Global Learning
  • Home
  • Defenders of Cuban Socialism
    • UN Charter
    • Declaration of Human Rights
    • Bandung
    • New International Economic Order
    • Non-Aligned Movement
  • Substack editorial column
  • New Cold War articles
  • Friends of Socialist China articles
  • Global Research articles
  • Counterpunch articles
  • Cuba and the world-system
    • Table of Contents and chapter summaries
    • About the author
    • Endorsements
    • Obtaining your copy
  • Blog ¨The View from the South¨
    • Blog Index
    • Posts in reverse chronological order
  • The Voice of Third World Leaders
    • Asia >
      • Ho Chi Minh
      • Xi Jinping, President of China
    • Africa >
      • Kwame Nkrumah
      • Julius Nyerere
    • Latin America >
      • Fidel Castro
      • Hugo Chávez
      • Raúl Castro >
        • 55th anniversary speech, January 1, 1914
        • Opening Speech, CELAC
        • Address at G-77, June 15, 2014
        • Address to National Assembly, July 5, 2014
        • Address to National Assembly, December 20, 2014
        • Speech on Venezuela at ALBA, 3-17-2015
        • Declaration of December 18, 2015 on USA-Cuba relations
        • Speech at ALBA, March 5, 2018
      • Miguel Díaz-Canel >
        • UN address, September 26, 2018
        • 100th annivesary, CP of China
      • Evo Morales >
        • About Evo Morales
        • Address to G-77 plus China, January 8, 2014
        • Address to UN General Assembly, September 24, 2014
      • Rafael Correa >
        • About Rafael Correa
        • Speech at CELAC 1/29/2015
        • Speech at Summit of the Americas 2015
      • Nicolás Maduro
      • Cristina Fernández
      • Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations >
        • Statement at re-opening of Cuban Embassy in USA, June 20, 2015
        • The visit of Barack Obama to Cuba
        • Declaration on parliamentary coup in Brazil, August 31, 2016
        • Declaration of the Revolutionary Government of Cuba on Venezuela, April 13, 2019
      • ALBA >
        • Declaration of ALBA Political Council, May 21, 2019
        • Declaration on Venezuela, March 17, 2015
        • Declaration on Venezuela, April 10, 2017
      • Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) >
        • Havana Declaration 2014
        • Declaration on Venezuela, March 26
    • Martin Luther King, Jr.
    • International >
      • Peoples’ Summit 2015
      • The Group of 77 >
        • Declaration on a New World Order 2014
        • Declaration on Venezuela 3/26/2015
      • BRICS
      • Non-Aligned Movement
  • Readings
    • Charles McKelvey, Cuba in Global Context
    • Piero Gleijeses, Cuba and Africa
    • Charles McKelvey, Chávez and the Revolution in Venezuela
    • Charles McKelvey, The unfinished agenda of race in USA
    • Charles McKelvey, Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist Revolutionary
  • Recommended Books
  • Contact

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Recommended books on Amazon.com; click on image of book to connect

Free trade in the 19th century

10/22/2013

0 Comments

 
Posted August 26, 2013

     The penetration of foreign capital in Latin America during the semi-colonial republics of the nineteenth century destroyed what had been, prior to independence, an emerging industrial development, which had been developing in spite of the limitations imposed by Spanish and Portuguese colonial rule.  At the beginning of the nineteenth century, a significant textile manufacturing industry had developed in Mexico, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, and Argentina.  But it was newer than British textile manufacturing, and its transportation infrastructure was not sufficiently developed.  It therefore could not compete with British manufacturing. Under the control of the landlords and the merchants, the newly independent Latin American republics adopted a policy of free trade, rather than protecting infant Latin American industry through tariffs and other mechanisms (Galeano 1997:173-81).

      Thus the economic relation that emerged between Britain and the Latin American republics in the nineteenth century was a core-peripheral relation.  Britain exported textiles and other manufactured goods to Latin America and imported cattle products from Argentina, guano and nitrates from Peru, copper from Chile, sugar from Cuba, and coffee from Brazil (Galeano 1997:174, 177).  This core-peripheral relation benefitted the Latin American estate bourgeoisie, because it provided markets for the Latin American raw materials, and because it was an arrangement that provided for the landlords cheaper manufactured goods than would be possible under protected national industry.  And it expanded business for merchants connected to the core-peripheral trade.

       But the core-peripheral relation undermined Latin American industry, and it thus weakened the emerging urban industrial bourgeoisie, which was in an embryo stage of development and did not have sufficient influence over political structures to defend its interests. Ultimately, for a project of industrialization to be successful, the domestic market would have to be expanded, and this would require raising the standard of living of the superexploited rural masses, which formed the majority of the population.  However, such an improvement in the standard of living of the rural peasantry and the working class would undermine the position of the Latin American estate bourgeoisie, whose exportation of raw materials was based on an international standard of superexploited low wage labor.  The Latin American estate bourgeoisie therefore always has been opposed to the development of a “genuine national capitalism” (Galeano 1997:185).

       The core-peripheral relation and free trade policies were integrally connected.  Free trade rejects tariff protection of national industry.  The defenders of free trade claim to be promoting a free market, but they ignore a fundamental fact: the prevailing social and economic conditions of underdevelopment and mass poverty were not established by a free market, but by brute force, in the form of conquest and forced labor.  In the context of these social and economic conditions, a newly independent government that seeks true independence would have to act decisively in the economy, seeking to promote autonomous industrial development and an improvement in the standard of living of the masses.  The protection of infant national industry would simply be one measure in a comprehensive plan for autonomous national development.  But free trade negates this possibility, and it promoted the deepening of the core-peripheral relation during the semi-colonial republics of the nineteenth century

       The free trade policies of the nineteenth century did not emerge from a political vacuum.  They were promoted by particular social classes, namely, the landed estate bourgeoisie and successful merchants of the periphery, which acted in alliance with the core.  These classes defended their particular interests at the expense of the well-being of the nation as a whole in the long term.  They disseminated ideologies that confused and divided the people.  It could be said of them that their conduct was self-interested and unpatriotic.  Indeed, such would be said of them and their contemporary kindred spirits by the popular anti-neocolonial movements that emerged during the twentieth century and that continue today.


References

Galeano, Eduardo.  1997.  The Open Veins of Latin America: Five centuries of the pillage of a continent, 25th Anniversary Edition.  Translated by Cedric Belfrage.  Forward by Isabel Allende.  New York: Monthly Review Press.


Key words: Third World, revolution, colonialism, neocolonialism, imperialism, democracy, national liberation, sovereignty, self-determination, socialism, Marxism, Leninism, Cuba, Latin America, world-system, world-economy, development, underdevelopment, capitalism, peripheralization, estate bourgeoisie, free trade



0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author: Charles McKelvey

    Retired professor, writer,  and Marxist-Leninist-Fidelist-Chavist revolutionary

    Categories

    All
    American Revolution
    Blog Index
    Bolivia
    Charismatic Leaders
    China
    Critique Of The Left
    Cuban History
    Cuba Today
    Ecuador
    Environment
    French Revolution
    Gay Rights
    Haitian Revolution
    Knowledge
    Latin American History
    Latin American Right
    Latin American Unity
    Marx
    Marxism-Leninism
    Mexican Revolution
    Miscellaneous
    Neocolonialism
    Neoliberalism
    Nicaragua
    North-South Cooperation
    Presidential Elections 2016
    Press
    Public Debate In USA
    Race
    Religion And Revolution
    Revolution
    Russian Revolution
    South-South Cooperation
    Third World
    Trump
    US Ascent
    US Imperialism
    Vanguard
    Venezuela
    Vietnam
    Wallerstein
    Women And Revolution
    World History
    World-System
    World-System Crisis

    Archives

    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    January 2013

    RSS Feed

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

More Ads


website by Sierra Creation