A Changing Latin America

...Except in Argentina, the indices of industrial production showed a marked upward curve in 1959...

...In other words, it serves to diminish the sharp contrasts between various sectors of the population, those of the "interior" who still live in a pre-Colombian or colonial "climate" and those of the cities who now enjoy the fruits of modern civilization...

...Unfortunately, the possibilities for social advancement remain precarious for the rural populace which, according to the latest complete census figures (1950), accounted for approximately 59 per cent of the total population of Latin America...

...Military groups are again exercising political leadership, replacing the oligarchies of the past, although the way in which the officers take advantage of their power varies considerably from one country to another...

...The vast differences that traditionally separated the higher and lower classes in a semi-feudal relationship inhibited any great possibility of advancement for those at the lower levels...

...Diversification through expansion of secondary and tertiary sectors of production, particularly through the development of industry, is showing constant progress...

...This has been one of the more interesting contributions of recent times, not only as a diagnosis of the major disease that plagues Latin America, but more importantly as therapy...

...The sharp increase of these two classes in the intermediate levels of society represents important social progress over what had been a two-class system, consisting of a pauperized urban and rural population on the one hand, and an upper class of landholders and merchants on the other...

...The reform program of the Government of the Brazilian State of Sao Paulo is an excellent example of effective application of such techniques...

...Argentina's increasingly dangerous troubles (seen again this fall) or the serious pressures of the Army in Venezuela and Haiti might not be considered representative of all Latin America...

...What is needed instead is planned and directed regulation to replace the blind forces of attraction and repulsion without governmental action such as control international immigration...

...This creates serious public service problems in the cities: lack of water supply, electricity, drainage and sewage systems, and transportation...

...In this way, in some instances, spectacular results can be obtained without recourse to expropriation and other revolutionary changes of the social or juridical order...

...At the same time, the rural exodus contributes to integration of the economically and culturally backward population into the sphere of advanced civilization which prevails in the urban centers, thus strengthening the cohesion and unity of the national community...

...Venezuela: 53.8 per cent...

...These observations hold true at least in the relatively more developed nations, such as Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay...

...However, we are now witnessing its revival in particularly troublesome forms...

...The exodus has led to the enormous growth of the cities, particularly of the largest metropolises, and has placed Latin America among the areas with the highest urban concentrations in the world...

...The increased growth of the national product is being canceled out by the extremely high population increase (approximately 2.5 per cent a year, the highest in the world), thereby precluding any substantial increase in per capita income...

...It has made much progress and will certainly make much more in the near future...

...Those who attain such a higher social status do so by availing themselves of the broader schooling and professional training facilities now within their reach on a larger scale...

...Rural poverty, undernourishment, low and unstable wages, endemic diseases, the high infant mortality rate, illiteracy (which has not diminished in the last decade)—all these are the distressing symptoms of rural Latin America's alarming underdevelopment...

...However, the "force of attraction" of the cities actually plays a minor role in this migration...

...Only two nations now have tyranical dictatorships where 10 years ago there were no less than seven...

...Greater social mobility combined with a growing exodus from the farms represent A Changing Latin America By Estanislau Fischlowitz AFTER A CENTURY and a half of post-colonial stagnation, Latin America has entered a period of kaleidoscopic changes...

...and Haiti: 12.2 per cent...

...Nevertheless, if it is possible to control Latin America's current economic crisis, major reversals in the processes leading that region to full partnership with the free world and to institutional, political and social democracy appear to be improbable...

...The changes now taking place in the 20 republics below the Rio Grande—with approximately 200 million people of three distinct racial origins, who speak Spanish, Portuguese, French and innumerable indigenous tongues —are of vital interest not only to the rest of the Western Hemisphere but also to the rest of the world, And this in spite—or perhaps because—of the simultaneous but relatively less rapid rise of the "old" Asian and the "new" African countries...

...investments...

...Latin American militarism, it might be argued, in its historic origins goes back to the times of Simon Bolivar...

...At the same time, there is in Latin America a general lack of financial and technical resources necessary to finance and administer programs of a wider scope...

...Should Latin America's development be crowned with total success, it would demonstrate that such an accomplishment can be carried out without resorting to the techniques of Soviet totalitarianism...

...At the "summit" of the social ladder, the leading groups of the society, preponderantly based on rural landholdings with a backward, ultra-conservative orientation, are slowly being replaced by the more liberal and more socially advanced strata of industrial and commercial employers, as well as by the intellectual class, the liberal professions and the higher strata of public administration...

...Another constructive step was the recent United States initiative of including the improvement of rural conditions and land use as part of the Inter-American Program for Social Development, adopted by the Organization of American States Special Committee to Study the Formulation of New Measures for Economic Cooperation ("Committee of 21") at its September 1960 meeting in Bogota...

...Today it is the first large region of the underdeveloped world that appears ready to enter, in its entirety, into an advanced modern economic stage...

...In most of Latin America revision of the obviously defective systems of ownership and tenancy of lands is imperative...

...At first glance, what appears most spectacular is the unexpected maturity of the constitutional regimes in their slow but progressive consolidation and democratization...

...The only instrument capable of diminishing the currently excessive rate of desertion of rural areas would be an agrarian reform program in accordance with the pressing needs of the land-hungry rural proletariat...

...Decongestion of the often overpopulated countryside, considering its average high levels of underemployment, can bring a temporary lack of manpower for agriculture in some cases, with the resultant reduction in food production which can aggravate the almost constant crisis of supply to the ever-increasing urban population...

...Even without statistical data, the general course of this development, which may vary quantitatively from nation to nation, indicates two principal trends: the creation of a middle class...

...Such "reform" could, under certain circumstances, bring on widespread crisis in agricultural production, which still constitutes the principal wealth and main source of foreign exchange...

...In several countries of Latin America, it is not uncommon to find, beside small, uneconomical landholdings, a predominant system of large latifundios and an almost total absence of medium-sized properties...

...the Dominican Republic, 23.8 per cent...

...At present, its share of world production does not exceed 5.1 per cent, although it has approximately 8 per cent of the world's population...

...The increase of Communist penetration, which cleverly identifies itself with ultra-nationalist currents, is particularly distressing since it combines the new and more aggressive Asian Communism with the traditional, European Communism...

...This is not to say that the only cure for these ills would be immediate and total expropriation of large and medium rural landholdings...

...Cuba: 57 per cent...

...Foreign capital, both public and private, which undercapitalized Latin America sorely needs, is decreasing also...

...Such reforms are at this moment being carried out, though moderately, slowly and by cautious stages, in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Paraguay, Venezuela, Uruguay, Nicaragua, and, to some extent, Brazil, In other nations, agrarian reform is being effected through use of more radical techniques and with dubious long-range economic results, as in Bolivia and Cuba...

...The 1960 census will undoubtedly show an even stronger concentration of population in urban districts, especially the larger ones...

...Despite some harmful excesses, inevitable in the process of mass industrialization, the increase of industrial output is creating much firmer bases than did the one-crop or one-mineral systems of the past for assuring workers higher average salaries and social benefits as well as greater job security...

...At times there is a mere change from rural underemployment to urban unemployment...

...For the Latin ESTANISLAU FISCHLOWITZ, a professor at Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro, is a technical adviser to Brazil's Ministry of Labor and Social Security and a consultant on Latin American economy for the UN's International Labor Organization and the Pan American Union...

...That type of reform might also cover a peculiar modality connected with revision of the tax structure in its application to agriculture, with the aim of promoting redistribution of the latijundios, especially economically unproductive ones...

...The frequency of revolutionary coups has visibly diminished and caudillismo has almost vanished, leaving no major traces...

...The low and unstable prices of the area's principal export products, mainly agricultural and mineral, create considerable trade balance difficulties, causing harsh declines in exports as well as indirectly in imports...

...The first steps toward a Latin American Common Market were taken in 1960, with the formation of the seven-nation Free Trade Association in Montevideo on February 18, 1960, and the three-nation Central American Economic Association in San Salvador on January 9, 1960, "Operation Pan America," launched in 1958 by Brazilian President Juscelino Kubitschek, is also making its contribution to the acceleration of economic progress of that potentially rich area of the world through such achievements as the recent Inter-American Development Bank...

...There is, as a matter of fact, a growing reaction against the excesses of militarism in a continent that, except for the Caribbean, does not have serious conflicts between neighboring nations...

...In sum, it subjects the immigrants themselves to considerable hardships...

...In fact, the working classes resist Communist influence much more effectively than some intellectual or semi-intellectual groups...

...The 1960 census, unfortunately carried out in only half of the 20 countries of Latin America, is expected to show the new social stratification that has resulted from the strong recent social mobility...

...Mexico: 42.6 per cent and Brazil: 35.2 per cent...

...In all but two Latin American nations, the inflationary spiral continues to reach alarming proportions, especially in Brazil and Bolivia...

...In the cities, rural immigrants, lacking vocational training and preparation for the requirements of industrial work, unbalance the labor market, in which the supply of unskilled manual labor always far exceeds the demand (except in construction...

...Chile: 60.2 per cent...

...However, the indirect effect of that population shift is a slow broadening of the domestic market: While the formerly rural folk remained only marginal consumers, many of them are now becoming buyers of goods and services and contribute to opening new outlets for industrial products...

...WHAT INITIALLY shows up in examining the social panorama of Latin America is the accelerated rhythm of the social mobility of its population, both vertically and horizontally...

...American masses, despite the backwardness of political parties and the weakness of labor unions, show progressively better intuitive understanding of their true interests and legitimate aspirations, as well as a surprising imperviousness to Red propaganda...

...Let us not, however, ignore the other side of the coin...

...It would be hopeless to attempt to stop this internal migration...

...THE CURRENT ECONOMIC situation is, in some ways, much less auspicious than the political and military situation...

...Nevertheless, all indications are that once Latin America overcomes its present difficulties in production, trade, balance of payments and finance—and with the combined efforts of the 20 nations, as well as with more active assistance from their powerful neighbor to the north—it will achieve its much-desired goals of harmonious, balanced and constructive development...

...Industrialization does not offer great solutions to the problem of absorbing the surplus rural population, because the majority of the new and large industries are highly mechanized, offering employment to limited numbers of workers and very little to unskilled manual laborers...

...So, in many cases, in keeping with the specific conditions of each Latin American country, it would seem more useful to take the indirect approach of agrarian reform, and not necessarily land reform...

...At the same time, however, the lot of the rural population has not improved notably due to the slowness of agrarian reform programs...

...Today, however, one finds a growing number of simple manual laborers who occupy positions of greater responsibility without leaving the socially dependent class or who sometimes even penetrate the middle-class and the liberal professions...

...There are, after all, different or even opposite trends in Costa Rica, Mexico, Uruguay, Ecuador and Chile...

...On the other end of the scale, however, are Guatemala, 23.8 per cent...

...Agricultural production increased by only 1.9 per cent in 1959 over the previous year (although in 1958 it topped the previous year by 5.6 per cent), and Latin America faces increasing competition from Africa, especially in the European Common Market...

...What occurs, then, in the absence of greater facilities for "vertical" social advancement, is a pressure toward "horizontal" progress through a massive and chaotic migration to urban centers...

...and the subdivision of the working class into white collar and specialized workers, whose position, consumer habits and attitudes identify them more with the lower-middle class than with the lower strata of the working class...

...I do not subscribe to the ultra-pessimistic view that Latin America is fated to remain a "continent of the future" forever...

...The political position of one Caribbean island, after its recent anti-dictatorial revolution, seems to be degenerating into a totalitarian system of the Soviet type...

...THERE IS GREAT disagreement about the advantages and disadvantages of those powerful displacements of people which, in the absence of any national planning for internal migration, occur in a totally chaotic manner...

...The lack of low-cost housing leads to the creation within the urban centers of marginal barrios (slum areas) with all the inevitable social, hygienic and moral ills inherent in such agglomerations...

...between 1946 and 1958, there was a $1.3 billion negative balance of payments in private U.S...

...If the current economic picture gives cause for concern, there are also some encouraging prospects for a more balanced and prosperous future...

...The latest census figures available show the following percentages of population in urban and suburban centers in the more urbanized nations: Argentina: 62.5 per cent...

...It is therefore a flagrant exaggeration to say, as one observer has, that "the majority of the Latin American nations were invaded by their own armies...

...The direct and immediate effects of this internal migration appear to be prejudicial to both the rural and urban zones...

...Whatever the reasons, the land flight unquestionably constitutes the most important factor in the current social panorama of Latin America...

...In accordance with "Goltz's Law," the concentration of rural property in the hands of the few constitutes the major "expulsive force" responsible' for mass rural exodus...