Mexico and Argentina have the commonality of export economies. In other words, the rich and the poor alike relied on the exportation of agricultural goods to foreign markets.

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1.          Mexico and Argentina have the commonality of export economies.  In other words, the rich and the poor alike relied on the exportation of agricultural goods to foreign markets.  This type of economy places heavy emphasis on the large plantation, or hacienda.  Because of the latifundia being equivalent to a hacienda, a lot of money was needed to run and manage it.    Of coarse, the latifundia’s earnings greatly surpassed that of the mere plantation, making the rich even richer.  For these reasons, “the political and social structures of both countries were conditioned by the mode of production of the latifundia.”

        Mexican history reveals this trend in economic activity.  During the reign of Díaz, the country opened up new markets for its mineral and agricultural products and brought new land under cultivation.  Concentration of land ownership during the Porfiriato, coupled with the loss of communal holdings, made it difficult for people to practice subsistence agriculture. Díaz favored the rich owners of large estates, increasing their properties by allowing them to absorb communal lands that belonged to Native Americans. Many landless peasants fell into debt peonage, a system of economic servitude in which workers became indebted to their employers for both money and supplies and were forced to labor in mines or plantations until the debt was paid.  By 1910 some 90 percent of the rural inhabitants of central Mexico were landless.

Under Díaz, a two-tier society emerged, as those able to take advantage of modernization became rich and the poor sank further into poverty. As many rural inhabitants and Native Americans lost land to large commercial interests, agricultural workers failed to secure a reasonable share of the nation’s growing wealth.  Moreover, agricultural production of staples for internal consumption dropped as agricultural exports reduced food stocks. Corn and beans, the core of the lower-class diet, had to be imported. Periodic food riots occurred throughout the country. In 1905, the government sold food at subsidized prices, and in 1909 it opened 50 subsidized food stores in Mexico City.

When Madero adopted a cautious policy on land reform, Zapata revolted and issued his Plan of Ayala in November 1911. The proclamation called for the immediate transfer of land to peasant farmers and insisted on the right of Mexican citizens to choose their own leaders. Zapata actually stated, “…that the lands, I mount and waters that have usurped the landowners, scientists or caciques in the shade of the venal justice, will of coarse enter possession of those real estate, the towns or citizens who have their titles, corresponding to those properties, of which they have been undressed by bad faith of our opresors, …that they settle down to the triumph of the Revolution.”  This quote supports the fact that Díaz favored the cientificos and the caciques in the distribution of land.  He would sell this “unowned” land to them for cheap, and they would make sure that Díaz profited well from the deal, showing support for his conservative ways and assuring protection of their investments.

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After his election, Cárdenas moved to reduce the role of the army in Mexican politics, and emphasized land reforms (returning land to the peasants), social welfare, and education.  This is ironic because of Cárdenas’s past, being a great landowner who had once served Díaz.  (As it turns out, he became the first chief of the revolution before his presidency.)  Cárdenas established a reputation as a revolutionary reformer. By the end of his term, one-third of the country’s population had received land, usually as a member of a communal farm known as an ejido.  However, Mexican governments post 1940 rejected the ...

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