Oligarchs in Latin America

1
Oligarchs in Latin America

• What is an oligarch? Oligarchies?
• How are they formed?
• What types of political forces do they represent?
• Why do they fear the masses?
• What do they do to protect themselves against the
  masses?

2
Argentina and the Generation of 1880

• Oligarchic system created by politicians from the
  Argentine Interior 1874-1916
• Tried to wrest economic power from the province
  of Buenos Aires by federalizing city of BA in
  1880, and nationalizing the port and its customs
  house

3
Argentine Oligarchs
4
Unicato

• Why they supported one party rule
• How did they deal with immigrants, workers?
• Why they supported universal public education for
  men and women
• Why they supported the economic modernization of
  the countryside and the beautification of Buenos
  Aires
• What happened to them?

5
Porfirio Díaz and the Científicos

• Presided over the modernization of Mexico through
  a one party system
• Linked to intellectuals called científicos and to
  the rurales or rural police
• Brought railroad construction and foreign
  investment of Mexico

6
Positivism and the Cientificos

• The Cientificos and Economic Policy
• Positivism and the Dilemma of Mexican Liberalism
• World View of Cientificos
• Caudillos, Indians, and Backwardness
• Foreign Models and Fears Legacy of the Mexican
  War

7
Positivism and the Cientificos

• Policies of the Cientificos
• Indians and Modernization
• Reliance on Foreign Capital and Foreign Trade vs.
  Need to Control Dependency
• Split personality of Cientificos
• Porfirio Diaz Poor Mexico, so far from God and
  so Close to the United States

8
Porfirio Diaz in 1910
9
The Persistence of Latin American Oligarchs

• Phenomenon lasted into the 20th century
• According to Peter Smith, politicians have
  severely restricted the electorate in Latin
  American countries 47 of the time before 1930.
  Thereafter in many countries a series of
  authoritarian governments did the same thing.