Kinship, business, and politics : the Martínez del Río family in Mexico, 1824-1867 / by David W. Walker.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Walker, David W. (David Wayne), 1948- author.

Series:

Latin American monographs (University of Texas at Austin. Institute of Latin American Studies) ; no. 70.

Latin American monographs / Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin ; number 70

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Martínez del Río family.

Businesspeople--Mexico--History.

Businesspeople.

Industrial policy--Mexico--History--19th century.

Industrial policy.

Mexico--Commerce--History--19th century.

Mexico.

Mexico--Politics and government--1810-.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (289 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Austin : University of Texas Press, 1986.

Summary:

The Martínez del Río family was a vigorous contestant in the highly politicized economy of early national Mexico. David Walker’s case study of its successes and failures provides a unique insider’s view of the trials and tribulations of doing business in a hostile environment. The family’s ordeal in Mexico—a series of personal dislocations and traumas—mirrored the painful contractions of an old society reluctantly giving birth to a new nation. Using previously undiscovered primary source materials (including the private correspondence and business records of the family, public notary documents, transcripts of judicial proceedings, and the archives of Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Relations and the British Foreign Office), Walker employs family history to analyze problems relating more generally to the development of state and society in newly independent Mexico. The processes of socioeconomic formation in Mexico differed from those of Western Europe and the United States; accordingly, entrepreneurial activity had markedly contrasting implications for economic development and class formation. In the downwardly spiraling economy of nineteenth-century Mexico, economic activity was a zero-sum game. No new wealth was being created; most sectors remained stagnant and unproductive. To make their fortunes, empresarios, the Mexican capitalists, could not rely on income generated from authentic economic growth. Instead, they exploited the arbitrary acts of the interventionist Mexican state, which proscribed the free movement of factors within the marketplace. Speculation in the public debt took the place of more substantive undertakings. Coercive state power was diverted to create artificial environments in which otherwise inefficient and unproductive enterprises could flourish. But however well the empresarios might imitate the outward forms of industrial capitalism, they could not unlock the productive capacity of the Mexican economy. Instead, they and their allies and rivals engaged in destructive struggles to manipulate the state for personal gain, to the detriment of class interests, economic growth, and political stability.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Tables

Figures

Preliminary Notes

1. Introduction

2. Family Life, 1792-1860

3. The Martinez del Rio Family in Mexico, 1830-1860

4. Commerce in Mexico: Drusina & Martinez, 1828-1837

5. Banking on Mexico: Martinez del Rio Hermanos, 1838-1864

6. Textile Manufacturing in Mexico: Miraflores, 1840-1860

7. The Funds and the Conventions, 1838-1848

8. The Tobacco Debt Bonds and the Conventions, 1845-1861

9. Kinship, Business, and Politics: A Historical Perspective

10. Epilogue: The Martinez del Rio Family, 1864-1984

Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-4773-0650-1

OCLC:

1286806314