Industrialization in Latin America

Industrialization in Latin America

            After World War II populism played a big role in Latin America. Populism was a leadership style focused on mass politics and winning elections. Changes were beginning to occur such as women’s suffrage which allowed women to vote. Not only that but the voting age was lowered to 18 and literacy requirements were struck down. Populist leaders depended on the votes of middle-class people and industrial workers, so they used tactics such as mass rallies, radio, bashed old hierarchies, attracted working-class votes with promise of improved living conditions, and avoided class warfare to maintain support of the middle class.

Latin American industrialization had begun to slow after World War II. ISI was starting to have issues because Latin American manufacturers needed new machinery to compete with Europe. The US recommended a return to pre-1929-style import/export trade which would allow industrial countries to focus on producing finished products. This would lead to an improved living standard everywhere. The United Nations set up the ECLA (Economic Commission for Latin America). The “guiding light” was an Argentine economist named Raúl Prebisch who is known as the most influential Latin American economist. His economic analysis focused on Latin America’s “peripheral” position within a global economy increasingly dominated by an already industrialized “center”. Latin American nationalists then faced a set of problems such as urgent social needs, a counterattack form their old political adversaries, a weakening economic base, and the hostility of the United States. Events in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico show variants on the populist extreme.

            Argentina was the richest, most industrialized, urban, and literate country in Latin America at this time. Argentina also had the most dynamic nationalist movement called Peronism. The Argentine military had controlled the country acting as nationalists of a right-wing sort, but more often as guardians of the old social hierarchy. Peronism is named after Juan Perón, a nationalist army officer who won a strong following among Argentine workers. The government had removed him because they feared his influence. Peronists commemorated October 17 as Peronist Loyalty Day. Perón’s presidency witnessed the rapid unionization of the country’s industrial workforce. Peronism improved the workers’ lives, restored their dignity, and gave them hope. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/452397/Peronist

Brazil’s history ran a similar way to Argentina’s, but theirs was not as strong. Vargas had created two political parties and then returned to presidency in 1950, but he accomplished little. He had committed suicide in 1954. His suicide note ranted on against dark “forces of interests” that “sucked the blood of the Brazilian people” and angered his nationalist goals. The death of Vargas produced an outpouring of public grief. A new capital at Brasília was conceived as an ultramodern design of widely spaced apartment blocks which was constructed with vast outlays of government resources at the expense of surging inflation.

            Mexico had the PRI (the Institutional Revolutionary Party). The military had been subordinated by the PRI and because of that Mexico had a one-party system of admirable stability, but questionable democracy. Mexican industrial growth continued, but landowner power had been shattered. Since the government marketed food grown on the restored lands called ejidos, it could hold process down and subsidize urban living standards. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/289313/Institutional-Revolutionary-Party-PRI