Re: Mercantilism: Britain & Spain (was Re: the role of forced labor)

["Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky" <Gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

En relación a Mercantilism: Britain & Spain (was Re: the role o,
el 26 Nov 00, a las 14:04, Yoshie Furuhashi cita:

> At 5:29 PM -0500 11/25/00, Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxx wrote:
> >In the 17th century, however, in the peripheries of
> >South Europe and Hispanic America, manufacture slowly gained a role
> >as Hispanic America was forced to reorient itself toward regional markets
> >(particularly in cereal *production* and "pasturage"). With the long economic
> >contraction of 1600 to 1750, it became evident that the signifigance of
> >merchant class declined as compared with the rising importance of
> >"productive entepreneurs"--"planters"--(owing to the percentage of
> >total capital concentrated in their hands, W, p.167). So the system
> >was not technically "mercantile capitalism"; it was a "plant production
> >economy".

> >Merchants and planters did not belong to the same class. Indeed, the
> >elimination of long distance trade due the
> >economic contraction hurt the merchant groups in their bargaining
> >power visa  vis local producers--land owning cash crop planters-- as
> >plantations grew in scale. *Nascent* capitalism was *emerging* in
> >Hispanic America.

Then, Yoshie comments:

>
> The beginning of the development of underdevelopment....
>

What in fact happened was quite more complex than W's pale description as 
quoted by
Mine. And this complexity is essential to understand the history of independent
Latin America, particularly the early stages of the revolution (this does not 
apply
in EXACTLY the same way to Brazil, though in a general sense it does).

The failure of Spain, which can be summed up in the assesment of the rachitism 
of
its manufacture and thus its impossiblity to become a "modern" colonial power 
in the
sense that Britain or Holland already were, implied that until the 1750s, more 
or
less, Latin America had to develop its own local handicrafts and primitive
manufactures. The whole system can be best represented by the Southern South
American section of the Spanish empire.

The nucleus, the core, of this machine, were the mines of silver of Potosí in 
what
today is Bolivia. While Chile was specialized in agriculture (mainly wheat) to 
feed
the populations in the uplands, what then was the rich section of Argentina 
(current
Northwestern provinces, partly the Western provinces) had specialized in 
producing
both mules (which were devoured by the mines in proportions even higher than 
human
beings!) and some rough means of production. The whole schema worked around the
exports of silver to Spain. In exchange, Spain would, IN A QUEER KIND OF
MERCANTILISM, be the sole provider of --mainly British, French and Flemish 
goods!

Since these goods were too expensive for the poor populations, a host of local
productive units appeared which in a way or other provided to their necessities
(rural industries included, of course).

This structure was not DOOMED to become "underdeveloped". The whole effort of 
the
generation of Independence was directed against this possibility. If Latin 
America
became underdeveloped it is not due to its primeval poverty (were the settlers 
in
North American backwoods in any sense richer?), but due to the betrayal to the
common cause by the oligarchic and mercantile minorities in a few trading 
harbors,
Buenos Aires being the paradigmatic example (with perhaps Montevideo as a 
second in
perversity).


Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky
gorojovsky@xxxxxxxxxxxx