country’s political, social, and economic life.
According to Cunha and Suprinyak, starting in the 1870s, political liberalism based on the idea
of a nation became a myth: a set of empty slogans about freedom and individual autonomy
that covered illiberal elements. Latin American nationalism at the end of the 19th century had
a greater relationship with culture and societies and with a state with a central role; little by
little, the relationship between the idea of Nation with the universal ideas of life, freedom, and
the search for happiness disappeared. A new version of this nationalism is seen in its relation
to positivist thought.
Gabino Barreda (1818-1881), Mexican philosopher and politician, the forerunner of the
scientic method in education, proclaimed in 1867 that the well-being of the Nation depended
on freedom, order, and progress, “let us henceforth be our motto freedom, order and progress;
freedom as a means; order as a base and progress as an end” (Cardoso Vargas, 2005, p. 187).
The government, the central institution, was strong and dominant, and the call to implement
positivism went hand in hand with secularization. As Charles Hale (1986) explains, the
centralization of political power, even in its authoritarian form, is indispensable for rational
intervention in education and the Nation’s future. Herbert Spencer’s positivism and social
evolution provided a theoretical foundation for ideas of progress in building the new American
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Political and economic thought in the xix century, the case of latin america
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nations. These ideas served the favor and impulse in creating the national bank, as in the cases
of Brazil (1851, 1853) and Colombia (1880). By the end of the 19th century, positivism and
nationalism had merged with the ideas of evolution and cultural determinism.
3. Liberalism in economics
Cultural adaptation, social syncretism, and political accommodation also occurred with economic
liberalism. The contributions of Smith and Ricardo were adapted, changed, or ignored for
several decades. In addition, in a substantial part of the theoretical adaptation, the contributions
of Jeremy Bentham on economic freedom as a basis for prosperity and the possibility oered
by the free market to eliminate the monopolistic colonial aristocracy converted into a burden
for development (Cot, 2014).
The independences led the new nations to a general nervousness about the need to impose
protectionist policies that lasted for several decades. This environment changed in the decade of
the 1850s-1870s when the demand to produce Latin America increased considerably. Although
Mexico maintained some protectionist policies, the growing European and North American
demand for raw materials from Ibero-America allowed more countries in the region to balance
their foreign trade, justifying “the liberal economic faith in free trade. Consequently, during
the years 1845 to 1870, in most countries there was almost unanimity on at least aspects of
economic liberalism” (Saord, 1985, p. 386).
On several occasions, the specic problems of certain sectors allowed the principles of
economic liberalism to be set aside, and a resolution based on the local context sought. The
case of Venezuela makes this assertion clear: coee producers borrowed heavily during the
1830’s, thinking that high prices would cover their commitments. When the market declined,
producers found themselves in the throes of unpayable debt at the end of the decade. The
subsequent campaign focused on repealing the legislation of 1834, which established free
interest uctuation. A state presence was requested to solve the problem; this led to the creation
of the Liberal Party (Saord, 1985, pp. 386-388). Thus, the liberals advocated for the state’s
intervention while the conservatives remained in defense of the free market.
Political battles between Conservatives and Liberals have led to each group aligning itself
with its version of economic thought. Although both agreed with the general principles based
on freedom, the liberals were closer to a version of the economic and political left, and the
conservatives to a version of the right. When the young Argentine politician, as well as a writer
and poet, Esteban Echeverría (1805-1851), returned from his studies at the Sorbonne, he was
one of the main promoters of romantic liberalism, inspired by the nationalist ideas of Giuseppe
Mazzini, and the socialist Henri of Saint-Simon. La Joven Argentina, a political organization
founded by Echeverría in 1838, opposed the governments of Juan Manuel de Rosas in the
province of Buenos Aires-based on a liberal yet nationalist platform.
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Alegría C. Navas-Labanda
On the other hand, as Cunha and Suprinyak (2017) explain, the issue of indigenous lands was
a topic in which liberal thought was adapted and extended to areas in which there was a dark
cloud. For the Ibero-American liberals, communal property was in clear contradiction with the
principles of liberal economics because it inhibited individual interests. The solution lies in
the individual attribution of property. The consequences of the clash of visions on earth were
seen several decades after independence. In Mexico, “at the beginning of the 19th century,
many towns lacked the means of production, so land invasions were constant and gave rise to
innumerable conicts with the authorities, neighbors, landowners, butlers, and administrators,
as well as periodic violent confrontations” (Von Wobeser, 2011, p. 304).
The problem of communal lands and individual property of the land is not produced by
liberalism since expropriation within the Spanish regime arose from the colony’s beginning.
However, the solutions of the 19th century took as their starting point the impossibility of
returning to a communal or ancestral state and the need to proliferate private property as an
economic principle. Although, in the 20th century, several governments in the region decided
to apply programs of land expropriation and subsequent adjudication to peasant and indigenous
communities, processes that came to be known as Agrarian Reforms: Bolivia (1953), Chile
(1962 and 1973), Ecuador (1964 and 1973), Colombia (1936, 1961 and 1994), Peru (1969).
Policies in Latin America
The political emancipation of the region became a reality plagued by European and American
inuences, whether seen in the American Revolution or the French Revolution. Nevertheless,
at the same time, they came hand in hand with the inuence of British prosperity and economic
thought emerging during the 18th century. Although the processes of independence have an
emancipatory signicance, it is no less accurate that political and economic thought adapted
to a greater or lesser extent, came from Great Britain, France, Germany, and even the United
States.
Prior to the independence events, we nd a Bourbon Spain that tried to make changes through a
reform inuenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment, especially mercantilist ideas, who believed
that wealth was limited, which means that, in order for one to win, the other must lose, that
is, international trade must limit imports and promote exports. In addition, the mercantilists
believed that the honor of the monarchy should be ensured through protectionist trade, with
stricter control of the colonies to increase wealth. Monopolies and the imposition of taxes
whose collection was targeted directly to the monarch were favored:
Beginning in the 1750s…royal monopolies were imposed on a growing number of commodities,
including tobacco, spirits, gunpowder, salt, and other consumer goods. The government assumed
direct administration of the taxes that were traditionally divided among private contractors. The
dreaded alcabala, or sales tax, continued to be levied on all transactions, and now its level has
been raised in some cases from 4 to 6 percent. (Lynch, 2008, p. 12)
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Political and economic thought in the xix century, the case of latin america
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The Bourbon reforms were erected to reinforce royal power by centralizing administration
and increasing revenue. These reforms, especially those that preferred the peninsularesover
the criollos in the appointment of administrative positions, produced an increase in tensions.
In addition, Spain began to be seen as an obstacle to the development of the colonies based
on the exclusive commercial links that the mother country demanded. Gaspar de Jovellanos,
a Spanish jurist and scholar, mentioned that “colonies are useful insofar as they provide a safe
market for the excess production of the metropolis” (Lynch, 2008, p. 16).
By the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, the inuence of the
ideas cherished in Europe can be glimpsed. During the Napoleonic era, when the troops
arrived in Spain and Portugal (1807-1808), and José Bonaparte was crowned King of Spain,
the instability caused in the colonies led to multiple uprisings that began in 1810 under the
leadership of Simón Bolívar in the northern part of South America, and the leadership of José
de San Martin in the southern part. With the processes of independence, the internal interests
of local politicians were revealed, in addition to making it clear that the political and economic
links with Europe were maintained.
According to Leslie Bethell (2008), the 19th century can be seen as the English and American
century (p. 271) due to its immense inuence on economic activity, in the rst case, and the
political presence through the Monroe Doctrine, in the second case. Great Britain became
the great creditor of the recent republics, and one of the main trading partners, a source of
investment in infrastructure, agriculture and mining (Bulmer- Thomas, 2007, pp. 33-38). In
the 19th century, the region was linked to the leadership of Great Britain, possibly due to a
weakness of the Spanish empire over its colonies from the beginning of the 18th century.
Lynch (2008) argues that the Spanish colonies realized that they depended on an increasingly
underdeveloped mother country.
Policies on economic freedom of the market can be found in 1820 in Great Britain (Howe),
considering the inuence of the contributions of Adam Smith and David Ricardo on laissez-
faire. As mentioned above, these theories inuenced the Ibero-American region from the second
half of the nineteenth century in a renewed recovery of prices and export quantities of essential
raw materials for the growing European and North American industries. There is no doubt that
before the growth of exports, protectionism was the rst economic policy of the new nations.
Before the policies of economic liberation were introduced, mercantilism in Great Britain was
still in force as long as protectionist barriers were part of public policy. Britain went through
a period of protectionism from 1815 to 1846 with the Corn Acts, taris, and restrictions on
wheat, oats, and barley imports. The purpose was simple: keep corn prices high to favor
domestic producers. The consequences were obvious, such as high prices of life, which had an
immense impact on the diculty of nding cheap food products, producing the Great Famine
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Alegría C. Navas-Labanda
of Ireland between 1845 and 1852, with more than a million deaths. After the rst months of
the famine, the British Prime Minister, the Conservative Sir Robert Peel, managed to repeal the
laws (Lawson-Tancred, 1960).
1846 can be dated as the year of change towards free trade based on the principle of reciprocity.
According to Jacopo Timini (2021), reciprocity policies in the treatment of trade (the most
favored nation) generated an increase in foreign transactions by almost 30%, simultaneously
improving the well-being of the nations involved. The new policies of Great Britain also
extended to Ibero-America, a region in which the nervousness about an open trading system did
not allow the implementation of free trade until 1850. As can be seen in Figure 1, the demand
to produce Latin American products grew considerably after 1850, making the benets of free
trade palpable and, at the same time, changing the local landscape in favor of less protectionist
policies. By 1870, most Latin American countries were in favor of free trade.
Figure 1. Latin American exports in millions of local currencies
5
55
105
155
205
255
305
355
1835 1840 1845 1850 1855 1860 1865 1870 1875 1880 1885 1890 1895 1900
Brazil Colombia Venezuela Chile Tendency
Source: Annex 1.
The increase in primary goods exports pushed Latin American politicians to favor foreign trade
and put aside protectionist policies. In this way, Latin America found its piece of cake in the
Belle Époque, a period that is painted as a mixture of prosperity, increased international trade,
industrial advances exported to the world, and an international peace that lasted until the Great
War.
Conclusions
The article analyzed several relevant elements of political and economic liberalism. On the
political side, the ideas of monarchy highlighted the attempts to build new states, although,
nally, a certain democracy was imposed, however always inuenced by the Church or by
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Political and economic thought in the xix century, the case of latin america
119
specic political groups. The Church found legal formulas to maintain its position of privilege,
starting with an ocial religion that controls civil registries as well as education systems.
However, it is no less criticizable, from the classic liberal approach, how several liberal parties
found the justication to persecute and assassinate clerics.
On the side of human rights, these were accepted without signicant problems in the construction
of the constitutions of the new nations, of course, with camouaged limitations on freedom and
with spaces for the inuence of the Church in the nation’s political life. The case of slavery
followed the same pattern of behavior, to say: an early approach to the English and North
American abolitionist movements, however, at the same time, with systems that covered up the
persecution of freedom of expression or religious freedom.
During the emancipation processes, the idea of a nation was related to the idea of an entity
that guarantees the rights of citizens, that is, a nation that protects freedom, life and private
property. A few decades later, the idea of the nation was more related to trade protectionism
and the centrality of power. This version of nationalism, that is, the participation of the state as
the central entity in the life of a society, moved away from liberal ideas. Cunha and Suprinyak
(2017) are of the opinion that in the last decades of the 19th century, political liberalism had
been disguised in a set of empty slogans about freedom and individual autonomy that covered
anti-liberal elements.
On the economic side, liberal ideas had found several obstacles in the latent fear of free
competition and in the possibility of protecting national industries through limitations on
international trade. The increased demand for raw materials from Latin America after 1850
changed the general mood around the free market. Liberal economic faith in free trade had
been justied; in most countries, there was near unanimity on at least aspects of economic
liberalism. Although conservatives and liberals agreed on the general principles based on
freedom, by the end of the 19th century, the liberals were closer to the socialist versions and
the conservatives to the classical versions.
An issue that was growing in importance was land ownership. While some indigenous sectors
proposed a return to communal property, the pragmatic impossibility of this idea gave way to
the proliferation of private property as a principle of economic freedom. The problem peaked
in the 20th century in attempts to return land within the Agrarian Reforms. The last decades of
the 19th century are drawn with the pen of British inuence on the one hand and with the pen
of prosperity brought by international trade on the other. The Belle Époque also included Latin
America in increasing international trade and importing the most important industrial advances
from the old continent.
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2024 (Ecuador). ISSN 2631-2743. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37135/kai.03.12.06
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Annexes
Annex 1. Latin American exports in millions of local currencies
Year Brazil Colombia Venezuela Chile Tendency
1835 41 1.7 20 20.90
1836 34 2.8 25 20.60
1837 34 3.1 21 19.37
1838 42 1.5 27 23.50
1839 43 3.8 30 25.60
1840 42 31 24.33
1841 39 0.7 38 38.85
1842 41 1.3 34 25.43
1843 44 30 37.00
1844 47 2.9 28 25.97
1845 54 2.6 36 30.87
1846 52 2 32 28.67
1847 58 228 29.33
1848 56 1.4 28 28.47
1849 55 125 27.00
1850 68 3.9 32 34.63
1851 67 4.6 33 34.87
1852 74 530 36.33
1853 77 3.7 36 38.90
1854 91 5.5 34 43.50
1855 94 5.1 36 45.03
1856 115 5.6 39 53.20
1857 96 7.1 29 50 45.53
1858 107 9.1 44 46 51.53
1859 113 9.2 43 50 53.80
1860 123 10.8 30 62 56.45
1861 121 10.9 38 50 54.98
1862 122 10.5 31 56 54.88
1863 131 9.5 25 49 53.63
1864 141 22.6 42 67 68.15
1865 157 16.9 46 65 71.23
1866 156 15.1 38 69 69.53
1867 185 12 17 80 73.50
1868 203 14.7 27 76 80.18
1869 197 17.6 35 71 80.15
1870 168 15.4 55 68 76.60
1871 191 15.8 60 82 87.20
1872 215 19.8 70 96 100.20
1873 190 15.3 74 95 93.58
1874 208 20.4 87 93 102.10
1875 184 28.9 81 87 95.23
1876 196 14.5 71 85 91.63
1877 186 12.7 75 69 85.68
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1878 204 16.2 58 70 87.05
1879 222 18.3 52 78 92.58
1880 231 19.4 69 88 101.85
1881 210 20.7 70 104 101.18
1882 197 17.8 99 140 113.45
1883 217 14.6 74 149 113.65
1884 226 10.6 77 122 108.90
1885 195 7.3 82 108 98.08
1886 264 8.9 91 108 117.98
1887 264 11.7 90 127 123.18
1888 237 10.2 97 154 124.55
1889 256 9.2 101 139 126.30
1890 326 12.2 120 144 150.55
1891 574 18.2 105 139 209.05
1892 784 9.7 89 135 254.43
1893 706 11 108 152 244.25
1894 767 10.3 99 152 257.08
1895 883 10.5 111 154 289.63
1896 864 13 93 156 281.50
1897 1011 12 74 137 308.50
1898 1011 13.1 93 168 321.28
1899 955 12.8 78 163 302.20
1900 850 9.1 168 256.78
Source: Mitchell 442-448
