Latin America's Social Revolution
ALEXANDER, ROBERT J.
Latin America's Social Revolution Political Change in Latin America. By John J. Johnson. Stanford. 272 pp. $5.00. Reviewed by Robert J. Alexander Professor of economics, Rutgers...
...The middle sectors are associated particularly with the rise of industrialization and of the governmental bureaucracy...
...He notes that "Clearly, the middle sectors are anything but a compact social layer...
...Members of old Spanish and Portuguese families co-exist with mestizos, mulattoes...
...Property owners are associated with persons who have never possessed property and have little prospect of ever operating their own businesses...
...Generally, these discussions are very illuminating and bear out the author's thesis...
...Reviewed by Robert J. Alexander Professor of economics, Rutgers University...
...Some are members of the middle sectors because of their intellectual attainments...
...there are now strong and sizable "middle sectors" which stand between the old-fashioned land-owning aristocracy and the great mass of agricultural and urban laborers...
...They do not fulfill the central condition of a class: their members have no common background of experience...
...The groups of which the author is talking are heterogeneous...
...author, "Communism in Latin America," "The Peron Era" IT IS CUSTOMARY, almost trite, to say that Latin America "has no middle class...
...some, because they have combined education and manual labor in proportions that meet the standards of those middle sector elements that still look askance at men who depend upon their hands for a livelihood...
...He fails to note the role of the young military men who assisted Vargas and who, during the previous decade, had been the most outspoken advocates of the "middle-sector" philosophy and later occupied a key position in the Vargas regime...
...Chile...
...Their program is one of economic and political nationalism, of social reform and labor legislation, of popular education and of the extension of political rights to ever-wider elements of the population...
...It contributes a great deal to an understanding of the real significance of the social revolution that is now taking place in the nations south of the Rio Grande...
...The middle groups have sought to change certain of the political traditions of the area...
...The author, however, has some doubt about the future of these alliances, particularly in their relationship with the organized workers, whose interests clash in a number of areas with those of the middle elements...
...the man on horseback...
...After describing in general terms what he means by the "middle sectors," and outlining the nature of their political program and activity, Johnson sketches the role which these elements have played in the five major countries since World War I. In each of these nations, the middle sectors have broken the political dominance of the old aristocrats, although they have adapted their strategy and tactics to the different circumstances of each country...
...They have tended to form and support ideological political parties...
...as Professor Johnson makes eminently clear in this study...
...They have been skeptical of the virtues or efficacy of personalist politics and the traditional emphasis on the "caudillo...
...But...
...An alliance between them and the urban working classes has thus been characteristic of middle-sector political activity...
...The middle groups would not have been able to exert the influence which they have had in recent decades if they had not had allies in other groups...
...others, more because of their wealth than because of their learning...
...Allies among the military have also played a significant political role...
...Negroes and newcomers from Europe...
...Only in the Brazilian section, it seems to me, Johnson underrates the importance of the Getulio Vargas revolution of 1930 as a triumph of the middle groups...
...They have, indeed, held the balance of power in five of the most important nations of Latin America—Argentina, Brazil...
...Uruguay and Mexico—for a generation or more...
...Those who believe that Latin America is "not ready for democracy," or that politics in that area degenerate into a mere struggle among charismatic leaders, could learn much by reading Johnson's book...
...On the contrary, among them are representatives of nearly the entire cultural and economic range...
Vol. 42 • February 1959 • No. 6
