Mexican American Colonization During the Nineteenth Century

by José Angel Hernández

2012 · Cambridge University Press

This study examines various cases of return migration from the United States to Mexico throughout the nineteenth century. Mexico developed a robust immigration policy after becoming an independent nation in 1821, but was unable to attract European settlers for a variety of reasons. As the United States expanded toward Mexico's northern frontiers, Mexicans in those areas now lost to the United States were subsequently seen as an ideal group to colonize and settle the fractured republic.

Ethnic Entrepreneurs, Crony Capitalism, and the Making of the Franco-Mexican Elite

by José Galindo

2021 · University Alabama Press

A groundbreaking historical narrative of corruption and economic success in Mexico Ethnic Entrepreneurs, Crony Capitalism, and the Making of the Franco-Mexican Elite provides a new way to understand the scope and impact of crony capitalism on institutional development in Mexico. Beginning with the Porfiriato, the period between 1876 and 1911 named for the rule of President Porfirio Díaz, José Galindo identifies how certain behavioral patterns of the Mexican political and economic elite have repeated over the years, and analyzes aspects of the political economy that have persisted, shaping and at times curtailing Mexico’s economic development. Strong links between entrepreneurs and politicians have allowed elite businessmen to receive privileged support, such as cheap credit, tax breaks, and tariff protection, from different governments and to run their companies as monopolies. In turn, successive governments have obtained support from businesses to implement public policies, and, on occasion, public officials have received monetary restitution. Galindo notes that Mexico’s early twentieth-century institutional framework was weak and unequal to the task of reining in these systematic abuses. The cost to society was high and resulted in a lack of fair market competition, unequal income distribution, and stunted social mobility. The most important investors in the banking, commerce, and manufacturing sectors at the beginning of the twentieth century in Mexico were of French origin, and Galindo explains the formation of the Franco-Mexican elite. This Franco-Mexican narrative unfolds largely through the story of one of the richest families in Mexico, the Jeans, and their cotton textile empire. This family has maintained power and wealth through the current day as Emilio Azcárraga Jean, a great-grandson of one of the members of the first generation of the Jean family to arrive in Mexico, owns Televisa, a major mass media company with one of the largest audiences for Spanish-language content in the world.

El pensamiento económico del reformismo criollo

by José Antonio, Piqueras, Johanna, Von Grafenstein

2020 · Editorial Unimagdalena

En las décadas finales del siglo XVIII comenzó a difundirse en la América española un pensamiento que reaccionaba en contra de los monopolios, la exclusividad de la metrópoli y de los comerciantes favorecidos, las reglamentaciones excesivas y los privilegios que encarecían los precios y dificultaban los intercambios. El antiguo mercantilismo restringía la expansión y la prosperidad de las colonias, dificultando la introducción en el mercado de nuevos actores económicos de ambos lados del Atlántico. Se abrieron paso así las ideas que conformaban un “mercantilismo liberal” y un agrarismo orientado a los cultivos comerciales: una apertura todavía dentro del imperio. Las ideas reformistas procedentes de Europa eran adoptadas, reelaboradas y enriquecidas a la luz de las condiciones de América. El presente libro reúne catorce textos que se ocupan de la emergencia del pensamiento económico reformista en el siglo XVIII y comienzos del XIX, y de su contextualización histórica, introduciendo elementos para su mejor comprensión y la apertura de nuevas discusiones.