The Economic History of Mexico

Richard Salvucci, Trinity University

Preface[1]

This article is a brief interpretive survey of some of the major features of the economic history of Mexico from pre-conquest to the present. I begin with the pre-capitalist economy of Mesoamerica. The colonial period is divided into the Habsburg and Bourbon regimes, although the focus is not really political: the emphasis is instead on the consequences of demographic and fiscal changes that colonialism brought.  Next I analyze the economic impact of independence and its accompanying conflict. A tentative effort to reconstruct secular patterns of growth in the nineteenth century follows, as well as an account of the effects of foreign intervention, war, and the so-called “dictatorship” of Porfirio Diaz.  I then examine the economic consequences of the Mexican Revolution down through the presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas, before considering the effects of the Great Depression and World War II. This is followed by an examination of the so-called Mexican Miracle, the period of import-substitution industrialization after World War II. The end of the “miracle” and the rise of economic instability in the 1970s and 1980s are discussed in some detail. I conclude with structural reforms in the 1990s, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and slow growth in Mexico since then. It is impossible to be comprehensive and the references appearing in the citations are highly selective and biased (where possible) in favor of English-language works, although Spanish is a must for getting beyond the basics. This is especially true in economic history, where some of the most innovative and revisionist work is being done, as it should be, by historians and economists in Mexico.[2]

Where (and What) is Mexico?

For most of its long history, Mexico’s boundaries have been shifting, albeit broadly stable. Colonial Mexico basically stretched from Guatemala, across what is now California and the Southwestern United States, and vaguely into the Pacific Northwest.  There matters stood for more than three centuries[3]. The big shock came at the end of the War of 1847 (“the Mexican-American War” in U.S. history). The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) ended the war, but in so doing, ceded half of Mexico’s former territory to the United States—recall Texas had been lost in 1836. The northern boundary now ran on a line beginning with the Rio Grande to El Paso, and thence more or less west to the Pacific Ocean south of San Diego. With one major adjustment in 1853 (the Gadsden Purchase or Treaty of the Mesilla) and minor ones thereafter, because of the shifting of the Rio Grande, there it has remained.

Prior to the arrival of the Europeans, Mexico was a congeries of ethnic and city states whose own boundaries were unstable. Prior to the emergence of the most powerful of these states in the fifteenth century, the so-called Triple Alliance (popularly “Aztec Empire”), Mesoamerica consisted of cultural regions determined by political elites and spheres of influence that were dominated by large ceremonial centers such as La Venta, Teotihuacán, and Tula.

While such regions may have been dominant at different times, they were never “economically” independent of one another. At Teotihuacan, there were living quarters given over to Olmec residents from the Veracruz region, presumably merchants. Mesoamerica was connected, if not unified, by an ongoing trade in luxury goods and valuable stones such as jade, turquoise and precious feathers. This was not, however, trade driven primarily by factor endowments and relative costs. Climate and resource endowments did differ significantly over the widely diverse regions and microclimates of Mesoamerica. Yet trade was also political and ritualized in religious belief. For example, calling the shipment of turquoise from the (U.S.) Southwest to Central Mexico the outcome of market activity is an anachronism. In the very long run, such prehistorical exchange facilitated the later emergence of trade routes, roads, and more technologically advanced forms of transport. But arbitrage does not appear to have figured importantly in it.[4]

In sum, what we call “Mexico” in a modern sense is not of much use to the economic historian with an interest in the country before 1870, which is to say, the great bulk of its history. In these years, specificity of time and place, sometimes reaching to the village level, is an indispensable prerequisite for meaningful discussion. At the very least, it is usually advisable to be aware of substantial regional differences which reflect the ethnic and linguistic diversity of the country both before and after the arrival of the Europeans. There are fully ten language families in Mexico, and two of them, Nahuatl and Quiché, number over a million speakers each.[5]

Trade and Tribute before the Europeans

In the codices or deerskin folded paintings the Europeans examined (or actually commissioned), they soon became aware of a prominent form of Mesoamerican economic activity: tribute, or taxation in kind, or even labor services. In the absence of anything that served as money, tribute was forced exchange. Tribute has been interpreted as a means of redistribution in a nonmonetary economy. Social and political units formed a basis for assessment, and the goods collected included maize, beans, chile and cotton cloth. It was through the tribute the indigenous “empires” mobilized labor and resources. There is little or no evidence for the existence of labor or land markets to do so, for these were a European import, although marketplaces for goods existed in profusion.

To an extent, the preconquest reliance on barter economies and the absence of money largely accounts for the ubiquity of tribute. The absence of money is much more difficult to explain and was surely an obstacle to the growth of productivity in the indigenous economies.

The tribute was a near-universal attribute of Mesoamerican ceremonial centers and political empires. The city of Teotihuacan (ca. 600 CE, with a population of 125,000 or more) in central Mexico depended on tribute to support an upper stratum of priests and nobles while the tributary population itself lived at subsistence. Tlatelolco (ca 1520, with a population ranging from 50 to 100 thousand) drew maize, cotton, cacao, beans and precious feathers from a wide swath of territory that broadly extended from the Pacific to Gulf coasts that supported an upper stratum of priests, warriors, nobles, and merchants. It was this urban complex that sat atop the lagoons that filled the Valley of Mexico that so awed the arriving conquerors.

While the characterization of tribute as both a corvée and a tax in kind to support nonproductive populations is surely correct, its persistence in altered (i.e., monetized) form under colonial rule does suggest an important question. The tributary area of the Mexica (“Aztec” is a political term, not an ethnic one) broadly comprised a Pacific slope, a central valley, and a Gulf slope. These embrace a wide range of geographic features ranging from rugged volcanic highlands (and even higher snow-capped volcanoes) to marshy, humid coastal plains. Even today, travel through these regions is challenging. Lacking both the wheel and draught animals, the indigenous peoples relied on human transport, or, where possible, waterborne exchange. However we measure the costs of transportation, they were high. In the colonial period, they typically circumscribed the subsistence radius of markets to 25 to 35 miles. Under the circumstances, it is not easy to imagine that voluntary exchange, particularly between the coastal lowlands and the temperate to cold highlands and mountains, would be profitable for all but the most highly valued goods. In some parts of Mexico–as in the Andean region—linkages of family and kinship bound different regions together in a cult of reciprocal economic obligations. Yet absent such connections, it is not hard to imagine, for example, transporting woven cottons from the coastal lowlands to the population centers of the highlands could become a political obligation rather than a matter of profitable, voluntary exchange. The relatively ambiguous role of markets in both labor and goods that persisted into the nineteenth century may perhaps derive from just this combination of climatic and geographical characteristics. It is what made voluntary exchange under capitalistic markets such a puzzlingly problematic answer to the ordinary demands of economic activity.

[See the relief map below for the principal physical features of Mexico.]

http://www.igeograf.unam.mx/sigg/publicaciones/atlas/anm-2007/muestra_mapa.php?cual_mapa=MG_I_1.jpg

[See the political map below for Mexican states and state capitals.]

Used by permission of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin.

“New Spain” or Colonial Mexico: The First Phase

Mexico was established by military conquest and civil war. In the process, a civilization with its own institutions and complex culture was profoundly modified and altered, if not precisely destroyed, by the European invaders. The catastrophic elements of conquest, including the sharp decline of the existing indigenous population, from perhaps 25 million to fewer than a million within a century due to warfare, disease, social disorganization and the imposition of demands for labor and resources should nevertheless not preclude some assessment, however tentative, of its economic level in 1519, when the Europeans arrived.[6]

Recent thinking suggests that Spain was far from poor when it began its overseas expansion. If this were so, the implications of the Europeans’ reactions to what they found on the mainland of Mexico (not, significantly in the Caribbean, and, especially, in Cuba, where they were first established) is important. We have several accounts of the conquest of Mexico by the European participants, of which Bernal Díaz del Castillo is the best known, but not the only one. The reaction of the Europeans was almost uniformly astonishment by the apparent material wealth of Tenochtitlan. The public buildings, spacious residences of the temple precinct, the causeways linking the island to the shore, and the fantastic array of goods available in the marketplace evoked comparisons to Venice, Constantinople, and other wealthy centers of European civilization. While it is true that this was a view of the indigenous elite, the beneficiaries of the wealth accumulated from numerous tributaries, it hardly suggests anything other than a kind of storied opulence. Of course, the peasant commoners lived at subsistence and enjoyed no such privileges, but then so did the peasants of the society from which Bernal Díaz, Cortés, Pedro de Alvarado and the other conquerors were drawn. It is hard to imagine that the average standard of living in Mexico was any lower than that of the Iberian Peninsula. The conquerors remarked on the physical size and apparent robust health of the people whom they met, and from this, scholars such as Woodrow Borah and Sherburne Cook concluded that the physical size of the Europeans and the Mexicans was about the same. Borah and Cook surmised that caloric intake per individual in Central Mexico was around 1,900 calories per day, which certainly seems comparable to European levels.[7]

Certainly, the technological differences with Europe hampered commercial exchange, such as the absence of the wheel for transportation, metallurgy that did not include iron, and the exclusive reliance on pictographic writing systems. Yet by the same token, Mesoamerican agricultural technology was richly diverse and especially oriented toward labor-intensive techniques, well suited to pre-conquest Mexico’s factor endowments. As Gene Wilken points out, Bernardino de Sahagún explained in his General History of the Things of New Spain that the Nahua farmer recognized two dozen soil types related to origin, source, color, texture, smell, consistency and organic content.  They were expert at soil management.[8] So it is possible not only to misspecify, but to mistake the technological “backwardness” of Mesoamerica relative to Europe, and historians routinely have.

The essentially political and clan-based nature of economic activity made the distribution of output somewhat different from standard neoclassical models. Although no one seriously maintains that indigenous civilization did not include private property and, in fact, property rights in humans, the distribution of product tended to emphasize average rather than marginal product. If responsibility for tribute was collective, it is logical to suppose that there was some element of redistribution and collective claim on output by the basic social groups of indigenous society, the clans or calpulli.[9] Whatever the case, it seems clear that viewing indigenous society and economy as strained by population growth to the point of collapse, as the so-called “Berkeley school” did in the 1950s, is no longer tenable. It is more likely that the tensions exploited by the Europeans to divide and conquer their native hosts and so erect a colonial state on pre-existing native entities were mainly political rather than socioeconomic. It was through the assistance of native allies such as the Tlaxcalans, as well as with the help of previously unknown diseases such as smallpox that ravaged the indigenous peoples, that the Europeans were able to place a weakened Tenochtitlan under siege and finally defeat it.

Colonialism and Economic Adjustment to Population Decline

With the subjection first of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco and then of other polities and peoples, a process that would ultimately stretch well into the nineteenth century and was never really completed, the Europeans turned their attention to making colonialism pay. The process had several components: the modification or introduction of institutions of rule and appropriation; the introduction of new flora and fauna that could be turned to economic use; the reorientation of a previously autarkic and precapitalist economy to the demands of trade and commercial exploitation; and the implementation of European fiscal sovereignty. These processes were complex, required much time, and were, in many cases, only partly successful. There is considerable speculation regarding how long it took before Spain (arguably a relevant term by the mid-sixteenth century) made colonialism pay. The best we can do is present a schematic view of what occurred. Regional variations were enormous: a “typical” outcome or institution of colonialism may well have been an outcome visible in central Mexico. Moreover, all generalizations are fragile, rest on limited quantitative evidence, and will no doubt be substantially modified eventually. The message is simple: proceed with caution.

The Europeans did not seek to take Mesoamerica as a tabula rasa. In some ways, they would have been happy to simply become the latest in a long line of ruling dynasties established by decapitating native elites and assuming control. The initial demand of the conquerors for access to native labor in the so-called encomienda was precisely that, with the actual task of governing be left to the surviving and collaborating elite: the principle of “indirect rule.”[10] There were two problems with this strategy: the natives resisted and the natives died. They died in such large numbers as to make the original strategy impracticable.

The number of people who lived in Mesoamerica has long been a subject of controversy, but there is no point in spelling it out once again. The numbers are unknowable and, in an economic sense, not really important. The population of Tenochtitlan has been variously estimated between 50 and 200 thousand individuals, depending on the instruments of estimation.  As previously mentioned, some estimates of the Central Mexican population range as high as 25 million on the eve of the European conquest, and virtually no serious student accepts the small population estimates based on the work of Angel Rosenblatt. The point is that labor was abundant relative to land, and that the small surpluses of a large tributary population must have supported the opulent elite that Bernal Díaz and his companions described.

By 1620, or thereabouts, the indigenous population had fallen to less than a million according to Cook and Borah. This is not just the quantitative speculation of modern historical demographers. Contemporaries such as Jerónimo de Mendieta in his Historia eclesiástica Indiana (1596) spoke of towns formerly densely populated now witness to “the palaces of those former Lords ruined or on the verge of. The homes of the commoners mostly empty, roads and streets deserted, churches empty on feast days, the few Indians who populate the towns in Spanish farms and factories.” Mendieta was an eyewitness to the catastrophic toll that European microbes and warfare took on the native population. There was a smallpox epidemic in 1519-20 when 5 to 8 million died. The epidemic of hemorrhagic fever in 1545 to 1548 was one of the worst demographic catastrophes in human history, killing 5 to 15 million people. And then again in 1576 to 1578, when 2 to 2.5 million people died, we have clear evidence that land prices in the Valley of Mexico (Coyoacán, a village outside Mexico City, as the reconstructed Tenochtitlán was called) collapsed. The death toll was staggering. Lesser outbreaks were registered in 1559, 1566, 1587, 1592, 1601, 1604, 1606, 1613, 1624, and 1642. The larger point is that the intensive use of native labor, such as the encomienda, had to come to an end, whatever its legal status had become by virtue of the New Laws (1542). The encomienda or the simple exploitation of massive numbers of indigenous workers was no longer possible. There were too few “Indians” by the end of the sixteenth century.[11]

As a result, the institutions and methods of economic appropriation were forced to change. The Europeans introduced pastoral agriculture – the herding of cattle and sheep – and the use of now abundant land and scarce labor in the form of the hacienda while the remaining natives were brought together in “villages” whose origins were not essentially pre- but post-conquest, the so-called congregaciones, at the same time that the titles to now-vacant lands were created, regularized and “composed.”[12] (Land titles were a European innovation as well). Sheep and cattle, which the Europeans introduced, became part of the new institutional backbone of the colony. The natives would continue to rely on maize for the better part of their subsistence, but the Europeans introduced wheat, olives (oil), grapes (wine) and even chickens, which the natives rapidly adopted. On the whole, the results of these alterations were complex. Some scholars argue that the native diet improved even in the face of their diminishing numbers, a consequence of increased land per person and of greater variety of foodstuffs, and that the agricultural potential of the colony now called New Spain was enhanced. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the combined indigenous, European immigrant, and new mixed blood populations could largely survive on the basis of their own production. The introduction of sheep lead to the introduction and manufacture of woolens in what were called obrajes or manufactories in Puebla, Querétaro, and Coyoacán. The native peoples continued to produce cottons (a domestic crop) under the stimulus of European organization, lending, and marketing. Extensive pastoralism, the cultivation of cereals and even the incorporation of native labor then characterized the emergence of the great estates or haciendas, which became a characteristic rural institution through the twentieth century, when the Mexican Revolution put an end to many of them. Thus the colony of New Spain continued to feed, clothe and house itself independent of metropolitan Spain’s direction. Certainly, Mexico before the Conquest was self-sufficient. The extent to which the immigrant and American Spaniard or creole population depended on imports of wine, oil and other foodstuffs and textiles in the decades immediately following the conquest is much less clear.

At the same time, other profound changes accompanied the introduction of Europeans, their crops and their diseases into what they termed the “kingdom” (not colony, for constitutional reasons) of New Spain.[13] Prior to the conquest, land and labor had been commoditized, but not to any significant extent, although there was a distinction recognized between possession and ownership.  Scholars who have closely examined the emergence of land markets after the conquest—mainly in the Valley of Mexico—are virtually unanimous in this conclusion. To the extent that markets in labor and commodities had emerged, it took until the 1630s (and later elsewhere in New Spain) for the development to reach maturity. Even older mechanisms of allocation of labor by administrative means (repartimiento) or by outright coercion persisted. Purely economic incentives in the form of money wages and prices never seemed adequate to the job of mobilizing resources and those with access to political power were reluctant to pay a competitive wage. In New Spain, the use of some sort of political power or rent-seeking nearly always accompanied labor recruitment. It was, quite simply, an attempt to evade the implications of relative scarcity, and renders the entire notion of “capitalism” as a driving economic force in colonial Mexico quite inexact.

Why the Settlers Resisted the Implications of Scarce Labor

The reasons behind this development are complex and varied. The evidence we have for the Valley of Mexico demonstrates that the relative price of labor rose while the relative price of land fell even when nominal movements of one or the other remained fairly limited. For instance, the table constructed below demonstrates that from 1570-75 through 1591-1606, the price of unskilled labor in the Valley of Mexico nearly tripled while the price of land in the Valley (Coyoacán) fell by nearly two thirds. On the whole, the price of labor relative to land increased by nearly 800 percent. The evolution of relative prices would have inevitably worked against the demanders of labor (Europeans and increasingly, creoles or Americans of largely European ancestry) and in favor of the supplier (native labor, or people of mixed race generically termed mestizo). This was not of course what the Europeans had in mind and by capture of legal institutions (local magistrates, in particularly), frequently sought to substitute compulsion for what would have been costly “free labor.” What has been termed the “depression” of the seventeenth century may well represent one of the consequences of this evolution: an abundance of land, a scarcity of labor, and the attempt of the new rulers to adjust to changing relative prices. There were repeated royal prohibitions on the use of forced indigenous labor in both public and private works, and thus a reduction in the supply of labor. All highly speculative, no doubt, but the adjustment came during the central decades of the seventeenth century, when New Spain increasingly produced its own woolens and cottons, and largely assumed the tasks of providing itself with foodstuffs and was thus required to save and invest more.  No doubt, the new rulers felt the strain of trying to do more with less.[14]

Source: Calculated from Rebecca Horn, Postconquest Coyoacan: Nahua-Spanish Relations in Central Mexico, 1519-1650 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), p. 208 and José Ignacio Urquiola Permisan, “Salarios y precios en la industria manufacturer textile de la lana en Nueva España, 1570-1635,” in Virginia García Acosta, (ed.), Los precios de alimentos y manufacturas novohispanos (México, DF: CIESAS, 1995), p. 206.

The overall role of Mexico within the Hapsburg Empire was in flux as well. Nothing signals the change as much as the emergence of silver mining as the principal source of Mexican exportables in the second half of the sixteenth century. While Mexico would soon be eclipsed by Peru as the most productive center of silver mining—at least until the eighteenth century—the discovery of significant silver mines in Zacatecas in the 1540s transformed the economy of the Spanish empire and the character of New Spain’s as well.

Silver Mining

While silver mining and smelting was practiced before the conquest, it was never a focal point of indigenous activity. But for the Europeans, Mexico was largely about silver mining. From the mid- sixteenth century onward, it was explicitly understood by the viceroys that they were to do all in their power to “favor the mines,” as one memorable royal instruction enjoined. Again, there has been much controversy of the precise amounts of silver that Mexico sent to the Iberian Peninsula. What we do know certainly is that Mexico (and the Spanish Empire) became the leading source of silver, monetary reserves, and thus, of high-powered money. Over the course of the colonial period, most sources agree that Mexico provided nearly 2 billion pesos (dollars) or roughly 1.6 billion troy ounces to the world economy. The graph below provides a picture of the remissions of all Mexican silver to both Spain and to the Philippines taken from the work of John TePaske.[15]

Since the population of Mexico under Spanish rule was at most 6 million people by the end of the colonial period, the kingdom’s silver output could only be considered astronomical.

This production has to be considered in both its domestic and international dimensions. From a domestic perspective, the mines were what a later generation of economists would call “growth poles.” They were markets in which inputs were transformed into tradable outputs at a much higher rate of productivity (because of mining’s relatively advanced technology) than Mexico’s other activities. Silver thus became Mexico’s principal exportable good, and remained so well into the late nineteenth century.  The residual claimants on silver production were many and varied.  There were, of course the silver miners themselves in Mexico and their merchant financiers and suppliers. They ranged from some of the wealthiest people in the world at the time, such as the Count of Regla (1710-1781), who donated warships to Spain in the eighteenth century, to individual natives in Zacatecas smelting their own stocks of silver ore.[16] While the conditions of labor in Mexico’s silver mines were almost uniformly bad, the compensation ranged from above market wages paid to free labor in the prosperous larger mines  of the Bajío and the North to the use of forced village  labor drafts in more marginal (and presumably less profitable) sites such as Taxco. In the Iberian Peninsula, income from American silver mines ultimately supported not only a class of merchant entrepreneurs in the large port cities, but virtually the core of the Spanish political nation, including monarchs, royal officials, churchmen, the military and more. And finally, silver flowed to those who valued it most highly throughout the world. It is generally estimated that 40 percent of Spain’s American (not just Mexican, but Peruvian as well) silver production ended up in hoards in China.

Within New Spain, mining centers such as Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, and Zacatecas became places where economic growth took place rapidly, in which labor markets more readily evolved, and in which the standard of living became obviously higher than in neighboring regions. Mining centers tended to crowd out growth elsewhere because the rate of return for successful mines exceeded what could be gotten in commerce, agriculture and manufacturing. Because silver was the numeraire for Mexican prices—Mexico was effectively on a silver standard—variations in silver production could and did have substantial effects on real economic activity elsewhere in New Spain. There is considerable evidence that silver mining saddled Mexico with an early case of “Dutch disease” in which irreducible costs imposed by the silver standard ultimately rendered manufacturing and the production of other tradable goods in New Spain uncompetitive. For this reason, the expansion of Mexican silver production in the years after 1750 was never unambiguously accompanied by overall, as opposed to localized prosperity. Silver mining tended to absorb a disproportional quantity of resources and to keep New Spain’s price level high, even when the business cycle slowed down—a fact that was to impress visitors to Mexico well into the nineteenth century. Mexican silver accounted for well over three-quarters of exports by value into the nineteenth century as well. The estimates vary widely, for silver was by no means the only, or even the most important source of revenue to the Crown, but by the end of the colonial era, the Kingdom of New Spain probably accounted for 25 percent of the Crown’s imperial income.[17] That is why reformist proposals circulating in governing circles in Madrid in the late eighteenth century fixed on Mexico. If there was any threat to the American Empire, royal officials thought that Mexico, and increasingly, Cuba, were worth holding on to. From a fiscal standpoint, Mexico had become just that important.[18]

“New Spain”: The Second Phase                of the Bourbon “Reforms”

In 1700, the last of the Spanish Hapsburgs died and a disputed succession followed. The ensuring conflict, known as the War of Spanish Succession, came to an end in 1714. The grandson of French king Louis XIV came to the Spanish throne as King Philip V. The dynasty he represented was known as the Bourbons. For the next century of so, they were to determine the fortunes of New Spain. Traditionally, the Bourbons, especially the later ones, have been associated with an effort to “renationalize” the Spanish empire in America after it had been thoroughly penetrated by French, Dutch, and lastly, British commercial interests.[19]

There were at least two areas in which the Bourbon dynasty, “reformist” or no, affected the Mexican economy. One of them dealt with raising revenue and the other was the international position of the imperial economy, specifically, the volume and value of trade. A series of statistics calculated by Richard Garner shows that the share of Mexican output or estimated GDP taken by taxes grew by 167 percent between 1700 and 1800. The number of taxes collected by the Royal Treasury increased from 34 to 112 between 1760 and 1810. This increase, sometimes labelled as a Bourbon “reconquest” of Mexico after a century and a half of drift under the Hapsburgs, occurred because of Spain’s need to finance increasingly frequent and costly wars of empire in the eighteenth century. An entire array of new taxes and fiscal placemen came to Mexico. They affected (and alienated) everyone, from the wealthiest merchant to the humblest villager. If they did nothing else, the Bourbons proved to be expert tax collectors.[20]

The second and equally consequential change in imperial management lay in the revision and “deregulation” of New Spain’s international trade, or the evolution from a “fleet” system to a regime of independent sailings, and then, finally, of voyages to and from a far larger variety of metropolitan and colonial ports. From the mid-sixteenth century onwards, ocean-going trade between Spain and the Americas was, in theory, at least, closely regulated and supervised. Ships in convoy (flota) sailed together annually under license from the monarchy and returned together as well. Since so much silver specie was carried, the system made sense, even if the flotas made a tempting target and the problem of contraband was immense. The point of departure was Seville and later, Cadiz. Under pressure from other outports in the late eighteenth century, the system was finally relaxed. As a consequence, the volume and value of trade to Mexico increased as the price of importables fell. Import-competing industries in Mexico, especially textiles, suffered under competition and established merchants complained that the new system of trade was too loose. But to no avail. There is no measure of the barter terms of trade for the eighteenth century, but anecdotal evidence suggests they improved for Mexico. Nevertheless, it is doubtful that these gains could have come anywhere close to offsetting the financial cost of Spain’s “reconquest” of Mexico.[21]

On the other hand, the few accounts of per capita real income growth in the eighteenth century that exist suggest little more than stagnation, the result of population growth and a rising price level. Admittedly, looking for modern economic growth in Mexico in the eighteenth century is an anachronism, although there is at least anecdotal evidence of technological change in silver mining, especially in the use of gunpowder for blasting and excavating, and of some productivity increase in silver mining. So even though the share of international trade outside of goods such as cochineal and silver was quite small, at the margin, changes in the trade regime were important. There is also some indication that asset income rose and labor income fell, which fueled growing social tensions in New Spain. In the last analysis, the growing fiscal pressure of the Spanish empire came when the standard of living for most people in Mexico—the native and mixed blood population—was stagnating. During periodic subsistence crisis, especially those propagated by drought and epidemic disease, and mostly in the 1780s, living standards fell. Many historians think of late colonial Mexico as something of a powder keg waiting to explode. When it did, in 1810, the explosion was the result of a political crisis at home and a dynastic failure abroad. What New Spain had negotiated during the Wars of Spanish Succession—regime change– provide impossible to surmount during the Napoleonic Wars (1794-1815). This may well be the most sensitive indicator of how economic conditions changed in New Spain under the heavy, not to say clumsy hand, of the Bourbon “reforms.”[22]

The War for Independence, the Insurgency, and Their Legacy

The abdication of the Bourbon monarchy to Napoleon Bonaparte in 1808 produced a series of events that ultimately resulted in the independence of New Spain. The rupture was accompanied by a violent peasant rebellion headed by the clerics Miguel Hidalgo and José Morelos that, one way or another, carried off 10 percent of the population between 1810 and 1820. Internal commerce was largely paralyzed. Silver mining essentially collapsed between 1810 and 1812 and a full recovery of mining output was delayed until the 1840s. The mines located in zones of heavy combat, such as Guanajuato and Querétaro, were abandoned by fleeing workers. Thus neglected, they quickly flooded.

At the same time, the fiscal and human costs of this period, the Insurgency, were even greater.[23] The heavy borrowings in which the Bourbons engaged to finance their military alliances left Mexico with a considerable legacy of internal debt, estimated at £16 million at Independence. The damage to the fiscal, bureaucratic and administrative structure of New Spain in the face of the continuing threat of Spanish reinvasion (Spain did not recognize the Independence of Mexico (1821)) in the 1820s drove the independent governments into foreign borrowing on the London market to the tune of £6.4 million in order to finance continuing heavy military outlays. With a reduced fiscal capacity, in part the legacy of the Insurgency and in part the deliberate effort of Mexican elites to resist any repetition Bourbon-style taxation, Mexico defaulted on its foreign debt in 1827. For the next sixty years, through a serpentine history of moratoria, restructuring and repudiation (1867), it took until 1884 for the government to regain access to international capital markets, at what cost can only be imagined. Private sector borrowing and lending continued, although to what extent is currently unknown. What is clear is that the total (internal plus external) indebtedness of Mexico relative to late colonial GDP was somewhere in the range of 47 to 56 percent.[24]

This was, perhaps, not an insubstantial amount for a country whose mechanisms of public finance were in what could be mildly termed chaotic condition in the 1820s and 1830s as the form, philosophy, and mechanics of government oscillated from federalist to centralist and back into the 1850s.  Leaving aside simple questions of uncertainty, there is the very real matter that the national government—whatever the state of private wealth—lacked the capacity to service debt because national and regional elites denied it the means to do so. This issue would bedevil successive regimes into the late nineteenth century, and, indeed, into the twentieth.[25]

At the same time, the demographic effects of the Insurgency exacted a cost in terms of lost output from the 1810s through the 1840s. Gaping holes in the labor force emerged, especially in the fertile agricultural plains of the Bajío that created further obstacles to the growth of output. It is simply impossible to generalize about the fortunes of the Mexican economy in this period because of the dramatic regional variations in the Republic’s economy. A rough estimate of output per head in the late colonial period was perhaps 40 pesos (dollars).[26] After a sharp contraction in the 1810s, income remained in that neighborhood well into the 1840s, at least until the eve of the war with the United States in 1846. By the time United States troops crossed the Rio Grande, a recovery had been under way, but the war arrested it. Further political turmoil and civil war in the 1850s and 1860s represented setbacks as well. In this way, a half century or so of potential economic growth was sacrificed from the 1810s through the 1870s. This was not an uncommon experience in Latin America in the nineteenth century, and the period has even been called The Stage of the Great Delay.[27] Whatever the exact rate of real per capita income growth was, it is hard to imagine it ever exceeded two percent, if indeed it reached much more than half that.

Agricultural Recovery and War

On the other hand, it is clear that there was a recovery in agriculture in the central regions of the country, most notably in the staple maize crop and in wheat. The famines of the late colonial era, especially of 1785-86, when massive numbers perished, were not repeated. There were years of scarcity and periodic corresponding outbreaks of epidemic disease—the cholera epidemic of 1832 affected Mexico as it did so many other places—but by and large, the dramatic human wastage of the colonial period ceased, and the death rate does appear to have begun to fall. Very good series on wheat deliveries and retail sales taxes for the city of Puebla southeast of Mexico City show a similarly strong recovery in the 1830s and early 1840s, punctuated only by the cholera epidemic whose effects were felt everywhere.[28]

Ironically, while the Panic of 1837 appears to have at least hit the financial economy in Mexico hard with a dramatic fall in public borrowing (and private lending), especially in the capital,[29] an incipient recovery of the real economy was ended by war with the United States. It is not possible to put numbers on the cost of the war to Mexico, which lasted intermittently from 1846 to 1848, but the loss of what had been the Southwest under Mexico is most often emphasized. This may or may not be accurate. Certainly, the loss of California, where gold was discovered in January 1848, weighs heavily on the historical imaginations of modern Mexicans. There is also the sense that the indemnity paid by the United States–$15 million—was wholly inadequate, which seems at least understandable when one considers that Andrew Jackson offered $5 million to purchase Texas alone in 1829.

It has been estimated that the agricultural output of the Mexican “cession” as it was called in 1900, was nearly $64 million, and that the value of livestock in the territory was over $100 million. The value of gold and silver produced was about $35 million. Whether it is reasonable to employ the numbers in estimating the present value of output relative to the indemnity paid is at least debatable as a counterfactual, unless one chooses to regard this as the annuitized value on a perpetuity “purchased” from Mexico at gunpoint, which seems more like robbery than exchange.  In the long run, the loss may have been staggering, but in the short run, much less so. The northern territories Mexico lost had really yielded very little up until the War. In fact, the balance of costs and revenues to the Mexican government may well have been negative.[30]

Whatever the case, the decades following the war with the United States until the beginning of the administration of Porfirio Díaz (1876) are typically regarded as a step backward. The reasons are several. In 1850, the government essentially went broke. While it is true that its financial position had disintegrated since the mid-1830s, 1850 marked a turning point. The entire indemnity payment from the United States was consumed in debt service, but this made no appreciable dent in the outstanding principal, which hovered around 50 million pesos (dollars).  The limits of debt sustainability had been reached: governing was turned into a wild search for resources, which proved fruitless. Mexico continued to sell of parts of its territory, such as the Treaty of the Mesilla (1853), or Gadsden Purchase, whose proceeds largely ended up in the hands of domestic financiers rather than foreign creditors’.[31] Political divisions, if anything, terrible before the war with the United States, turned catastrophic. A series of internal revolts, uprisings and military pronouncements segued into yet another violent civil war between liberals and conservatives—now a formal party—the so-called Three Years’ War (1856-58). In 1862, frustrated by Mexico’s suspension of foreign debt service, Great Britain, Spain and France seized Veracruz. A Hapsburg prince, Maximilian, was installed as Mexico’s second “emperor.” (Agustín de Iturbide was the first). While only the French actively prosecuted the war within Mexico, and while they never controlled more than a very small part of the country, the disruption was substantial. By 1867, with Maximillian deposed and the French army withdrawn, the country required serious reconstruction. [32]

Juárez, Díaz and the Porfiriato: authoritarian development.

To be sure, the origins of authoritarian development in nineteenth century Mexico were not with Porfirio Díaz, as is often asserted. Their beginnings actually went back several decades earlier, to the last presidency of Santa Anna, generally known as the Dictatorship (1853-54). But Santa Anna was overthrown too quickly, and now for the last time, for much to have actually occurred. A ministry for development (Fomento) had been created, but the Liberal revolution of Ayutla swept Santa Anna and his clique away for good. Serious reform seems to have begun around 1870, when the Finance Minister was Matías Romero. Romero was intent on providing Mexico with a modern Treasury, and on ending the hand-to- mouth financing that had mostly characterized the country’s government since Independence, or at least since the mid-1830s. So it is appropriate to pick up with the story here. Where did Mexico stand in 1870?[33]

The most revealing data that we have on the state of economic development come from various anthropometric and cost of living studies by Amilcar Challu, Aurora Gómez Galvarriato, and Moramay López Alonso.[34] Their research overlaps in part, and gives a fascinating picture of Mexico in the long run, from 1735 to 1940. For the moment, let us look at the period leading up to 1867, when the French withdrew from Mexico. If we look at the heights of the “literate” population, Challu’s research suggests that the standard of living stagnated between 1750 and 1840. If we look at the “illiterate” population, there was a consistent decline until 1850. Since the share of the illiterate population was clearly larger, we might infer that living standards for most Mexicans declined after 1750, however we interpret other quantitative and anecdotal evidence.

López Alonso confines her work to the period after the 1840s. From 1850 through 1890, her work generally corroborates Challu’s. The period after the Mexican War was clearly a difficult one for most Mexicans, and the challenge that both Juárez and Díaz faced was a macroeconomy in frank contraction after 1850. The regimes after 1867 were faced with stagnation.

The real wage study of by Amilcar Challu and Aurora Gómez Galvarriato, when combined with the existing anthropometric work, offers a pretty clear correlation between movements in real wages (down) and height (falling). [35]

It would then appear growth from the 1850s through the 1870s was slow—if there was any at all—and perhaps inferior to what had come between the 1820s and the 1840s. Given the growth of import substitution during the Napoleonic Wars, roughly 1790-1810, coupled with the commercial opening brought by the Bourbons’   post-1789 extension of “free trade” to Mexico, we might well see a pattern of mixed performance (1790-1810), sharp contraction (the 1810s), rebound and recovery, with a sharp financial shocks coming in the mid-1820s and mid -1830s (1820s-1840s), and stagnation once more (1850s-1870s). Real per capita output oscillated, sometimes sharply, around an underlying growth rate of perhaps one percent; changes in the distribution of income and wealth are more or less impossible to identify consistently, because studies conflict.

Far less speculative is that the foundations for modern economic growth were laid down in Mexico during the era of Benito Juárez. Its key elements were the creation of a secular, bourgeois state and secular institutions embedded in the Constitution of 1857. The titanic ideological struggles between liberals and conservatives were ultimately resolved in favor of a liberal, but nevertheless centralizing form of government under Porfirio Diáz. This was the beginning of the end of the Ancien Regime. Under Juárez, corporate lands of the Church and native villages were privatized in favor of individual holdings and their former owners compensated in bonds. This was effectively the largest transfer of land title since the late sixteenth century (not including the war with the United States) and it cemented the idea of individual property rights. With the expulsion of the French and the outright repudiation of the French debt, the Treasury was reorganized along more modern lines. The country got additional breathing room by the suspension of debt service to Great Britain until the terms of the 1825 loans were renegotiated under the Dublán Convention (1884). Equally, if not more important, Mexico now entered the railroad age in 1876, nearly forty years after the first tracks were laid in Cuba in 1837. The educational system was expanded in an attempt to create at least a core of literate citizens who could adopt the tools of modern finance and technology. Literacy still remained in the neighborhood of 20 percent, and life expectancy at birth scarcely reached 40 years of age, if that. Yet by the end of the Restored Republic (1876), Mexico had turned a corner. There would be regressions, but the nineteenth century had finally arrived, aptly if brutally signified by Juárez’ execution of Maximilian in Querétaro in 1867.[36]

Porfirian Mexico

Yet when Díaz came to power, Mexico was, in many ways, much as it had been a century earlier. It was a rural, agrarian nation whose primary agricultural output per person was maize, followed by wheat and beans. These were produced on haciendas and ranchos in Jalisco, Guanajuato, Michoacán, Mexico, Puebla as well as Oaxaca, Veracruz, Aguascalientes, Chihuahua and Sonora. Cotton, which with great difficulty had begun to supply a mechanized factory regime (first in spinning, then weaving) was produced in Oaxaca, Yucatán, Guerrero and Chiapas as well as in parts of Durango and Coahuila. Domestic production of raw cotton rarely sufficed to supply factories in Michoacán, Querétaro, Puebla and Veracruz, so imports from the Southern United States were common. For the most part, the indigenous population lived on maize, beans, and chile, producing its own subsistence on small, scattered plots known as milpas. Perhaps 75 percent of the population was rural, with the remainder to be found in cities like Mexico, Guadalajara, San Luis Potosí, and later, Monterrey. Population growth in the Southern and Eastern parts of the country had been relatively slow in the nineteenth century. The North and the center North grew more rapidly.  The Center of the country, less so. Immigration from abroad had been of no consequence.[37]

It is a commonplace to see the presidency of Porfirio Díaz (1876-1910) as a critical juncture in Mexican history, and this would be no less true of economic or commercial history as well. By 1910, when the Díaz government fell and Mexico descended into two decades of revolution, the first one extremely violent, the face of the country had been changed for good. The nature and effect of these changes remain not only controversial, but essential for understanding the subsequent evolution of the country, so we should pause here to consider some of their essential features.

While mining and especially, silver mining, had long held a privileged place in the economy, the nineteenth century had witnessed a number of significant changes. Until about 1889, the coinage of gold, silver, and copper—a very rough proxy for production given how much silver had been illegally exported—continued on a steadily upward track. In 1822, coinage was about 10 million pesos. By 1846, it had reached roughly 15 million pesos. There was something of a structural break after the war with the United States (its origins are unclear), and coinage continued upward to about 25 million pesos in 1888. Then, the falling international price of silver, brought on by large increases in supply elsewhere, drove the trend after 1889 sharply downward. By 1909-10, coinage had collapsed to levels previously unrecorded since the 1820s, although in 1904 and 1905, it had skyrocketed to nearly 45 million pesos.[38]

It comes as no surprise that these variations in production corresponded to sharp changes in international relative prices. For example, the market price of silver declined sharply relative to lead, which in turn encountered a large increase in Mexican production and a diversification into other metals including zinc, antinomy, and copper. Mexico left the silver standard (for international transactions, but continued to use silver domestically) in 1905, which contributed to the eclipse of this one crucial industry, which would never again have the status it had when Díaz became president in 1876, when precious metals represented 75 percent of Mexican exports by value. By the time he had decamped in exile to Paris, precious metals accounted for less than half of all exports.

The reason for this relative decline was the diversification of agricultural exports that had been slowly occurring since the 1870s. Coffee, cotton, sugar, sisal and vanilla were the principal crops, and some regions of the country such as Yucatán (henequen) and Durango and Tamaulipas (cotton) supplied new export crops.

Railroads and Infrastructure

None of be of this would have occurred without the massive changes in land tenure that had begun in the 1850s, but most of all, without the construction of railroads financed by the migration of foreign capital to Mexico under Díaz. At one level, it is a well-known story of social savings, which were substantial in Mexico because the terrain was difficult and the alternative modes of carriage few. One way or another, transportation has always been viewed as an “obstacle” to Mexican economic development. That must be true at some level, although recent studies (especially by Sandra Kuntz) have raised important qualifications. Railroads may not have been gateways to foreign dependency, as historians once argued, but there were limits to their ability to effect economic change, even internally. They tended to enlarge the internal market for some commodities more than others. The peculiarities of rate-making produced other distortions, while markets for some commodities were inevitably concentrated in major cities or transshipment points which afforded some monopoly power to distributors even as a national market in basic commodities became more of a reality. Yet, in general, the changes were far reaching.[39]

Conventional figures confirm conventional wisdom. When Díaz assumed the presidency, there were 660 km (410 miles) of track. In 1910, there were 19,280 km (about 12,000 miles). Seven major lines linked the cities of Mexico, Veracruz, Acapulco, Juárez, Laredo, Puebla, Oaxaca. Monterrey and Tampico in 1892. The lines were built by foreign capital (e.g., the Central Mexicano was built by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe), which is why resolving the long-standing questions of foreign debt service were critical. Large government subsidies on the order of 3,500 to 8,000 pesos per km were granted, and financing the subsidies amounted to over 30 million pesos by 1890. While the railroads were successful in creating more of a national market, especially in the North, their finances were badly affected by the depreciation of the silver peso, given that foreign liabilities had to be liquidated in gold.

As a result, the government nationalized the railroads in 1903. At the same time, it undertook an enormous effort to construct infrastructure such as drainage and ports, virtually all of which were financed by British capital and managed by “Don Porfirio’s contactor,” Sir Weetman Pearson.  Between railroads, ports, drainage works and irrigation facilities, the Mexican government borrowed 157 million pesos to finance costs.[40]

The expansion of the railroads, the build-out of infrastructure and the expansion of trade would have normally increased output per capita. Any data we have prior to 1930 are problematic, and before 1895, strictly speaking, we have no official measures of output per capita at all. Most scholars shy away from using levels of GDP in any form, other than for illustrative purposes.  Aside from the usual problems attending national income accounting, Mexico presents a few exceptional challenges. In peasant families, where women were entrusted with converting maize into tortilla, no small job, the omission of their value added from GDP must constitute a sizeable defect in measured output. Moreover, as the commercial radius of Mexican agriculture expanded rapidly as railroads, roads, and later, highways spread extensively, growth rates represented increased commercialization rather than increased growth. We have no idea how important this phenomenon was, but it is worth keeping in mind when we look at very rapid growth rates after 1940.

There are various measures of cumulative growth during the Porfiriato. By and large, the figure from 1900 through 1910 is around 23 percent, which is certainly higher than rates achieved during the nineteenth century, but nothing like what was recorded after 1940. In light of declining real wages, one can only assume that the bulk of “progress” flowed to the recipients of property income. This may well have represented a reversal of trends in the nineteenth century, when some argue that property income contracted in the wake of the Insurgency[41].

There was also significant industrialization in Mexico during the Porfiriato. Some industry, especially textiles, had its origins in the 1840s, but its size, scale and location altered dramatically by the end of the nineteenth century. For example, the cotton textile industry saw the number of workers, spindles and looms more than double from the late 1870s to the first decade of the nineteenth century. Brewing and its associated industry, glassmaking, became well established in Monterrey during the 1890s. The country’s first iron and steel mill, Fundidora Monterrey, was established there as well in 1903. Other industries, such as papermaking and cigarettes followed suit. By the end of the Porfiriato, over 10 percent of Mexico’s output was certainly industrial.[42]

From Revolution to “Miracle”

The Mexican Revolution (1910-1940) began as a political upheaval provoked by a crisis in the presidential succession when Porfirio Díaz refused to leave office in the wake of electoral defeat after signaling his willingness to do so in a famous pubic interview of 1908.[43] It was also the result of an agrarian uprising and the insistent demand of Mexico’s growing industrial proletariat for a share of political power. Finally, there was a small (fewer than 10 percent of all households) but upwardly mobile urban middle class created by economic development under Díaz whose access to political power had been effectively blocked by the regime’s mechanics of political control. Precisely how “revolutionary” were the results of the armed revolt—which persisted largely through the 1910s and peaked in a civil war in 1914-1915—has long been contentious, but is only tangentially relevant as a matter of economic history. The Mexican Revolution was no Bolshevik movement (of course, it predated Bolshevism by seven years) but it was not a purely bourgeois constitutional movement either, although it did contain substantial elements of both.

From a macroeconomic standpoint, it has become fashionable to argue that the Revolution had few, if any, profound economic consequences. It seems as if the principal reason was that revolutionary factions were interested in appropriating rather than destroying the means of production. For example, the production of crude oil peaked in Mexico in 1915—at the height of the Revolution—because crude oil could be used as a source of income to the group controlling the wells in Veracruz state. This was a powerful consideration.[44]

Yet in another sense, the conclusion that the Revolution had slight economic effects is not only facile, but obviously wrong. As the demographic historian Robert McCaa showed, the excess mortality occasioned by the Revolution was larger than any similar event in Mexican history other than the conquest in the sixteenth century. There has been no attempt made to measure the output lost by the demographic wastage (including births that never occurred), yet even the effect on the population cohort born between 1910 and 1920 is plain to see in later demographic studies.  [45]

There is also a subtler question that some scholars have raised. The Revolution increased labor mobility and the labor supply by abolishing constraints on the rural population such as debt peonage and even outright slavery. Moreover, the Revolution, by encouraging and ultimately setting into motion a massive redistribution of previously privatized land, contributed to an enlarged supply of that factor of production as well. The true impact of these developments was realized in the 1940s and 1950s, when rapid economic growth began, the so-called Mexican Miracle, which was characterized by rates of real growth of as much as 6 percent per year (1955-1966). Whatever the connection between the Revolution and the Miracle, it will require a serious examination on empirical grounds and not simply a dogmatic dismissal of what is now regarded as unfashionable development thinking: import substitution and inward-oriented growth.[46]

The other major consequence of the Revolution, the agrarian reform and the creation of the ejido, or land granted by the Mexican state to rural population under the authority provided it by the revolutionary Constitution on 1917 took considerable time to coalesce, and were arguably not even high on one of the Revolution’s principal instigators, Francisco Madero’s, list of priorities. The redistribution of land to the peasantry in the form of possession if not ownership – a kind of return to real or fictitious preconquest and colonial forms of land tenure – did peak during the avowedly reformist, and even modestly radical presidency of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940) after making only halting progress under his predecessors since the 1920s. From 1940 to 1965, the cultivated area in Mexico grew at 3.7 percent per year and the rise in productivity in basic food crops was 2.8 percent per year.

Nevertheless, the long-run effects of the agrarian reform and land redistribution have been predictably controversial. Under the presidency of Carlos Salinas (1988-1994) the reform was officially declared over, with no further land redistribution to be undertaken and the legal status of the ejido definitively changed. The principal criticism of the ejido was that, in the long run, it encouraged inefficiently small landholding per farmer and, by virtue of its limitations on property rights, made agricultural credit difficult for peasants to obtain.[47]

There is no doubt these are justifiable criticisms, but they have to be placed in context. Cárdenas’ predecessors in office, Alvaro Obregón (1924-1928) and Plutarco Elías Calles (1928-1932) may well have preferred a more commercial model of agriculture with larger, irrigated holdings. But it is worth recalling that one of the original agrarian leaders of the Revolution, Emiliano Zapata, had an uneasy relationship with Madero, who saw the Revolution in mostly political terms, from the start and quickly rejected Madero’s leadership in favor of restoring peasant lands in his native state of Morelos.  Cárdenas, who was in the midst of several major maneuvers that would require widespread popular support—such as the expropriation of foreign oil companies operating in Mexico in March 1938—was undoubtedly sensitive to the need to mobilize the peasantry on his behalf. The agrarian reform of his presidency, which surpassed that of any other, needs to be considered in those terms as well as in terms of economic efficiency.[48]

Cárdenas’ presidency also coincided with the continuation of the Great Depression. Like other countries in Latin America, Mexico was hard hit by the Great Depression, at least through the early 1930s.  All sorts of consumer goods became scarcer, and the depreciation of the peso raised the relative price of imports. As had happened previously in Mexican history (1790-1810, during the Napoleonic Wars and the disruption of the Atlantic trade), in the medium term domestic industry was nevertheless given a stimulus and import substitution, the subsequent core of Mexico’s industrialization program after World War II, was given a decisive boost. On the other hand, Mexico also experienced the forced “repatriation” of people of Mexican descent, mostly from California, of whom 60 percent were United States citizens. The effects of this movement—the emigration of the Revolution in reverse—has never been properly analyzed. The general consensus is that World War II helped Mexico to prosper. Demand for labor and materials from the United States, to which Mexico was allied, raised real wages and incomes, and thus boosted aggregate demand. From 1939 through 1946, real output in Mexico grew by approximately 50 percent. The growth in population accelerated as well as the country began to move into the later stages of the demographic transition, with a falling death rate, while birth rates remained high.[49]

From Miracle to Meltdown: 1950-1982  

The history of import substitution manufacturing did not begin with postwar Mexico, but few countries (especially in Latin America) became as identified with the policy in the 1950s, and with what Mexicans termed the emergence of “stabilizing development.” There was never anything resembling a formal policy announcement, although Raúl Prebisch’s 1949 manifesto, “The Economic Development of Latin America and its Principal Problems” might be regarded as supplying one. Prebisch’s argument, that a directed change in the composition of imports toward capital goods to facilitate domestic industrialization was, in essence, the basis of the policy that Mexico followed. Mexico stabilized the nominal exchange rate at 12.5 pesos to the dollar in 1954, but further movement in the real exchange rate (until the 1970s) were unimportant. The substantive bias of import substitution in Mexico was a high effective rate of protection to both capital and consumer goods. Jaime Ros has calculated these rates in 1960 ranged between 47 and 85 percent, and between 33 and 109 percent in 1980. The result, in the short to intermediate run, was very rapid rates of economic growth, averaging 6.5 percent in 1950 through 1973. Other than Brazil, which also followed an import substitution regime, no country in Latin America experienced higher rates of growth. Mexico’s was substantially above the regional average. [50]

[See the historical graph of population growth in Mexico through 2000 below]

Source: Essentially, Estadísticas Históricas de México (various editions since 1999; the most recent is 2014)

http://dgcnesyp.inegi.org.mx/ehm/ehm.htm (Accessed July 20, 2016)

But there were unexpected results as well. The contribution of labor to GDP growth was 14 percent. Capital’s contribution was 53 percent, and the remainder, total factor productivity (TFP) 28 percent.[51] As a consequence, while Mexico’s growth occurred through the accumulation of capital, the distribution of income became extremely skewed. The ratio of the top 10 percent of household income to the bottom 40 percent was 7 in 1960, and 6 in 1968. Even supporters of Mexico’s development program, such as Carlos Tello, conceded that it probable that it was the organized peasants and workers experienced an effective improvement of their relative position. The fruits of the Revolution were unevenly distributed, even among the working class.[52]

By “organized” one means such groups as the most important labor union in the country, the CTM (Confederation of Mexican Workers) or the nationally recognized peasant union, the CNC, both of which formed two of the three organized sectors of the official government party, the PRI, or Party of the Institutional Revolution that was organized in 1946. The CTM in particular was instrumental in supporting the official policy of import substitution, and thus benefited from government wage setting and political support. The leaders of these organizations became important political figures in their own right. One, Fidel Velázquez, as both a federal senator and the head of the CTM from 1941 to his death in 1997. The incorporation of these labor and peasant groups into the political system offered the government both a means of control and a guarantee of electoral support. They became pillars of what the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa famously called “the perfect dictatorship” of the PRI from 1946 to 2000, during which the PRI held a monopoly of the presidency and the important offices of state. In a sense, import substitution was the economic ideology of the PRI.[53]

Labor and economic development during the years of rapid growth is, like many others, a debated subject. While some have found strong wage growth, others, looking mostly at Mexico City, have found declining real wages. Beyond that, there is the question of informality and a segmented labor market. Were workers in the CTM the real beneficiaries of economic growth, while others in the informal sector (defined as receiving no social security payments, meaning roughly two-thirds of Mexican workers) did far less well? Obviously, the attraction of a segmented labor market model can address one obvious puzzle: why would industry substitute capital for labor, as it obviously did, if real wages were not rising? Postulating an informal sector that absorbed the rapid influx of rural migrants and thus held nominal wages steady while organized labor in the CTM got the benefit of higher negotiated wages, but in so doing, limited their employment is an attractive hypothesis, but would not command universal agreement. Nothing has been resolved, at least for the period of the “Miracle.” After Mexico entered a prolonged series of economic crises in the 1980s—here labelled as “meltdown”—the discussion must change, because many hold that the key to relative political stability and the failure of open unemployment to rise sharply can be explained by falling real wages.

The fiscal basis on which the years of the Miracle were constructed was conventional, not to say conservative.[54] A stable nominal exchange rate, balanced budgets, limited public borrowing, and a predictable monetary policy were all predicated on the notion that the private sector would react positively to favorable incentives. By and large, it did. Until the late 1960s, foreign borrowing was considered inconsequential, even if there was some concern on the horizon that it was starting to rise. No one foresaw serious macroeconomic instability. It is worth consulting a brief memorandum from Secretary of State Dean Rusk to President Lyndon Johnson (Washington, December 11, 1968) –to get some insight into how informed contemporaries viewed Mexico. The instability that existed was seen as a consequence of heavy-handedness on the part of the PRI and overreaction in the security forces. Informed observers did not view Mexico’s embrace of import-substitution industrialization as a train wreck waiting to happen. Historical actors are rarely so prescient.[55]

Slowing of the Miracle and Echeverría

The most obvious problems in Mexico were political. They stemmed from the increasing awareness that the limits of the “institutional revolution” had been reached, particularly regarding the growing democratic demands of the urban middle classes. The economic problem, which was far from obvious, was that import substitution had concentrated income in the upper 10 per cent of the population, so that domestic demand had begun to stagnate. Initially at least, public sector borrowing could support a variety of consumption subsidies to the population, and there were also efforts to transfer resources out of agriculture via domestic prices for staples such as maize. Yet Mexico’s population was also growing at the rate of nearly 3 percent per year, so that the long term prospects for any of these measures were cloudy.

At the same time, growing political pressures on the PRI, mostly dramatically manifest in the army’s violent repression of student demonstrators at Tlatelolco in 1968 just prior to the Olympics, had convinced some elements in the PRI, people like Carlos Madrazo, to argue for more radical change. The emergence of an incipient guerilla movement in the state of Guerrero had much the same effect. The new president, Luis Echeverría (1970-76), openly pushed for changes in the distribution of income and wealth, incited agrarian discontent for political purposes, dramatically increased government spending and borrowing, and alienated what had typically been a complaisant, if not especially friendly private sector.

The country’s macroeconomic performance began to deteriorate dramatically. Inflation, normally in the range of about 5 percent, rose into the low 20 percent range in the early 1970s. The public sector deficit, fueled by increasing social spending, rose from 2 to 7 percent of GDP. Money supply growth now averaged about 14 percent per year. Real GDP growth had begun to slip after 1968 and in the early 1970s, in deteriorated more, if unevenly. There had been clear convergence of regional economies in Mexico between 1930 and 1980 because of changing patterns of industrialization in the northern and central regions of the country.  After 1980, that process stalled and regional inequality again widened. [56]

While there is a tendency to blame Luis Echeverria for all or most of these developments, this forgets that his administration coincided with the First OPEC oil shock (1973) and rapidly deteriorating external conditions. Mexico had, as yet, not discovered the oil reserves (1978) that were to provide a temporary respite from economic adjustment after the shock of the peso devaluation of 1976—the first change in its value in over 20 years. At the same time, external demand fell, principally transmitted from the United States, Mexico’s largest trading partner, where the economy had fallen into recession in late 1973. Yet it seems reasonable to conclude that the difficult international environment, while important in bring Mexico’s “miracle” period to a close, was not helped by Echeverría’s propensity for demagoguery, of the loss of fiscal discipline that had long characterized government policy, at least since the 1950s. The only question to be resolved was to what sort of conclusion the period would come. The answer, unfortunately, was disastrous.[57]

Meltdown: The Debt Crisis, the Lost Decade and After

In contemporary parlance, Mexico had passed from “stabilizing” to “shared” development under Echeverría. But the devaluation of 1976 from 12.5 to 20.5 pesos to the dollar suggested that something had gone awry. One might suppose that some adjustment in course, especially in public spending and borrowing, would have occurred. But precisely the opposite occurred. Between 1976 and 1979, nominal federal spending doubled. The budget deficit increased by a factor of 15. The reason for this odd performance was the discovery of crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico, perhaps unsurprising in light of the spiking prices of the 1970s (the oil shocks of 1973-74, 1978-79), but nevertheless of considerable magnitude. In 1975, Mexico’s proven reserves were 6 billion barrels of oil. By 1978, they had increased to 40 billion. President López Portillo set himself to the task of “administering abundance” and Mexican analysts confidently predicted crude oil at $100 a barrel (when it stood at $37 in current prices in 1980). The scope of the miscalculation was catastrophic. At the same time, encouraged by bank loan pushing and effectively negative real rates of interest, Mexico borrowed abroad. Consumption subsidies, while vital in the face of slowing import substitution, were also costly, and when supported by foreign borrowing, unsustainable, but foreign indebtedness doubled between 1976 and 1979, and even further thereafter.

Matters came to a head in 1982. By then, Mexico’s foreign indebtedness was estimated at over $80 billion dollars, an increase from less than $20 billion in 1975. Real interest rates had begun to rise in the United States in mid-1981, and with Mexican borrowing tied to international rates, debt service rapidly increased. Oil revenue, which had come to constitute the great bulk of foreign exchange, followed international crude prices downward, driven in large part by a recession that had begun in the United States in mid-1981. Within six months, Mexico, too, had fallen into recession. Real per capital output was to decline by 8 percent in 1982.  Forced to sharply devalue, the real exchange rate fell by 50 percent in 1982 and inflation approached 100 percent. By the late summer, Finance Minister Jesus Silva Herzog admitted that the country could not meet an upcoming payment obligation, and was forced to turn to the US Federal Reserve, to the IMF, and to a committee of bank creditors for assistance. In late August, in a remarkable display of intemperance, President López Portillo nationalized the banking system. By December 20, 1982, Mexico’s incoming President, Miguel de la Madrid (1982-88) appeared, beleaguered, on the cover of Time Magazine framed by the caption, “We are in an Emergency.”  It was, as the saying goes, a perfect storm, and with it, the Debt Crisis and the “Lost Decade” in Mexico had begun. It would be years before anything resembling stability, let alone prosperity, was restored. Even then, what growth there was a pale imitation of what had occurred during the decades of the “Miracle.”

The 1980s

The 1980s were a difficult decade.[58]  After 1981, annual real per capita growth would not reach 4 percent again until 1989, and in 1986, it fell by 6 percent. In 1987, inflation reached 159 percent. The nominal exchange rate fell by 139 percent in 1986-1987. By the standards of the years of stabilizing development, the record of the 1980s was disastrous. To complete the devastation, on September 19, 1985, the worst earthquake in Mexican history, 7.8 on the Richter Scale, devastated large parts of central Mexico City and killed 5 thousand (some estimates run as high as 25 thousand), many of whom were simply buried in mass graves. It was as if a plague of biblical proportions had struck the country.

Massive indebtedness produced a dramatic decline in the standard of living as structural adjustment occurred. Servicing the debt required the production of an export surplus in non-oil exports, which in turn, required a reduction in domestic consumption. In an effort to surmount the crisis, the government implemented an agreement between organized labor, the private sector, and agricultural producers called the Economic Solidarity Pact (PSE). The PSE combined an incomes policy with fiscal austerity, trade and financial liberalization, generally tight monetary policy, and debt renegotiation and reduction. The centerpiece of the “remaking” of the previously inward orientation of the domestic economy was the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, 1993) linking Mexico, the United States, and Canada. While average tariff rates in Mexico had fallen from 34 percent in 1985 to 4 percent in 1992—even before NAFTA was signed—the agreement was generally seen as creating the institutional and legal framework whereby the reforms of Miguel de la Madrid and Carlos Salinas (1988-1994) would be preserved. Most economists thought its effects would be relatively larger in Mexico than in the United States, which generally appears to have been the case. Nevertheless, NAFTA has been predictably controversial, as trade agreements are wont to be. The political furor (and, in some places, euphoria) surrounding the agreement have faded, but never entirely disappeared. In the United States in particular, NAFTA is blamed for deindustrialization, although pressure on manufacturing, like trade liberalization itself, was underway long before NAFTA was negotiated. In Mexico, there has been much hand wringing over the fate of agriculture and small maize producers in particular. While none of this is likely to cease, it is nevertheless the case that there has been a large increase in the volume of trade between the NAFTA partners. To dismiss this is, quite plainly, misguided, even where sensitive and well organized political constituencies are concerned. But the legacy of NAFTA, like most everything in Mexican economic history, remains unsettled.  As a result, the agreement was subject to a controversial renegotiation in 2018, largely fueled by protectionist sentiment in the Trump administration. While the intent was to increase costs in the Mexican automobile industry so as to price labor in the United Stats back into the industry, the long
term effect of the measure—not to say its ratification—remains to be seen.

Post Crisis: No Miracles

Still, while some prosperity was restored to Mexico by the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s, the general macroeconomic results have been disappointing, not to say mediocre. The average real compensation per person in manufacturing in 2008 was virtually unchanged from 1993 according to the Instituto Nacional De Estadística  Geografía e Informática, and there is little reason to think the compensation has improved at all since then. It is generally conceded that per capita GDP growth has probably averaged not much more than 1 percent a year. Real GDP growth since NAFTA according to the OECD has rarely reached 5 percent and since 2010, it has been well below that.

Source: http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/mexico (Accessed July 21, 2016). The vertical scale cuts the horizontal axis at 1982

For virtually everyone in Mexico, the question is why, and the answers proposed include virtually any plausible factor: the breakdown of the political system after the PRI’s historic loss of presidential power in 2000; the rise of China as a competitor to Mexico in international markets; the explosive spread of narcoviolence in recent years, albeit concentrated in the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, Tamaulipas, Nuevo León and Veracruz; the results of NAFTA itself; the failure of the political system to undertake further structural economic reforms and privatizations after the initial changes of the 1980s, especially regarding the national oil monopoly, Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX); the failure of the border industrialization program (maquiladoras) to develop substantive backward linkages to the rest of the economy. This is by no means an exhaustive list of the candidates for poor economic performance. The choice of a cause tends to reflect the ideology of the critic.[59]

Yet it seems that, at the end of the day, the reason why post-NAFTA Mexico has failed to grow comes down to something much more fundamental: a fear of growing, embedded in the belief that the collapse of the 1980s and early 1990s (including the devastating “Tequila Crisis” of 1994-1995, which resulted in a another enormous devaluation of the peso after an initial attempt to contain the crisis was bungled)  was so traumatic and costly as to render event modest efforts to promote growth, let alone the dirigisme of times past, as essentially unwarranted. The central bank, the Banco de México (Banxico) rules out the promotion of economic growth as part of its remit—even as a theoretical proposition, let alone as a goal of macroeconomic policy– and concerns itself only with price stability. The language of its formulation is striking. “During the 1970s, there was a debate as to whether it was possible to stimulate economic growth via monetary policy.  As a result, some governments and central banks tried to reduce unemployment through expansive monetary policy.  Both economic theory and the experience of economies that tried this prescription demonstrated that it lacked validity. Thus, it became clear that monetary policy could not actively and directly stimulate economic activity and employment. For that reason, modern central banks have as their primary goal the promotion of price stability” (translation mine). Banxico is not the Fed: there is no dual mandate in Mexico.[60]  This may well change during the new presidential administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known colloquially in Mexico as AMLO).

The Mexican banking system has scarcely made things easier. Private credit stands at only about a third of GDP. In recent years, the increase in private sector savings has been largely channeled to government bonds, but until quite recently, public sector deficits were very small, which is to say, fiscal policy has not been expansionary. If monetary and fiscal policy are both relatively tight, if private credit is not easy to come by, and if growth is typically presumed to be an inevitable concomitant to economic stability for which no actor (other than the private sector) is deemed responsible, it should come as no surprise that economic growth over the past two decades has been lackluster.  In the long run, aggregate supply determines real GDP, but in the short run, nominal demand matters: there is no point in creating productive capacity to satisfy demand that does not exist. And, unlike during the period of the Miracle and Stabilizing Development, attention to demand since 1982 has been limited, not to say off the table completely. It may be understandable, but Mexico’s fiscal and monetary authorities seem to suffer from what could be termed, “Fear of Growth.” For better or worse, the results are now on display. After its current (2016) return to a relatively austere budget, it remains to be seen how the economic and political system in contemporary Mexico handles slow economic growth.

The response of the Mexican public to a generation of stagnation in living standards, as well as to rising insecurity and the perception of widespread public corruption, was the victory of AMLO in the presidential election of July 2018.

AMLO had previously run for President with a different party. After two unsuccessful attempts, he started a new one, called MORENA. He then proceeded to win 53 percent of the vote, virtually obliterating the opposition parties, the incumbent PRI, and the PAN. MORENA also won majorities in both houses of Congress. To most observers, this signified that AMLO would be a potentially strong president, assuming his congressional party remained loyal to him. His somewhat checkered “leftist” past guaranteed that not everyone was thrilled at the prospect of a strong AMLO presidency.

Expectations for AMLO’s presidency are thus high, perhaps unrealistically so. While his initial budget has been generally well received by the financial markets, there is little question as to where AMLO’s priorities lie. He has advocated increases in spending on infrastructure, has moved to restore the real minimum wage to its level in 1994, and pledged to revitalize domestic agriculture. Whether these and a number of other reforms that AMLO has somewhat paradoxically labelled “Republican Austerity” will restore the country to its pre-1982 growth path now constitutes one of the most watched economic experiments in Latin America. [61]

[1] I am grateful to Ivan Escamilla and Robert Whaples for their careful readings and thoughtful criticisms.

[2] The standard reference work is Sandra Kuntz Ficker, (ed), Historia económica general de México. De la Colonia a nuestros días (México, DF: El Colegio de Mexico, 2010).

[3] Oscar Martinez, Troublesome Border (rev. ed., University of Arizona Press: Tucson, AZ, 2006) is the most helpful general account in English.

[4] There are literally dozens of general accounts of the pre-conquest world. A good starting point is Richard E.W. Adams, Prehistoric Mesoamerica (3d ed., University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, OK, 2005). More advanced is Richard E.W. Adams and Murdo J. Macleod, The Cambridge History of the Mesoamerican Peoples: Mesoamerica. (2 parts, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

[5] Nora C. England and Roberto Zavala Maldonado, “Mesoamerican Languages” Oxford Bibliographies http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199772810/obo-9780199772810-0080.xml

(Accessed July 10, 2016)

[6] For an introduction to the nearly endless controversy over the pre- and post-contact population of the Americas, see William M. Denevan (ed.), The Native Population of the Americas in 1492 (2d rev ed., Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992).

[7] Sherburne F Cook and Woodrow Borah, Essays in Population History: Mexico and California (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1979), p. 159.

[8]Gene C. Wilken, Good Farmers Traditional Agricultural Resource Management in Mexico and Central America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 24.

[9] Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, Aztec Medicine Health and Nutrition (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990).

[10] Bernardo García Martínez, “Encomenderos españoles y British residents: El sistema de dominio indirecto desde la perspectiva novohispana”, in Historia Mexicana, LX: 4 [140] (abr-jun 2011), pp. 1915-1978.

[11] These epidemics are extensively and exceedingly well documented. One of the most recent examinations is Rodofo Acuna-Soto, David W. Stahle, Matthew D. Therrell , Richard D. Griffin,  and Malcolm K. Cleaveland, “When Half of the Population Died: The Epidemic of Hemorrhagic Fevers of 1576 in Mexico,” FEMS Microbiology Letters 240 (2004) 1–5. (http:// femsle.oxfordjournals.org/content/femsle/240/1/1.full.pdf, accessed July 10, 2016.) See in particular the exceptional map and table on pp. 2-3.

[12] See in particular, Bernardo García Martínez. Los pueblos de la Sierra: el poder y el espacio entre los indios del norte de Puebla hasta 1700 (Mexico, DF: El Colegio de México, 1987) and Elinor G.K. Melville, A Plague of Sheep: Environmental Consequences of the Conquest of Mexico (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

[13] J. H. Elliott, “A Europe of Composite Monarchies,” Past & Present 137 (The Cultural and Political Construction of Europe): 48–71; Guadalupe Jiménez Codinach, “De Alta Lealtad: Ignacio Allende y los sucesos de 1808-1811,” in Marta Terán and José Antonio Serrano Ortega, eds., Las guerras de independencia en la América Española (La Piedad, Michoacán, MX: El Colegio de Michoacán, 2002), p. 68.

[14] Richard Salvucci, “Capitalism and Dependency in Latin America,” in Larry Neal and Jeffrey G. Williamson, eds., The Cambridge History of Capitalism (2 vols.), New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 1: pp. 403-408.

[15] Source: TePaske Page, http://www.insidemydesk.com/hdd.html (Accessed July 19, 2016)

[16]  Edith Boorstein Couturier, The Silver King: The Remarkable Life of the Count of Regla in Colonial Mexico (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 2003).  Dana Velasco Murillo, Urban Indians in a Silver City: Zacatecas, Mexico, 1546-1810 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015), p. 43. The standard work on the subject is David Brading, Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763-1810 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1971) But also see Robert Haskett, “Our Suffering with the Taxco Tribute: Involuntary Mine Labor and Indigenous Society in Central New Spain,” Hispanic American Historical Review, 71:3 (1991), pp. 447-475. For silver in China see http://afe.easia.columbia.edu/chinawh/web/s5/s5_4.html (accessed July 13, 2016). For the rents of empire question, see Michael Costeloe, Response to Revolution: Imperial Spain and the Spanish American Revolutions, 1810-1840 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986).

[17] This is an estimate. David Ringrose concluded that in the 1780s, the colonies accounted for 45 percent of Crown income, and one would suppose that Mexico would account for at least about half of that. See David R. Ringrose, Spain, Europe and the ‘Spanish Miracle’, 1700-1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 93; Mauricio Drelichman, “The Curse of Moctezuma: American Silver and the Dutch Disease,” Explorations in Economic History 42:3 (2005), pp. 349-380.

[18] José Antonio Escudero, El supuesto memorial del Conde de Aranda sobre la Independencia de América) México, DF: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 2014) (http://bibliohistorico.juridicas.unam.mx/libros/libro.htm?l=3637, accessed July 13, 2016)

[19] Allan J. Kuethe and Kenneth J. Andrien, The Spanish Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century. War and the Bourbon Reforms, 1713-1796 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014) is the most recent account of this period.

[20] Richard J. Salvucci, “Economic Growth and Change in Bourbon Mexico: A Review Essay,” The Americas, 51:2 (1994), pp. 219-231; William B Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth Century Mexico (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 24; Luis Jáuregui, La Real Hacienda de Nueva España. Su Administración en la Época de los Intendentes, 1786-1821 (México, DF: UNAM, 1999), p. 157.

[21] Jeremy Baskes, Staying Afloat: Risk and Uncertainty in Spanish Atlantic World Trade, 1760-1820 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013); Xabier Lamikiz, Trade and Trust in the Eighteenth-century Atlantic World: Spanish Merchants and their Overseas Networks (Suffolk, UK: The Boydell Press., 2013). The starting point of all these studies is Clarence Haring, Trade and Navigation between Spain and the Indies in the Time of the Hapsburgs (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1918).

[22] The best, and indeed, virtually unique starting point for considering these changes in their broadest dimensions   are the joint works of Stanley and Barbara Stein: Silver, Trade, and War (2003); Apogee of Empire (2004), and Edge of Crisis (2010), All were published by Johns Hopkins University Press and do for the Spanish Empire what Laurence Henry Gipson did for the First British Empire.

[23] The key work is María Eugenia Romero Sotelo, Minería y Guerra. La economía de Nueva España, 1810-1821 (México, DF: UNAM, 1997)

[24] Calculated from José María Luis Mora, Crédito Público ([1837] México, DF: Miguel Angel Porrúa, 1986), pp. 413-460. Also see Richard J. Salvucci, Politics, Markets, and Mexico’s “London Debt,” 1823-1887 (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

[25] Jesús Hernández Jaimes, La Formación de la Hacienda Pública Mexicana y las Tensiones Centro –Periferia, 1821-1835  (México, DF: El Colegio de México, 2013). Javier Torres Medina, Centralismo y Reorganización. La Hacienda Pública Durante la Primera República Central de México, 1835-1842 (México, DF: Instituto Mora, 2013). The only treatment in English is Michael P. Costeloe, The Central Republic in Mexico, 1835-1846 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

[26] An agricultural worker who worked full time, 6 days a week, for the entire year (a strong assumption), in Central Mexico could have expected cash income of perhaps 24 pesos. If food, such as beans and tortilla were added, the whole pay might reach 30. The figure of 40 pesos comes from considerably richer agricultural lands around the city of Querétaro, and includes as an average income from nonagricultural employment as well, which was higher.  Measuring Worth would put the relative historic standard of living value in 2010 prices at $1.040, with the caveat that this is relative to a bundle of goods purchased in the United States. (https://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/relativevalue.php).

[27]The phrase comes from Guido di Tella and Manuel Zymelman. See Colin Lewis, “Explaining Economic Decline: A review of recent debates in the economic and social history literature on the Argentine,” European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 64 (1998), pp. 49-68.

[28] Francisco Téllez Guerrero, De reales y granos. Las finanzas y el abasto de la Puebla de los Angeles, 1820-1840 (Puebla, MX: CIHS, 1986). Pp. 47-79.

[29]This is based on an analysis of government lending contracts. See Rosa María Meyer and Richard Salvucci, “The Panic of 1837 in Mexico: Evidence from Government Contracts” (in progress).

[30] There is an interesting summary of this data in U.S Govt., 57^th Cong., 1 st sess., House, Monthly Summary of Commerce and Finance of the United States (September 1901) (Washington, DC: GPO, 1901), pp. 984-986.

[31] Salvucci, Politics and Markets, pp. 201-221.

[32] Miguel Galindo y Galindo, La Gran Década Nacional o Relación Histórica de la Guerra de Reforma, Intervención Extranjera, y gobierno del archiduque Maximiliano, 1857-1867 ([1902], 3 vols., México, DF: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1987).

[33] Carmen Vázquez Mantecón, Santa Anna y la encrucijada del Estado. La dictadura, 1853-1855 (México, DF: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1986).

[34] Moramay López-Alonso, Measuring Up: A History of Living Standards in Mexico, 1850-1950 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012);  Amilcar Challú and Auroro Gómez Galvarriato, “Mexico’s Real Wages in the Age of the Great Divergence, 1730-1930,” Revista de Historia Económica 33:1 (2015), pp. 123-152; Amílcar E. Challú, “The Great Decline: Biological Well-Being and Living Standards in Mexico, 1730-1840,” in Ricardo Salvatore, John H. Coatsworth, and Amilcar E. Challú, Living Standards in Latin American History: Height, Welfare, and Development, 1750-2000 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010), pp. 23-67.

[35]See Challú and Gómez Galvarriato, “Real Wages,” Figure 5, p. 101.

[36] Luis González et al, La economía mexicana durante la época de Juárez (México, DF: 1976).

[37] Teresa Rojas Rabiela and Ignacio Gutiérrez Ruvalcaba, Cien ventanas a los países de antaño: fotografías del campo mexicano de hace un siglo) (México, DF: CONACYT, 2013), pp. 18-65.

[38] Alma Parra, “La Plata en la Estructura Económica Mexicana al Inicio del Siglo XX,” El Mercado de Valores 49:11 (1999), p. 14.

[39] Sandra Kuntz Ficker, Empresa Extranjera y Mercado Interno: El Ferrocarril Central Mexicano (1880-1907) (México, DF: El Colegio de México, 1995).

[40] Priscilla Connolly, El Contratista de Don Porfirio. Obras públicas, deuda y desarrollo desigual (México, DF: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1997).

[41] Most notably John Tutino, From Insurrection to Revolution in Mexico: Social Bases of Agrarian Violence, 1750-1940 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986). p. 229. My growth figures are based on the INEGI, Estadísticas Historicas de México, 2014) (http://dgcnesyp.inegi.org.mx/cgi-win/ehm2014.exe/CI080010, Accessed July 15, 2016).

[42] Stephen H. Haber, Industry and Underdevelopment: The Industrialization of Mexico, 1890-1940 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989); Aurora Gómez-Galvarriato, Industry and Revolution: Social and Economic Change in the Orizaba Valley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).

[43] There are literally dozens of accounts of the Revolution. The usual starting point, in English, is Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution (reprint ed., 2 vols., Lincoln, NE: 1990).

[44] This argument has been made most insistently in Armando Razo and Stephen Haber, “The Rate of Growth of Productivity in Mexico, 1850-1933: Evidence from the Cotton Textile Industry,” Journal of Latin American Studies 30:3 (1998), pp. 481-517.

[45]Robert McCaa, “Missing Millions: The Demographic Cost of the Mexican revolution,” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 19:2 (Summer 2003): 367-400; Virgilio Partida-Bush, “Demographic Transition, Demographic Bonus, and Ageing in Mexico, “ Proceedings of the United Nations Expert Group Meeting on Social and Economic Implications of Changing Population Age Structures. (http://www.un.org/esa/population/meetings/Proceedings_EGM_Mex_2005/partida.pdf) (Accessed July 15, 2016), pp. 287-290.

[46] An implication of the studies of Alan Knight, and of Clark Reynolds, The Mexican Economy: Twentieth Century Structure and Growth (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971).

[47] An interesting summary of revisionist thinking on the nature and history of the ejido appears in Emilio Kuri, “La invención del ejido, Nexos, January 2015.

[48]Alan Knight, “Cardenismo: Juggernaut or Jalopy?” Journal of Latin American Studies, 26:1 (1994), pp. 73-107.

[49] Stephen Haber, “The Political Economy of Industrialization,” in Victor Bulmer-Thomas, John Coatsworth, and Roberto Cortes-Conde, eds., The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America (2 vols., New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 2:  537-584.

[50]Again, there are dozens of studies of the Mexican economy in this period. Ros’ figures come from “Mexico’s Trade and Industrialization Experience Since 1960: A Reconsideration of Past Policies and Assessment of Current Reforms,” Kellogg Institute (Working Paper 186, January 1993). For a more general study, see Juan Carlos Moreno-Brid and Jaime Ros, Development and Growth in the Me3xican Economy. A Historical Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). A recent Spanish language treatment is Enrique Cárdenas Sánchez, El largo curso de la economía mexicana. De 1780 a nuestros días (México, DF: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2015). A view from a different perspective is Carlos Tello, Estado y desarrollo económico. México 1920-2006 (México, DF, UNAM, 2007).

[51]André A. Hoffman, Long Run Economic Development in Latin America in a Comparative Perspective: Proximate and Ultimate Causes (Santiago, Chile: CEPAL, 2001), p. 19.

[52]Tello, Estado y desarrollo, pp. 501-505.

[53] Mario Vargas Llosa, “Mexico: The Perfect Dictatorship,” New Perspectives Quarterly 8 (1991), pp. 23-24.

[54] Rafael Izquierdo, Política Hacendario del Desarrollo Estabilizador, 1958-1970 (México, DF: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1995. The term stabilizing development was itself termed by Izquierdo as a government minister.

[55]See Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968. Mexico and Central America http://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/xxxi/36313.htm (Accessed July 15, 2016).

[56] José Aguilar Retureta, “The GDP Per Capita of the Mexican Regions (1895:1930): New Estimates, Revista de Historia Económica, 33: 3 (2015), pp. 387-423.

[57] For a contemporary account with a sense of the immediacy of the end of the Echeverría regime, see “Así se devaluó el peso,” Proceso, November 13, 1976.

[58] The standard account is Stephen Haber, Herbert Klein, Noel Maurer, and Kevin Middlebrook, Mexico since 1980 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). A particularly astute economic account is Nora Lustig, Mexico: The Remaking of an Economy (2d ed., Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1998).  But also Louise E. Walker, Waking from the Dream. Mexico’s Middle Classes After 1968 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013).

[59] See, for example, Jaime Ros Bosch, Algunas tesis equivocadas sobre el estancamiento económico de México (México, DF: El Colegio de México, 2013).

[60] La Banca Central y la Importancia de la Estabilidad Económica  June 16, 2008.  (http://www.banxico.org.mx/politica-monetaria-e-inflacion/material-de-referencia/intermedio/politica-monetaria/%7B3C1A08B1-FD93-0931-44F8-96F5950FC926%7D.pdf, Accessed July 15, 2016.). Also see Brian Winter, “This Man is Brilliant: So Why Doesn’t Mexico’s Economy Grow Faster?” Americas Quarterly (http://americasquarterly.org/content/man-brilliant-so-why-doesnt-mexicos-economy-grow-faster) (Accessed July 21, 2016)

[61]   For AMLO in his own words, see his A New Hope For Mexico: Saying No to Corruption, Violence, and Trump’s Wall. Translated by Natascha Uhlman (New York: O/R Books, 2018).

Citation: Salvucci, Richard . “Mexico: Economic History” EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. December 27, 2018. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/the-economic-history-of-mexico/

George Boyer, Cornell University

A compulsory system of poor relief was instituted in England during the reign of Elizabeth I. Although the role played by poor relief was significantly modified by the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, the Crusade Against Outrelief of the 1870s, and the adoption of various social insurance programs in the early twentieth century, the Poor Law continued to assist the poor until it was replaced by the welfare state in 1948. For nearly three centuries, the Poor Law constituted “a welfare state in miniature,” relieving the elderly, widows, children, the sick, the disabled, and the unemployed and underemployed (Blaug 1964). This essay will outline the changing role played by the Poor Law, focusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Origins of the Poor Law

While legislation dealing with vagrants and beggars dates back to the fourteenth century, perhaps the first English poor law legislation was enacted in 1536, instructing each parish to undertake voluntary weekly collections to assist the “impotent” poor. The parish had been the basic unit of local government since at least the fourteenth century, although Parliament imposed few if any civic functions on parishes before the sixteenth century. Parliament adopted several other statutes relating to the poor in the next sixty years, culminating with the Acts of 1597-98 and 1601 (43 Eliz. I c. 2), which established a compulsory system of poor relief that was administered and financed at the parish (local) level. These Acts laid the groundwork for the system of poor relief up to the adoption of the Poor Law Amendment Act in 1834. Relief was to be administered by a group of overseers, who were to assess a compulsory property tax, known as the poor rate, to assist those within the parish “having no means to maintain them.” The poor were divided into three groups: able-bodied adults, children, and the old or non-able-bodied (impotent). The overseers were instructed to put the able-bodied to work, to give apprenticeships to poor children, and to provide “competent sums of money” to relieve the impotent.

Deteriorating economic conditions and loss of traditional forms of charity in the 1500s

The Elizabethan Poor Law was adopted largely in response to a serious deterioration in economic circumstances, combined with a decline in more traditional forms of charitable assistance. Sixteenth century England experienced rapid inflation, caused by rapid population growth, the debasement of the coinage in 1526 and 1544-46, and the inflow of American silver. Grain prices more than tripled from 1490-1509 to 1550-69, and then increased by an additional 73 percent from 1550-69 to 1590-1609. The prices of other commodities increased nearly as rapidly — the Phelps Brown and Hopkins price index rose by 391 percent from 1495-1504 to 1595-1604. Nominal wages increased at a much slower rate than did prices; as a result, real wages of agricultural and building laborers and of skilled craftsmen declined by about 60 percent over the course of the sixteenth century. This decline in purchasing power led to severe hardship for a large share of the population. Conditions were especially bad in 1595-98, when four consecutive poor harvests led to famine conditions. At the same time that the number of workers living in poverty increased, the supply of charitable assistance declined. The dissolution of the monasteries in 1536-40, followed by the dissolution of religious guilds, fraternities, almshouses, and hospitals in 1545-49, “destroyed much of the institutional fabric which had provided charity for the poor in the past” (Slack 1990). Given the circumstances, the Acts of 1597-98 and 1601 can be seen as an attempt by Parliament both to prevent starvation and to control public order.

The Poor Law, 1601-1750

It is difficult to determine how quickly parishes implemented the Poor Law. Paul Slack (1990) contends that in 1660 a third or more of parishes regularly were collecting poor rates, and that by 1700 poor rates were universal. The Board of Trade estimated that in 1696 expenditures on poor relief totaled £400,000 (see Table 1), slightly less than 1 percent of national income. No official statistics exist for this period concerning the number of persons relieved or the demographic characteristics of those relieved, but it is possible to get some idea of the makeup of the “pauper host” from local studies undertaken by historians. These suggest that, during the seventeenth century, the bulk of relief recipients were elderly, orphans, or widows with young children. In the first half of the century, orphans and lone-parent children made up a particularly large share of the relief rolls, while by the late seventeenth century in many parishes a majority of those collecting regular weekly “pensions” were aged sixty or older. Female pensioners outnumbered males by as much as three to one (Smith 1996). On average, the payment of weekly pensions made up about two-thirds of relief spending in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; the remainder went to casual benefits, often to able-bodied males in need of short-term relief because of sickness or unemployment.

Settlement Act of 1662

One of the issues that arose in the administration of relief was that of entitlement: did everyone within a parish have a legal right to relief? Parliament addressed this question in the Settlement Act of 1662, which formalized the notion that each person had a parish of settlement, and which gave parishes the right to remove within forty days of arrival any newcomer deemed “likely to be chargeable” as well as any non-settled applicant for relief. While Adam Smith, and some historians, argued that the Settlement Law put a serious brake on labor mobility, available evidence suggests that parishes used it selectively, to keep out economically undesirable migrants such as single women, older workers, and men with large families.

Relief expenditures increased sharply in the first half of the eighteenth century, as can be seen in Table 1. Nominal expenditures increased by 72 percent from 1696 to 1748-50 despite the fact that prices were falling and population was growing slowly; real expenditures per capita increased by 84 percent. A large part of this rise was due to increasing pension benefits, especially for the elderly. Some areas also experienced an increase in the number of able-bodied relief recipients. In an attempt to deter some of the poor from applying for relief, Parliament in 1723 adopted the Workhouse Test Act, which empowered parishes to deny relief to any applicant who refused to enter a workhouse. While many parishes established workhouses as a result of the Act, these were often short-lived, and the vast majority of paupers continued to receive outdoor relief (that is, relief in their own homes).

The Poor Law, 1750-1834

The period from 1750 to 1820 witnessed an explosion in relief expenditures. Real per capita expenditures more than doubled from 1748-50 to 1803, and remained at a high level until the Poor Law was amended in 1834 (see Table 1). Relief expenditures increased from 1.0% of GDP in 1748-50 to a peak of 2.7% of GDP in 1818-20 (Lindert 1998). The demographic characteristics of the pauper host changed considerably in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, especially in the rural south and east of England. There was a sharp increase in numbers receiving casual benefits, as opposed to regular weekly pensions. The age distribution of those on relief became younger — the share of paupers who were prime-aged (20- 59) increased significantly, and the share aged 60 and over declined. Finally, the share of relief recipients in the south and east who were male increased from about a third in 1760 to nearly two-thirds in 1820. In the north and west there also were shifts toward prime-age males and casual relief, but the magnitude of these changes was far smaller than elsewhere (King 2000).

Gilbert’s Act and the Removal Act

There were two major pieces of legislation during this period. Gilbert’s Act (1782) empowered parishes to join together to form unions for the purpose of relieving their poor. The Act stated that only the impotent poor should be relieved in workhouses; the able-bodied should either be found work or granted outdoor relief. To a large extent, Gilbert’s Act simply legitimized the policies of a large number of parishes that found outdoor relief both less and expensive and more humane that workhouse relief. The other major piece of legislation was the Removal Act of 1795, which amended the Settlement Law so that no non-settled person could be removed from a parish unless he or she applied for relief.

Speenhamland System and other forms of poor relief

During this period, relief for the able-bodied took various forms, the most important of which were: allowances-in-aid-of-wages (the so-called Speenhamland system), child allowances for laborers with large families, and payments to seasonally unemployed agricultural laborers. The system of allowances-in-aid-of-wages was adopted by magistrates and parish overseers throughout large parts of southern England to assist the poor during crisis periods. The most famous allowance scale, though by no means the first, was that adopted by Berkshire magistrates at Speenhamland on May 6, 1795. Under the allowance system, a household head (whether employed or unemployed) was guaranteed a minimum weekly income, the level of which was determined by the price of bread and by the size of his or her family. Such scales typically were instituted only during years of high food prices, such as 1795-96 and 1800-01, and removed when prices declined. Child allowance payments were widespread in the rural south and east, which suggests that laborers’ wages were too low to support large families. The typical parish paid a small weekly sum to laborers with four or more children under age 10 or 12. Seasonal unemployment had been a problem for agricultural laborers long before 1750, but the extent of seasonality increased in the second half of the eighteenth century as farmers in southern and eastern England responded to the sharp increase in grain prices by increasing their specialization in grain production. The increase in seasonal unemployment, combined with the decline in other sources of income, forced many agricultural laborers to apply for poor relief during the winter.

Regional differences in relief expenditures and recipients

Table 2 reports data for fifteen counties located throughout England on per capita relief expenditures for the years ending in March 1783-85, 1803, 1812, and 1831, and on relief recipients in 1802-03. Per capita expenditures were higher on average in agricultural counties than in more industrial counties, and were especially high in the grain-producing southern counties — Oxford, Berkshire, Essex, Suffolk, and Sussex. The share of the population receiving poor relief in 1802-03 varied significantly across counties, being 15 to 23 percent in the grain- producing south and less than 10 percent in the north. The demographic characteristics of those relieved also differed across regions. In particular, the share of relief recipients who were elderly or disabled was higher in the north and west than it was in the south; by implication, the share that were able-bodied was higher in the south and east than elsewhere. Economic historians typically have concluded that these regional differences in relief expenditures and numbers on relief were caused by differences in economic circumstances; that is, poverty was more of a problem in the agricultural south and east than it was in the pastoral southwest or in the more industrial north (Blaug 1963; Boyer 1990). More recently, King (2000) has argued that the regional differences in poor relief were determined not by economic structure but rather by “very different welfare cultures on the part of both the poor and the poor law administrators.”

Causes of the Increase in Relief to Able-bodied Males

What caused the increase in the number of able-bodied males on relief? In the second half of the eighteenth century, a large share of rural households in southern England suffered significant declines in real income. County-level cross-sectional data suggest that, on average, real wages for day laborers in agriculture declined by 19 percent from 1767-70 to 1795 in fifteen southern grain-producing counties, then remained roughly constant from 1795 to 1824, before increasing to a level in 1832 about 10 percent above that of 1770 (Bowley 1898). Farm-level time-series data yield a similar result — real wages in the southeast declined by 13 percent from 1770-79 to 1800-09, and remained low until the 1820s (Clark 2001).

Enclosures

Some historians contend that the Parliamentary enclosure movement, and the plowing over of commons and waste land, reduced the access of rural households to land for growing food, grazing animals, and gathering fuel, and led to the immiseration of large numbers of agricultural laborers and their families (Hammond and Hammond 1911; Humphries 1990). More recent research, however, suggests that only a relatively small share of agricultural laborers had common rights, and that there was little open access common land in southeastern England by 1750 (Shaw-Taylor 2001; Clark and Clark 2001). Thus, the Hammonds and Humphries probably overstated the effect of late eighteenth-century enclosures on agricultural laborers’ living standards, although those laborers who had common rights must have been hurt by enclosures.

Declining cottage industry

Finally, in some parts of the south and east, women and children were employed in wool spinning, lace making, straw plaiting, and other cottage industries. Employment opportunities in wool spinning, the largest cottage industry, declined in the late eighteenth century, and employment in the other cottage industries declined in the early nineteenth century (Pinchbeck 1930; Boyer 1990). The decline of cottage industry reduced the ability of women and children to contribute to household income. This, in combination with the decline in agricultural laborers’ wage rates and, in some villages, the loss of common rights, caused many rural household’s incomes in southern England to fall dangerously close to subsistence by 1795.

North and Midlands

The situation was different in the north and midlands. The real wages of day laborers in agriculture remained roughly constant from 1770 to 1810, and then increased sharply, so that by the 1820s wages were about 50 percent higher than they were in 1770 (Clark 2001). Moreover, while some parts of the north and midlands experienced a decline in cottage industry, in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire the concentration of textile production led to increased employment opportunities for women and children.

The Political Economy of the Poor Law, 1795-1834

A comparison of English poor relief with poor relief on the European continent reveals a puzzle: from 1795 to 1834 relief expenditures per capita, and expenditures as a share of national product, were significantly higher in England than on the continent. However, differences in spending between England and the continent were relatively small before 1795 and after 1834 (Lindert 1998). Simple economic explanations cannot account for the different patterns of English and continental relief.

Labor-hiring farmers take advantage of the poor relief system

The increase in relief spending in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries was partly a result of politically-dominant farmers taking advantage of the poor relief system to shift some of their labor costs onto other taxpayers (Boyer 1990). Most rural parish vestries were dominated by labor-hiring farmers as a result of “the principle of weighting the right to vote according to the amount of property occupied,” introduced by Gilbert’s Act (1782), and extended in 1818 by the Parish Vestry Act (Brundage 1978). Relief expenditures were financed by a tax levied on all parishioners whose property value exceeded some minimum level. A typical rural parish’s taxpayers can be divided into two groups: labor-hiring farmers and non-labor-hiring taxpayers (family farmers, shopkeepers, and artisans). In grain-producing areas, where there were large seasonal variations in the demand for labor, labor-hiring farmers anxious to secure an adequate peak season labor force were able to reduce costs by laying off unneeded workers during slack seasons and having them collect poor relief. Large farmers used their political power to tailor the administration of poor relief so as to lower their labor costs. Thus, some share of the increase in relief spending in the early nineteenth century represented a subsidy to labor-hiring farmers rather than a transfer from farmers and other taxpayers to agricultural laborers and their families. In pasture farming areas, where the demand for labor was fairly constant over the year, it was not in farmers’ interests to shed labor during the winter, and the number of able-bodied laborers receiving casual relief was smaller. The Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 reduced the political power of labor-hiring farmers, which helps to account for the decline in relief expenditures after that date.

The New Poor Law, 1834-70

The increase in spending on poor relief in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, combined with the attacks on the Poor Laws by Thomas Malthus and other political economists and the agricultural laborers’ revolt of 1830-31 (the Captain Swing riots), led the government in 1832 to appoint the Royal Commission to Investigate the Poor Laws. The Commission published its report, written by Nassau Senior and Edwin Chadwick, in March 1834. The report, described by historian R. H. Tawney (1926) as “brilliant, influential and wildly unhistorical,” called for sweeping reforms of the Poor Law, including the grouping of parishes into Poor Law unions, the abolition of outdoor relief for the able-bodied and their families, and the appointment of a centralized Poor Law Commission to direct the administration of poor relief. Soon after the report was published Parliament adopted the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which implemented some of the report’s recommendations and left others, like the regulation of outdoor relief, to the three newly appointed Poor Law Commissioners.

By 1839 the vast majority of rural parishes had been grouped into poor law unions, and most of these had built or were building workhouses. On the other hand, the Commission met with strong opposition when it attempted in 1837 to set up unions in the industrial north, and the implementation of the New Poor Law was delayed in several industrial cities. In an attempt to regulate the granting of relief to able-bodied males, the Commission, and its replacement in 1847, the Poor Law Board, issued several orders to selected Poor Law Unions. The Outdoor Labour Test Order of 1842, sent to unions without workhouses or where the workhouse test was deemed unenforceable, stated that able-bodied males could be given outdoor relief only if they were set to work by the union. The Outdoor Relief Prohibitory Order of 1844 prohibited outdoor relief for both able-bodied males and females except on account of sickness or “sudden and urgent necessity.” The Outdoor Relief Regulation Order of 1852 extended the labor test for those relieved outside of workhouses.

Historical debate about the effect of the New Poor Law

Historians do not agree on the effect of the New Poor Law on the local administration of relief. Some contend that the orders regulating outdoor relief largely were evaded by both rural and urban unions, many of whom continued to grant outdoor relief to unemployed and underemployed males (Rose 1970; Digby 1975). Others point to the falling numbers of able- bodied males receiving relief in the national statistics and the widespread construction of union workhouses, and conclude that the New Poor Law succeeded in abolishing outdoor relief for the able-bodied by 1850 (Williams 1981). A recent study by Lees (1998) found that in three London parishes and six provincial towns in the years around 1850 large numbers of prime-age males continued to apply for relief, and that a majority of those assisted were granted outdoor relief. The Poor Law also played an important role in assisting the unemployed in industrial cities during the cyclical downturns of 1841-42 and 1847-48 and the Lancashire cotton famine of 1862-65 (Boot 1990; Boyer 1997). There is no doubt, however, that spending on poor relief declined after 1834 (see Table 1). Real per capita relief expenditures fell by 43 percent from 1831 to 1841, and increased slowly thereafter.

Beginning in 1840, data on the number of persons receiving poor relief are available for two days a year, January 1 and July 1; the “official” estimates in Table 1 of the annual number relieved were constructed as the average of the number relieved on these two dates. Studies conducted by Poor Law administrators indicate that the number recorded in the day counts was less than half the number assisted during the year. Lees’s “revised” estimates of annual relief recipients (see Table 1) assumes that the ratio of actual to counted paupers was 2.24 for 1850- 1900 and 2.15 for 1905-14; these suggest that from 1850 to 1870 about 10 percent of the population was assisted by the Poor Law each year. Given the temporary nature of most spells of relief, over a three year period as much as 25 percent of the population made use of the Poor Law (Lees 1998).

The Crusade Against Outrelief

In the 1870s Poor Law unions throughout England and Wales curtailed outdoor relief for all types of paupers. This change in policy, known as the Crusade Against Outrelief, was not a result of new government regulations, although it was encouraged by the newly formed Local Government Board (LGB). The Board was aided in convincing the public of the need for reform by the propaganda of the Charity Organization Society (COS), founded in 1869. The LGB and the COS maintained that the ready availability of outdoor relief destroyed the self-reliance of the poor. The COS went on to argue that the shift from outdoor to workhouse relief would significantly reduce the demand for assistance, since most applicants would refuse to enter workhouses, and therefore reduce Poor Law expenditures. A policy that promised to raise the morals of the poor and reduce taxes was hard for most Poor Law unions to resist (MacKinnon 1987).

The effect of the Crusade can be seen in Table 1. The deterrent effect associated with the workhouse led to a sharp fall in numbers on relief — from 1871 to 1876, the number of paupers receiving outdoor relief fell by 33 percent. The share of paupers relieved in workhouses increased from 12-15 percent in 1841-71 to 22 percent in 1880, and it continued to rise to 35 percent in 1911. The extent of the crusade varied considerably across poor law unions. Urban unions typically relieved a much larger share of their paupers in workhouses than did rural unions, but there were significant differences in practice across cities. In 1893, over 70 percent of the paupers in Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and in many London Poor Law unions received indoor relief; however, in Leeds, Bradford, Newcastle, Nottingham and several other industrial and mining cities the majority of paupers continued to receive outdoor relief (Booth 1894).

Change in the attitude of the poor toward relief

The last third of the nineteenth century also witnessed a change in the attitude of the poor towards relief. Prior to 1870, a large share of the working class regarded access to public relief as an entitlement, although they rejected the workhouse as a form of relief. Their opinions changed over time, however, and by the end of the century most workers viewed poor relief as stigmatizing (Lees 1998). This change in perceptions led many poor people to go to great lengths to avoid applying for relief, and available evidence suggests that there were large differences between poverty rates and pauperism rates in late Victorian Britain. For example, in York in 1900, 3,451 persons received poor relief at some point during the year, less than half of the 7,230 persons estimated by Rowntree to be living in primary poverty.

The Declining Role of the Poor Law, 1870-1914

Increased availability of alternative sources of assistance

The share of the population on relief fell sharply from 1871 to 1876, and then continued to decline, at a much slower pace, until 1914. Real per capita relief expenditures increased from 1876 to 1914, largely because the Poor Law provided increasing amounts of medical care for the poor. Otherwise, the role played by the Poor Law declined over this period, due in large part to an increase in the availability of alternative sources of assistance. There was a sharp increase in the second half of the nineteenth century in the membership of friendly societies — mutual help associations providing sickness, accident, and death benefits, and sometimes old age (superannuation) benefits — and of trade unions providing mutual insurance policies. The benefits provided workers and their families with some protection against income loss, and few who belonged to friendly societies or unions providing “friendly” benefits ever needed to apply to the Poor Law for assistance.

Work relief

Local governments continued to assist unemployed males after 1870, but typically not through the Poor Law. Beginning with the Chamberlain Circular in 1886 the Local Government Board encouraged cities to set up work relief projects when unemployment was high. The circular stated that “it is not desirable that the working classes should be familiarised with Poor Law relief,” and that the work provided should “not involve the stigma of pauperism.” In 1905 Parliament adopted the Unemployed Workman Act, which established in all large cities distress committees to provide temporary employment to workers who were unemployed because of a “dislocation of trade.”

Liberal welfare reforms, 1906-1911

Between 1906 and 1911 Parliament passed several pieces of social welfare legislation collectively known as the Liberal welfare reforms. These laws provided free meals and medical inspections (later treatment) for needy school children (1906, 1907, 1912) and weekly pensions for poor persons over age 70 (1908), and established national sickness and unemployment insurance (1911). The Liberal reforms purposely reduced the role played by poor relief, and paved the way for the abolition of the Poor Law.

The Last Years of the Poor Law

During the interwar period the Poor Law served as a residual safety net, assisting those who fell through the cracks of the existing social insurance policies. The high unemployment of 1921-38 led to a sharp increase in numbers on relief. The official count of relief recipients rose from 748,000 in 1914 to 1,449,000 in 1922; the number relieved averaged 1,379,800 from 1922 to 1938. A large share of those on relief were unemployed workers and their dependents, especially in 1922-26. Despite the extension of unemployment insurance in 1920 to virtually all workers except the self-employed and those in agriculture or domestic service, there still were large numbers who either did not qualify for unemployment benefits or who had exhausted their benefits, and many of them turned to the Poor Law for assistance. The vast majority were given outdoor relief; from 1921 to 1923 the number of outdoor relief recipients increased by 1,051,000 while the number receiving indoor relieve increased by 21,000.

The Poor Law becomes redundant and is repealed

Despite the important role played by poor relief during the interwar period, the government continued to adopt policies, which bypassed the Poor Law and left it “to die by attrition and surgical removals of essential organs” (Lees 1998). The Local Government Act of 1929 abolished the Poor Law unions, and transferred the administration of poor relief to the counties and county boroughs. In 1934 the responsibility for assisting those unemployed who were outside the unemployment insurance system was transferred from the Poor Law to the Unemployment Assistance Board. Finally, from 1945 to 1948, Parliament adopted a series of laws that together formed the basis for the welfare state, and made the Poor Law redundant. The National Assistance Act of 1948 officially repealed all existing Poor Law legislation, and replaced the Poor Law with the National Assistance Board to act as a residual relief agency.

Table 1
Relief Expenditures and Numbers on Relief, 1696-1936

Notes: Relief expenditure data are for the year ended on March 25. In calculating real per capita expenditures, I used cost of living and population data for the previous year.

Table 2
County-level Poor Relief Data, 1783-1831

References

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David R. Stead, University of York

The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) is famous for his pessimistic prediction that humankind would struggle to feed itself. Born in Wotton, Surrey, Robert Malthus (he preferred his second name) was the sixth child of Daniel and Henrietta, members of the English country gentry. After graduating from Jesus College, Cambridge University, Malthus entered the Church of England as curate of Okewood, Surrey. In 1798 he published his seminal An Essay on the Principle of Population. It contended that population has the potential to expand in a geometric progression (e.g. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32…) but that food supplies can only increase in an arithmetic progression (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…), probably because of diminishing returns to producing food on the limited available amount of farmland. Since the supply of food cannot keep pace with the burgeoning numbers of people, the population will be reduced by the “positive checks” of war, disease and starvation. Malthus argued that the best means of escaping what has subsequently been called “the Malthusian trap” was for people to adopt the “preventive check” of limiting their fertility by marrying later in life. Malthus himself married Harriet Eckersall at the age of 38 (late for the period) in 1804, a year after he became rector of Walesby, Lincolnshire. The couple had three children.

First published anonymously, An Essay on Population scandalized many but quickly established Malthus as one of the leading economists in England. Appointed professor of political economy at the East India College, Hertfordshire, in 1805, Malthus wrote about a variety of economic issues, including the theory of rent and the Corn Laws. Ironically, at about the time Malthus published his pessimistic view, want of food no longer appears to have provided a serious check to English population growth. Malthus’ predictions proved inaccurate chiefly because he failed to foresee the enormous impact that science and technology was to have in squeezing increasing amounts of food out of each hectare of land. In the two centuries since the publication of An Essay on Population, other writers have similarly forecast mass famines – including Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb of 1968 – but human ingenuity, together with falling birth rates in many parts of the world, has meant that food production has more than kept pace with population growth. The malnutrition present today is largely a result of an inadequate distribution of food, not insufficient production.

Bibliography

M. Umer Chapra, Islamic Research and Training Institute

Islamic economics has been having a revival over the last few decades. However, it is still in a preliminary stage of development. In contrast with this, conventional economics has become a well-developed and sophisticated discipline after going through a long and rigorous process of development over more than a century. Is a new discipline in economics needed? If so, what is Islamic economics, how does it differ from conventional economics, and what contributions has it made over the centuries? This article tries to briefly answer these questions.

It is universally recognized that resources are scarce compared with the claims on them. However, it is also simultaneously recognized by practically all civilizations that the well-being of all human beings needs to be ensured. Given the scarcity of resources, the well-being of all may remain an unrealized dream if the scarce resources are not utilized efficiently and equitably. For this purpose, every society needs to develop an effective strategy, which is consciously or unconsciously conditioned by its worldview. If the worldview is flawed, the strategy may not be able to help the society actualize the well-being of all. Prevailing worldviews may be classified for the sake of ease into two board theoretical constructs (1) secular and materialist, and (2) spiritual and humanitarian.

The Role of the Worldview

Secular and materialist worldviews attach maximum importance to the material aspect of human well-being and tend generally to ignore the importance of the spiritual aspect. They often argue that maximum material well-being can be best realized if individuals are given unhindered freedom to pursue their self-interest and to maximize their want satisfaction in keeping with their own tastes and preferences.[1] In their extreme form they do not recognize any role for Divine guidance in human life and place full trust in the ability of human beings to chalk out a proper strategy with the help of their reason. In such a worldview there is little role for values or government intervention in the efficient and equitable allocation and distribution of resources. When asked about how social interest would be served when everyone has unlimited freedom to pursue his/her self-interest, the reply is that market forces will themselves ensure this because competition will keep self-interest under check.

In contrast with this, religious worldviews give attention to both the material as well as the spiritual aspects of human well-being. They do not necessarily reject the role of reason in human development. They, however, recognize the limitations of reason and wish to complement it by revelation. They do not also reject the need for individual freedom or the role that the serving of self-interest can play in human development They, however, emphasize that both freedom and the pursuit of self-interest need to be toned down by moral values and good governance to ensure that everyone’s well-being is realized and that social harmony and family integrity are not hurt in the process of everyone serving his/her self-interest.

Material and Spiritual Needs

Even though none of the major worldviews prevailing around the world is totally materialist and hedonist, there are, nevertheless, significant differences among them in terms of the emphasis they place on material or spiritual goals and the role of moral values and government intervention in ordering human affairs. While material goals concentrate primarily on goods and services that contribute to physical comfort and well-being, spiritual goals include nearness to God, peace of mind, inner happiness, honesty, justice, mutual care and cooperation, family and social harmony, and the absence of crime and anomie. These may not be quantifiable, but are, nevertheless, crucial for realizing human well-being. Resources being limited, excessive emphasis on the material ingredients of well-being may lead to a neglect of spiritual ingredients. The greater the difference in emphasis, the greater may be the difference in the economic disciplines of these societies. Feyerabend (1993) frankly recognized this in the introduction to the Chinese edition of his thought-provoking book, Against Method, by stating that “First world science is only one science among many; by claiming to be more it ceases to be an instrument of research and turns into a (political) pressure group” (p.3, parentheses are in the original).

The Enlightenment Worldview and Conventional Economics

There is a great deal that is common between the worldviews of most major religions, particularly those of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This is because, according to Islam, there is a continuity and similarity in the value systems of all Revealed religions to the extent to which the Message has not been lost or distorted over the ages. The Qur’an clearly states that: “Nothing has been said to you [Muhammad] that was not said to the Messengers before you” (Al-Qur’an, 41:43). If conventional economics had continued to develop in the image of the Judeo-Christian worldview, as it did before the Enlightenment Movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there may not have been any significant difference between conventional and Islamic economics. However, after the Enlightenment Movement, all intellectual disciplines in Europe became influenced by its secular, value-neutral, materialist and social-Darwinist worldview, even though this did not succeed fully. All economists did not necessarily become materialist or social-Darwinist in their individual lives and many of them continued to be attached to their religious worldviews. Koopmans (1969) has rightly observed that “scratch an economist and you will find a moralist underneath.” Therefore, while theoretically conventional economics adopted the secular and value neutral orientation of the Enlightenment worldview and failed to recognize the role of value judgments and good governance in the efficient and equitable allocation and distribution of resources, in practice this did not take place fully. The pre-Enlightenment tradition never disappeared completely (see Baeck, 1994, p. 11).

There is no doubt that, in spite of its secular and materialist worldview, the market system led to a long period of prosperity in the Western market-oriented economies. However, this unprecedented prosperity did not lead to the elimination of poverty or the fulfillment of everyone’s needs in conformity with the Judeo-Christian value system even in the wealthiest countries. Inequalities of income and wealth have also continued to persist and there has also been a substantial degree of economic instability and unemployment which have added to the miseries of the poor. This indicates that both efficiency and equity have remained elusive in spite of rapid development and phenomenal rise in wealth.

Consequently there has been persistent criticism of economics by a number of well-meaning scholars, including Thomas Carlyle (Past and Present, 1843), John Ruskin (Unto this Last, 1862) and Charles Dickens (Hard Times, 1854-55) in England, and Henry George (Progress and Poverty, 1879) in America. They ridiculed the dominant doctrine of laissez-faire with its emphasis on self-interest. Thomas Carlyle called economics a “dismal science” and rejected the idea that free and uncontrolled private interests will work in harmony and further the public welfare (see Jay and Jay, 1986). Henry George condemned the resulting contrast between wealth and poverty and wrote: “So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent” (1955, p. 10).

In addition to failing to fulfill the basic needs of a large number of people and increasing inequalities of income and wealth, modern economic development has been associated with the disintegration of the family and a failure to bring peace of mind and inner happiness (Easterlin 2001, 1995 and 1974; Oswald, 1997; Blanchflower and Oswald, 2000; Diener and Oshi, 2000; and Kenny, 1999). Due to these problems and others the laissez-faire approach lost ground, particularly after the Great Depression of the 1930s as a result of the Keynesian revolution and the socialist onslaught. However, most observers have concluded that government intervention alone cannot by itself remove all socio-economic ills. It is also necessary to motivate individuals to do what is right and abstain from doing what is wrong. This is where the moral uplift of society can be helpful. Without it, more and more difficult and costly regulations are needed. Nobel-laureate Amartya Sen has, therefore, rightly argued that “the distancing of economics from ethics has impoverished welfare economics and also weakened the basis of a good deal of descriptive and predictive economics” and that economics “can be made more productive by paying greater and more explicit attention to ethical considerations that shaped human behaviour and judgment” (1987, pp. 78-79). Hausman and McPherson also conclude in their survey article “Economics and Contemporary Moral Philosophy” that “An economy that is engaged actively and self-critically with the moral aspects of its subject matter cannot help but be more interesting, more illuminating and, ultimately, more useful than the one that tries not to be” (1993, p. 723).

Islamic Economics – and How It Differs from Conventional Economics

While conventional economics is now in the process of returning to its pre-Enlightenment roots, Islamic economics never got entangled in a secular and materialist worldview. It is based on a religious worldview which strikes at the roots of secularism and value neutrality. To ensure the true well-being of all individuals, irrespective of their sex, age, race, religion or wealth, Islamic economics does not seek to abolish private property, as was done by communism, nor does it prevent individuals from serving their self-interest. It recognizes the role of the market in the efficient allocation of resources, but does not find competition to be sufficient to safeguard social interest. It tries to promote human brotherhood, socio-economic justice and the well-being of all through an integrated role of moral values, market mechanism, families, society, and ‘good governance.’ This is because of the great emphasis in Islam on human brotherhood and socio-economic justice.

The Integrated Role of the Market, Families, Society, and Government

The market is not the only institution where people interact in human society. They also interact in the family, the society and the government and their interaction in all these institutions is closely interrelated. There is no doubt that the serving of self-interest does help raise efficiency in the market place. However, if self-interest is overemphasized and there are no moral restraints on individual behavior, other institutions may not work effectively – families may disintegrate, the society may be uncaring, and the government may be corrupt, partisan, and self-centered. Mutual sacrifice is necessary for keeping the families glued together. Since the human being is the most important input of not only the market, but also of the family, the society and the government, and the family is the source of this input, nothing may work if families disintegrate and are unable to provide loving care to children. This is likely to happen if both the husband and wife try to serve just their own self-interest and are not attuned to the making of sacrifices that the proper care and upbringing of children demands. Lack of willingness to make such sacrifice can lead to a decline in the quality of the human input to all other institutions, including the market, the society and the government. It may also lead to a fall in fertility rates below the replacement level, making it difficult for society not only to sustain its development but also its social security system.

The Role of Moral Values

While conventional economics generally considers the behavior and tastes and preferences of individuals as given, Islamic economics does not do so. It places great emphasis on individual and social reform through moral uplift. This is the purpose for which all God’s messengers, including Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad, came to this world. Moral uplift aims at the change in human behavior, tastes and preferences and, thereby, it complements the price mechanism in promoting general well-being. Before even entering the market place and being exposed to the price filter, consumers are expected to pass their claims through the moral filter. This will help filter out conspicuous consumption and all wasteful and unnecessary claims on resources. The price mechanism can then take over and reduce the claims on resources even further to lead to the market equilibrium. The two filters can together make it possible to have optimum economy in the use of resources, which is necessary to satisfy the material as well as spiritual needs of all human beings, to reduce the concentration of wealth in a few hands, and to raise savings, which are needed to promote greater investment and employment. Without complementing the market system with morally-based value judgments, we may end up perpetuating inequities in spite of our good intentions through what Solo calls inaction, non-choice and drifting (Solo, 1981, p. 38)

From the above discussion, one may easily notice the similarities and differences between the two disciplines. While the subject matter of both is the allocation and distribution of resources and both emphasize the fulfillment of material needs, there is an equal emphasis in Islamic economics on the fulfillment of spiritual needs. While both recognize the important role of market mechanism in the allocation and distribution of resources, Islamic economics argues that the market may not by itself be able to fulfill even the material needs of all human beings. This is because it can promote excessive use of scarce resources by the rich at the expense of the poor if there is undue emphasis on the serving of self-interest. Sacrifice is involved in fulfilling our obligations towards others and excessive emphasis on the serving of self-interest does not have the potential of motivating people to make the needed sacrifice. This, however, raises the crucial question of why a rational person would sacrifice his self-interest for the sake of others?

The Importance of the Hereafter

This is where the concepts of the innate goodness of human beings and of the Hereafter come in – concepts which conventional economics ignores but on which Islam and other major religions place a great deal of emphasis. Because of their innate goodness, human beings do not necessarily always try to serve their self-interest. They are also altruistic and are willing to make sacrifices for the well-being of others. In addition, the concept of the Hereafter does not confine self-interest to just this world. It rather extends it beyond this world to life after death. We may be able to serve our self-interest in this world by being selfish, dishonest, uncaring, and negligent of our obligations towards our families, other human beings, animals, and the environment. However, we cannot serve our self-interest in the Hereafter except by fulfilling all these obligations.

Thus, the serving of self-interest receives a long-run perspective in Islam and other religions by taking into account both this world and the next. This serves to provide a motivating mechanism for sacrifice for the well-being of others that conventional economics fails to provide. The innate goodness of human beings along with the long-run perspective given to self-interest has the potential of inducing a person to be not only efficient but also equitable and caring. Consequently, the three crucial concepts of conventional economics – rational economic man, positivism, and laissez-faire – were not able to gain intellectual blessing in their conventional economics sense from any of the outstanding scholars who represent the mainstream of Islamic thought.

Rational Economic Man

While there is hardly anyone opposed to the need for rationality in human behavior, there are differences of opinion in defining rationality (Sen, 1987, pp. 11-14). However, once rationality has been defined in terms of overall individual as well as social well-being, then rational behavior could only be that which helps us realize this goal. Conventional economics does not define rationality in this way. It equates rationality with the serving of self-interest through the maximization of wealth and want satisfaction, The drive of self-interest is considered to be the “moral equivalent of the force of gravity in nature” (Myers, 1983, p. 4). Within this framework society is conceptualized as a mere collection of individuals united through ties of self-interest.

The concept of ‘rational economic man’ in this social-Darwinist, utilitarian, and material sense of serving self–interest could not find a foothold in Islamic economics. ‘Rationality’ in Islamic economics does not get confined to the serving of one’s self-interest in this world alone; it also gets extended to the Hereafter through the faithful compliance with moral values that help rein self-interest to promote social interest. Al-Mawardi (d. 1058) considered it necessary, like all other Muslim scholars, to rein individual tastes and preferences through moral values (1955, pp. 118-20). Ibn Khaldun (d.1406) emphasized that moral orientation helps remove mutual rivalry and envy, strengthens social solidarity, and creates an inclination towards righteousness (n.d., p.158).

Positivism

Similarly, positivism in the conventional economics sense of being “entirely neutral between ends” (Robbins, 1935, p. 240) or “independent of any particular ethical position or normative judgment” (Friedman, 1953) did not find a place in Muslim intellectual thinking. Since all resources at the disposal of human beings are a trust from God, and human beings are accountable before Him, there is no other option but to use them in keeping with the terms of trust. These terms are defined by beliefs and moral values. Human brotherhood, one of the central objectives of Islam, would be a meaningless jargon if it were not reinforced by justice in the allocation and distribution of resources.

Pareto Optimum

Without justice, it would be difficult to realize even development. Muslim scholars have emphasized this throughout history. Development Economics has also started emphasizing its importance, more so in the last few decades.[2] Abu Yusuf (d. 798) argued that: “Rendering justice to those wronged and eradicating injustice, raises tax revenue, accelerates development of the country, and brings blessings in addition to reward in the Hereafter” (1933/34, p. 111: see also pp. 3-17). Al-Mawardi argued that comprehensive justice “inculcates mutual love and affection, obedience to the law, development of the country, expansion of wealth, growth of progeny, and security of the sovereign” (1955, p. 27). Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328) emphasized that “justice towards everything and everyone is an imperative for everyone, and injustice is prohibited to everything and everyone. Injustice is absolutely not permissible irrespective of whether it is to a Muslim or a non-Muslim or even to an unjust person” (1961-63, Vol. 18, p. 166).

Justice and the well-being of all may be difficult to realize without a sacrifice on the part of the well-to-do. The concept of Pareto optimum does not, therefore, fit into the paradigm of Islamic economics. This is because Pareto optimum does not recognize any solution as optimum if it requires a sacrifice on the part of a few (rich) for raising the well-being of the many (poor). Such a position is in clear conflict with moral values, the raison d’être of which is the well-being of all. Hence, this concept did not arise in Islamic economics. In fact, Islam makes it a religious obligation of Muslims to make a sacrifice for the poor and the needy, by paying Zakat at the rate of 2.5 percent of their net worth. This is in addition to the taxes that they pay to the governments as in other countries.

The Role of State

Moral values may not be effective if they are not observed by all. They need to be enforced. It is the duty of the state to restrain all socially harmful behavior[3] including injustice, fraud, cheating, transgression against other people’s person, honor and property, and the non-fulfillment of contracts and other obligations through proper upbringing, incentives and deterrents, appropriate regulations, and an effective and impartial judiciary. The Qur’an can only provide norms. It cannot by itself enforce them. The state has to ensure this. That is why the Prophet Muhammad said: “God restrains through the sovereign more than what He restrains through the Qur’an” (cited by al-Mawardi, 1955, p. 121). This emphasis on the role of the state has been reflected in the writings of all leading Muslim scholars throughout history.[4] Al-Mawardi emphasized that an effective government (Sultan Qahir) is indispensable for preventing injustice and wrongdoing (1960, p. 5). Say’s Law could not, therefore, become a meaningful proposition in Islamic economics.

How far is the state expected to go in the fulfillment of its role? What is it that the state is expected to do? This has been spelled out by a number of scholars in the literature on what has come to be termed as “Mirrors for Princes.”[5] None of them visualized regimentation or the owning and operating of a substantial part of the economy by the state. Several classical Muslim scholars, including al-Dimashqi (d. after 1175) and Ibn Khaldun, clearly expressed their disapproval of the state becoming directly involved in the economy (Al-Dimashqi, 1977, pp. 12 and 61; Ibn Khaldun, pp. 281-83). According to Ibn Khaldun, the state should not acquire the character of a monolithic or despotic state resorting to a high degree of regimentation (ibid., p. 188). It should not feel that, because it has authority, it can do anything it likes (ibid, p. 306). It should be welfare-oriented, moderate in its spending, respect the property rights of the people, and avoid onerous taxation (ibid, p. 296). This implies that what these scholars visualized as the role of government is what has now been generally referred to as ‘good governance’.

Some of the Contributions Made by Islamic Economics

The above discussion should not lead one to an impression that the two disciplines are entirely different. One of the reasons for this is that the subject matter of both disciplines is the same, allocation and distribution of scarce resources. Another reason is that all conventional economists have never been value neutral. They have made value judgments in conformity with their beliefs. As indicated earlier, even the paradigm of conventional economics has been changing – the role of good governance has now become well recognized and the injection of a moral dimension has also become emphasized by a number of prominent economists. Moreover, Islamic economists have benefited a great deal from the tools of analysis developed by neoclassical, Keynesian, social, humanistic and institutional economics as well as other social sciences, and will continue to do so in the future.

The Fallacy of the ‘Great Gap’ Theory

A number of economic concepts developed in Islamic economics long before they did in conventional economics. These cover a number of areas including interdisciplinary approach; property rights; division of labor and specialization; the importance of saving and investment for development; the role that both demand and supply play in the determination of prices and the factors that influence demand and supply; the roles of money, exchange, and the market mechanism; characteristics of money, counterfeiting, currency debasement, and Gresham’s law; the development of checks, letters of credit and banking; labor supply and population; the role of the state, justice, peace, and stability in development; and principles of taxation.I t is not possible to provide comprehensive coverage of all the contributions Muslim scholars have made to economics. Only some of their contributions will be highlighted below to remove the concept of the “Great Gap” of “over 500 years” that exists in the history of conventional economic thought as a result of the incorrect conclusion by Joseph Schumpeter in History of Economic Analysis (1954), that the intervening period between the Greeks and the Scholastics was sterile and unproductive.[6] This concept has become well embedded in the conventional economics literature as may be seen from the reference to this even by the Nobel-laureate, Douglass North, in his December 1993 Nobel lecture (1994, p. 365). Consequently, as Todd Lowry has rightly observed, “the character and sophistication of Arabian writings has been ignored” (See his ‘Foreword’ in Ghazanfar, 2003, p. xi).

The reality, however, is that the Muslim civilization, which benefited greatly from the Chinese, Indian, Sassanian and Byzantine civilizations, itself made rich contributions to intellectual activity, including socio-economic thought, during the ‘Great Gap’ period, and thereby played a part in kindling the flame of the European Enlightenment Movement. Even the Scholastics themselves were greatly influenced by the contributions made by Muslim scholars. The names of Ibn Sina (Avicenna, d. 1037), Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 1198) and Maimonides (d. 1204, a Jewish philosopher, scientist, and physician who flourished in Muslim Spain) appear on almost every page of the thirteenth-century summa (treatises written by scholastic philosophers) (Pifer, 1978, p. 356).

Multidisciplinary Approach for Development

One of the most important contributions of Islamic economics, in addition to the above paradigm discussion, was the adoption of a multidisciplinary dynamic approach. Muslim scholars did not focus their attention primarily on economic variables. They considered overall human well-being to be the end product of interaction over a long period of time between a number of economic, moral, social, political, demographic and historical factors in such a way that none of them is able to make an optimum contribution without the support of the others. Justice occupied a pivotal place in this whole framework because of its crucial importance in the Islamic worldview There was an acute realization that justice is indispensable for development and that, in the absence of justice, there will be decline and disintegration.

The contributions made by different scholars over the centuries seem to have reached their consummation in Ibn Khaldun’s Maquddimah, which literally means ‘introduction,’ and constitutes the first volume of a seven-volume history, briefly called Kitab al-‘Ibar or the Book of Lessons [of History].[7] Ibn Khaldun lived at a time (1332-1406) when the Muslim civilization was in the process of decline. He wished to see a reversal of this tide, and, as a social scientist, he was well aware that such a reversal could not be envisaged without first drawing lessons (‘ibar) from history to determine the factors that had led the Muslim civilization to bloom out of humble beginnings and to decline thereafter. He was, therefore, not interested in knowing just what happened. He wanted to know the how and why of what happened. He wanted to introduce a cause and effect relationship into the discussion of historical phenomena. The Muqaddimah is the result of this desire. It tries to derive the principles that govern the rise and fall of a ruling dynasty, state (dawlah) or civilization (‘umran).

Since the centre of Ibn Khaldun’s analysis is the human being, he sees the rise and fall of dynasties or civilizations to be closely dependent on the well-being or misery of the people. The well-being of the people is in turn not dependent just on economic variables, as conventional economics has emphasized until recently, but also on the closely interrelated role of moral, psychological, social, economic, political, demographic and historical factors. One of these factors acts as the trigger mechanism. The others may, or may not, react in the same way. If the others do not react in the same direction, then the decay in one sector may not spread to the others and either the decaying sector may be reformed or the decline of the civilization may be much slower. If, however, the other sectors react in the same direction as the trigger mechanism, the decay will gain momentum through an interrelated chain reaction such that it becomes difficult over time to identify the cause from the effect. He, thus, seems to have had a clear vision of how all the different factors operate in an interrelated and dynamic manner over a long period to promote the development or decline of a society.

He did not, thus, adopt the neoclassical economist’s simplification of confining himself to primarily short-term static analysis of only markets by assuming unrealistically that all other factors remain constant. Even in the short-run, everything may be in a state of flux through a chain reaction to the various changes constantly taking place in human society, even though these may be so small as to be imperceptible. Therefore, even though economists may adopt the ceteris paribus assumption for ease of analysis, Ibn Khaldun’s multidisciplinary dynamics can be more helpful in formulating socio-economic policies that help improve the overall performance of a society. Neoclassical economics is unable to do this because, as North has rightly asked, “How can one prescribe policies when one does not understand how economies develop?” He, therefore, considers neoclassical economics to be “an inappropriate tool to analyze and prescribe policies that will induce development” (North, 1994, p. 549).

However, this is not all that Islamic economics has done. Muslim scholars, including Abu Yusuf (d. 798), al-Mawardi (d. 1058), Ibn Hazm (d. 1064), al-Sarakhsi (d. 1090), al-Tusi (d. 1093), al-Ghazali (d. 1111), al-Dimashqi (d. after 1175), Ibn Rushd (d. 1187), Ibn Taymiyyah (d.1328), Ibn al-Ukhuwwah (d. 1329), Ibn al-Qayyim (d. 1350), al-Shatibi (d. 1388), Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), al-Maqrizi (d. 1442), al-Dawwani (d. 1501), and Shah Waliyullah (d. 1762) made a number of valuable contributions to economic theory. Their insight into some economic concepts was so deep that a number of the theories propounded by them could undoubtedly be considered the forerunners of some more sophisticated modern formulations of these theories.[8]

Division of Labor, Specialization, Trade, Exchange and Money and Banking

A number of scholars emphasized the necessity of division of labor for economic development long before this happened in conventional economics. For example, al-Sarakhsi (d. 1090) said: “the farmer needs the work of the weaver to get clothing for himself, and the weaver needs the work of the farmer to get his food and the cotton from which the cloth is made …, and thus everyone of them helps the other by his work…” (1978, Vol. 30, p. 264). Al-Dimashqi, writing about a century later, elaborates further by saying: “No individual can, because of the shortness of his life span, burden himself with all industries. If he does, he may not be able to master the skills of all of them from the first to the last. Industries are all interdependent. Construction needs the carpenter and the carpenter needs the ironsmith and the ironsmith needs the miner, and all these industries need premises. People are, therefore, necessitated by force of circumstances to be clustered in cities to help each other in fulfilling their mutual needs” (1977, p. 20-21).

Ibn Khaldun ruled out the feasibility or desirability of self-sufficiency, and emphasized the need for division of labor and specialization by indicating that: “It is well-known and well-established that individual human beings are not by themselves capable of satisfying all their individual economic needs. They must all cooperate for this purpose. The needs that can be satisfied by a group of them through mutual cooperation are many times greater than what individuals are capable of satisfying by themselves” (p. 360). In this respect he was perhaps the forerunner of the theory of comparative advantage, the credit for which is generally given in conventional economics to David Ricardo who formulated it in 1817.

The discussion of division of labor and specialization, in turn, led to an emphasis on trade and exchange, the existence of well-regulated and properly functioning markets through their effective regulation and supervision (hisbah), and money as a stable and reliable measure, medium of exchange and store of value. However, because of bimetallism (gold and silver coins circulating together) which then prevailed, and the different supply and demand conditions that the two metals faced, the rate of exchange between the two full-bodied coins fluctuated. This was further complicated by debasement of currencies by governments in the later centuries to tide over their fiscal problems. This had, according to Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328) (1961-63, Vol. 29, p. 649), and later on al-Maqrizi (d. 1442) and al-Asadi (d. 1450), the effect of bad coins driving good coins out of circulation (al-Misri, 1981, pp. 54 and 66), a phenomenon which was recognized and referred to in the West in the sixteenth century as Gresham’s Law. Since debasement of currencies is in sheer violation of the Islamic emphasis on honesty and integrity in all measures of value, fraudulent practices in the issue of coins in the fourteenth century and afterwards elicited a great deal of literature on monetary theory and policy. The Muslims, according to Baeck, should, therefore, be considered forerunners and critical incubators of the debasement literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Baeck, 1994, p. 114).

To finance their expanding domestic and international trade, the Muslim world also developed a financial system, which was able to mobilize the “entire reservoir of monetary resources of the mediaeval Islamic world” for financing agriculture, crafts, manufacturing and long-distance trade (Udovitch, 1970, pp. 180 and 261). Financiers were known as sarrafs. By the time of Abbasid Caliph al-Muqtadir (908-32), they had started performing most of the basic functions of modern banks (Fischel, 1992). They had their markets, something akin to the Wall Street in New York and Lombard Street in London, and fulfilled all the banking needs of commerce, agriculture and industry (Duri, 1986, p. 898). This promoted the use of checks (sakk) and letters of credit (hawala). The English word check comes from the Arabic term sakk.

Demand and Supply

A number of Muslim scholars seem to have clearly understood the role of both demand and supply in the determination of prices. For example, Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328) wrote: “The rise or fall of prices may not necessarily be due to injustice by some people. They may also be due to the shortage of output or the import of commodities in demand. If the demand for a commodity increases and the supply of what is demanded declines, the price rises. If, however, the demand falls and the supply increases, the price falls” (1961-3, Vol. 8, p. 523).

Even before Ibn Taymiyyah, al-Jahiz (d. 869) wrote nearly five centuries earlier that: “Anything available in the market is cheap because of its availability [supply] and dear by its lack of availability if there is need [demand] for it” (1983, p. 13), and that “anything the supply of which increases, becomes cheap except intelligence, which becomes dearer when it increases” (ibid., p. 13).

Ibn Khaldun went even further by emphasizing that both an increase in demand or a fall in supply leads to a rise in prices, while a decline in demand or a rise in supply contributes to a fall in prices (pp. 393 and 396). He believed that while continuation of ‘excessively low’ prices hurts the craftsmen and traders and drives them out of the market, the continuation of ‘excessively high’ prices hurts the consumers. ‘Moderate’ prices in between the two extremes were, therefore, desirable, because they would not only allow the traders a socially-acceptable level of return but also lead to the clearance of the markets by promoting sales and thereby generating a given turnover and prosperity (ibid, p. 398). Nevertheless, low prices were desirable for necessities because they provide relief to the poor who constitute the majority of the population (ibid, p. 398). If one were to use modem terminology, one could say that Ibn Khaldun found a stable price level with a relatively low cost of living to be preferable, from the point of view of both growth and equity in comparison with bouts of inflation and deflation. The former hurts equity while the latter reduces incentive and efficiency. Low prices for necessities should not, however, be attained through the fixing of prices by the state; this destroys the incentive for production (ibid, pp. 279-83).

The factors which determined demand were, according to Ibn Khaldun, income, price level, the size of the population, government spending, the habits and customs of the people, and the general development and prosperity of the society (ibid, pp.398-404). The factors which determined supply were demand (ibid, pp. 400 and 403), order and stability (pp. 306-08), the relative rate of profit (ibid, pp. 395 and 398), the extent of human effort (p. 381), the size of the labor force as well as their knowledge and skill (pp. 363 and 399-400), peace and security (pp. 394-95 and 396), and the technical background and development of the whole society (pp. 399-403). All these constituted important elements of his theory of production. If the price falls and leads to a loss, capital is eroded, the incentive to supply declines, leading to a recession. Trade and crafts also consequently suffer (p. 398).

This is highly significant because the role of both demand and supply in the determination of value was not well understood in the West until the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Pre-classical English economists like William Petty (1623-87), Richard Cantillon (1680-1734), James Steuart (1712-80), and even Adam Smith (1723-90), the founder of the Classical School, generally stressed only the role of the cost of production, and particularly of labor, in the determination of value. The first use in English writings of the notions of both demand and supply was perhaps in 1767 (Thweatt, 1983). Nevertheless, it was not until the second decade of the nineteenth century that the role of both demand and supply in the determination of market prices began to be fully appreciated (Groenewegen, 1973). While Ibn Khaldun had been way ahead of conventional economists, he probably did not have any idea of demand and supply schedules, elasticities of demand and supply and most important of all, equilibrium price, which plays a crucial role in modern economic discussions.

Public Finance

Taxation

Long before Adam Smith (d. 1790), who is famous, among other things, for his canons of taxation (equality, certainty, convenience of payment, and economy in collection) (see Smith, 1937, pp. 777-79), the development of these canons can be traced in the writings of pre-Islamic as well as Muslim scholars, particularly the need for the tax system to be just and not oppressive. Caliphs Umar (d. 644), Ali (d. 661) and Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (d. 720), stressed that taxes should be collected with justice and leniency and should not be beyond the ability of the people to bear. Tax collectors should not under any circumstances deprive the people of the necessities of life (Abu Yusuf, 1933/34, pp. 14, 16 and 86). Abu Yusuf, adviser to Caliph Harun al-Rashid (786-809), argued that a just tax system would lead not only to an increase in revenues but also to the development of the country (Abu Yusuf, 1933/34, p. 111; see also pp. 14, 16, 60, 85, 105-19 and 125). Al-Mawardi also argued that the tax system should do justice to both the taxpayer and the treasury – “taking more was iniquitous with respect to the rights of the people, while taking less was unfair with respect to the right of the public treasury” (1960, p. 209; see also pp. 142-56 and 215).[9]

Ibn Khaldun stressed the principles of taxation very forcefully in the Muqaddimah. He quoted from a letter written by Tahir ibn al-Husayn, Caliph al-Ma’mun’s general, advising his son, ‘Abdullah ibn Tahir, Governor of al-Raqqah (Syria): “So distribute [taxes] among all people making them general, not exempting anyone because of his nobility or wealth and not exempting even your own officials or courtiers or followers. And do not levy on anyone a tax which is beyond his capacity to pay” (p. 308).[10] In this particular passage, he stressed the principles of equity and neutrality, while in other places he also stressed the principles of convenience and productivity.

The effect of taxation on incentives and productivity was so clearly visualized by Ibn Khaldun that he seems to have grasped the concept of optimum taxation. He anticipated the gist of the Laffer Curve, nearly six hundred years before Arthur Laffer, in two full chapters of the Muqaddimah.[11] At the end of the first chapter, he concluded that “the most important factor making for business prosperity is to lighten as much as possible the burden of taxation on businessmen, in order to encourage enterprise by ensuring greater profits [after taxes]” (p. 280). This he explained by stating that “when taxes and imposts are light, the people have the incentive to be more active. Business therefore expands, bringing greater satisfaction to the people because of low taxes …, and tax revenues also rise, being the sum total of all assessments” (p. 279). He went on to say that as time passes the needs of the state increase and rates of taxation rise to increase the yield. If this rise is gradual people become accustomed to it, but ultimately there is an adverse impact on incentives. Business activity is discouraged and declines, and so does the yield of taxation (pp. 280-81). A prosperous economy at the beginning of the dynasty, thus, yields higher tax revenue from lower tax rates while a depressed economy at the end of the dynasty, yields smaller tax revenue from higher rates (p. 279). He explained the reasons for this by stating: “Know that acting unjustly with respect to people’s wealth, reduces their will to earn and acquire wealth … and if the will to earn goes, they stop working. The greater the oppression, the greater the effect on their effort to earn … and, if people abstain from earning and stop working, the markets will stagnate and the condition of people will worsen” (pp. 286-87); tax revenues will also decline (p. 362). He, therefore, advocated justice in taxation (p. 308).

Public Expenditure

For Ibn Khaldun the state was also an important factor of production. By its spending it promotes production and by its taxation it discourages production (pp. 279-81). Since the government constitutes the greatest market for goods and services, and is a major source of all development (pp. 286 and 403), a decrease in its spending leads to not only a slackening of business activity and a decline in profits but also a decline in tax revenue (p. 286). The more the government spends, the better it may be for the economy (p. 286).[12] Higher spending enables the government to do the things that are needed to support the population and to ensure law and order and political stability (pp. 306 and 308). Without order and political stability, the producers have no incentive to produce. He stated that “the only reason [for the accelerated development of cities] is that the government is near them and pours its money into them, like the water [of a river] that makes green everything around it, and irrigates the soil adjacent to it, while in the distance everything remains dry” (p. 369).

Ibn Khaldun also analyzed the effect of government expenditure on the economy and is, in this respect, a forerunner of Keynes. He stated: “A decrease in government spending leads to a decline in tax revenues. The reason for this is that the state represents the greatest market for the world and the source of civilization. If the ruler hoards tax revenues, or if these are lost, and he does not spend them as they should be, the amount available with his courtiers and supporters would decrease, as would also the amount that reaches through them to their employees and dependents [the multiplier effect]. Their total spending would, therefore, decline. Since they constitute a significant part of the population and their spending constitutes a substantial part of the market, business will slacken and the profits of businessmen will decline, leading also to a decline in tax revenues … Wealth tends to circulate between the people and the ruler, from him to them and from them to him. Therefore, if the ruler withholds it from spending, the people would become deprived of it” (p. 286).

Economic Mismanagement and Famine

Ibn Khaldun established the causal link between bad government and high grain prices by indicating that in the later stage of the dynasty, when public administration becomes corrupt and inefficient, and resorts to coercion and oppressive taxation, incentive is adversely affected and the farmers refrain from cultivating the land. Grain production and reserves fail to keep pace with the rising population. The absence of reserves causes supply shortages in the event of a famine and leads to price escalation (pp. 301-02).

Al-Maqrizi (d. 1442) who, as muhtasib (market supervisor), had intimate knowledge of the economic conditions during his times, applied Ibn Khaldun’s analysis in his book (1956) to determine the reasons for the economic crisis of Egypt during the period 1403-06. He identified that the political administration had become very weak and corrupt during the Circassian period. Public officials were appointed on the basis of bribery rather than ability.[13] To recover the bribes, officials resorted to oppressive taxation. The incentive to work and produce was adversely affected and output declined. The crisis was further intensified by debasement of the currency through the excessive issue of copper fulus, or fiat money, to cover state budgetary deficits. All these factors joined hands with the famine to lead to a high degree of inflation, misery of the poor, and impoverishment of the country.

Hence, al-Maqrizi laid bare the socio-political determinants of the prevailing ‘system crisis’ by taking into account a number of variables like corruption, bad government policies, and weak administration. All of these together played a role in worsening the impact of the famine, which could otherwise have been handled effectively without a significant adverse impact on the population. This is clearly a forerunner of Sen’s entitlement theory, which holds the economic mismanagement of illegitimate governments to be responsible for the poor people’s misery during famines and other natural disasters (Sen, 1981). What al-Maqrizi wrote of the Circassian Mamluks was also true of the later Ottoman period (See Meyer, 1989).

Stages of Development

Ibn Khaldun stated the stages of development through which every society passes, moving from the primitive Bedouin stage to the rise of village, towns and urban centers with an effective government, development of agriculture, industry and sciences, and the impact of values and environment on this development ( Muqaddimah, pp. 35, 41-44, 87-95, 120-48, 172-76). Walliyullah[14] (d. 1762) later analyzed the development of society through four different stages from primitive existence to a well-developed community with khilafah (morally-based welfare state), which tries to ensure the spiritual as well as material well-being of the people. Like Ibn Khaldun, he considered political authority to be indispensable for human well-being. To be able to serve as a source of well-being for all and not of burden and decay, it must have the characteristics of the khilafah. He applied this analysis in various writings to the conditions prevailing during his life-time. He found that the luxurious life style of the rulers, along with their exhausting military campaigns, the increasing corruption and inefficiency of the civil service, and huge stipends to a vast retinue of unproductive courtiers, led them to the imposition of oppressive taxes on farmers, traders and craftsmen, who constituted the main productive section of the population. These people had, therefore, lost interest in their occupations, output had slowed down, state financial resources had declined, and the country had become impoverished (Waliyullah, 1992, Vol. I, pp. 119-52). Thus, in step with Ibn Khaldun and other Muslim scholars, al-Maqrizi and Waliyullah combined moral, political, social and economic factors to explain the economic phenomena of their times and the rise and fall of their societies.

Muslim Intellectual Decline

Unfortunately, the rich theoretical contribution made by Muslim scholars up until Ibn Khaldun did not get fertilized and irrigated by later scholars to lead to the development of Islamic economics, except by a few isolated scholars like al-Maqrizi, al-Dawwani (d. 1501), and Waliyullah. Their contributions were, however, only in specific areas and did not lead to a further development of Ibn Khaldun’s model of socio-economic and political dynamics. Islamic economics did not, therefore, develop as a separate intellectual discipline in conformity with the Islamic paradigm along the theoretical foundations and method laid down by Ibn Khaldun and his predecessors. It continued to remain an integral part of the social and moral philosophy of Islam.

One may ask here why the rich intellectual contributions made by Muslim scholars did not continue after Ibn Khaldun. The reason may be that, as indicated earlier, Ibn Khaldun lived at a time when the political and socio-economic decline of the Muslim world was underway.[15] He was perhaps “the sole point of light in his quarter of the firmament” (Toynbee, 1935, Vol. 3, p. 321). According to Ibn Khaldun himself, sciences progress only when a society is itself progressing (p. 434). This theory is clearly upheld by Muslim history. Sciences progressed rapidly in the Muslim world for four centuries from the middle of the eighth century to the middle of the twelfth century and continued to do so at a substantially decelerated pace for at least two more centuries, tapering off gradually thereafter (Sarton 1927, Vol. 1 and Book 1 of Vol. 2). Once in a while there did appear a brilliant star on an otherwise unexciting firmament. Economics was no exception. It also continued to be in a state of limbo in the Muslim world. No worthwhile contributions were made after Ibn Khaldun.

The trigger mechanism for this decline was, according to Ibn Khaldun, the failure of political authority to provide good governance. Political illegitimacy, which started after the end of khilafah in 661 gradually led to increased corruption and the use of state resources for private benefit at the neglect of education and other nation-building functions of the state. This gradually triggered the decline of all other sectors of the society and economy.[16]

The rapidly rising Western civilization took over the torch of knowledge from the declining Muslim world and has kept it burning with even greater brightness. All sciences, including the social sciences, have made phenomenal progress. Conventional economics became a separate academic discipline after the publication of Alfred Marshall’s great treatise, Principles of Economics, in 1890 (Schumpeter, 1954, p.21),[17] and has continued to develop since then at a remarkable speed. With such a great achievement to its credit, there is no psychological need to allow the ‘Great Gap’ thesis to persist. It would help promote better understanding of Muslim civilization in the West if textbooks started giving credit to Muslim scholars. They were “the torchbearers of ancient learning during the medieval period” and “it was from them that the Renaissance was sparked and the Enlightenment kindled” (Todd Lowry in his ‘Foreword’ in Ghazanfar, 2003, p. xi). Watt has been frank enough to admit that, “the influence of Islam on Western Christendom is greater than is usually realized” and that, “an important task for Western Europeans, as we move into the era of the one world, is … to acknowledge fully our debt to the Arab and Islamic world” (Watt, 1972, p. 84).

Conventional economics, however, took a wrong turn after the Enlightenment Movement by stripping itself of the moral basis of society emphasized by Aristotelian and Judeo-Christian philosophies. This deprived it of the role that moral values and good governance can play in helping society raise both efficiency and equity in the allocation and distribution of scarce resources needed for promoting the well-being of all. However, this has been changing. The role of good governance has already been recognized and that of moral values is gradually penetrating the economics orthodoxy. Islamic economics is also reviving now after the independence of Muslim countries from foreign domination. It is likely that the two disciplines will converge and become one after a period of time. This will be in keeping with the teachings of the Qur’an, which clearly states that mankind was created as one but became divided as a result of their differences and transgression against each other (10:19, 2:213 and 3: 19). This reunification [globalization, as it is new called], if reinforced by justice and mutual care, should help promote peaceful coexistence and enable mankind to realize the well-being of all, a goal the realization of which we are all anxiously looking forward to.

References

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Allouche, Adel. Mamluk Economics: A Study and Translation of Al-Maqrizi’s Ighathah. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994.

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Cline, William R. Potential Effects of Income Redistribution on Economic Growth. New York: Praeger, 1973.

DeSmogyi, Joseph N. “Economic Theory in Classical Arabic Literature.” Studies in Islam (Delhi), (1965): 1-6.

Diener E., and Shigehiro Oshi. “Money and Happiness: Income and Subjective Well-being.” In Culture and Subjective Well-being, edited by E. Diener and E. Suh. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2000.

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Essid, M. Yassine. A Critique of the Origins of Islamic Economic Thought. Leiden: Brill, 1995.

Feyerabend, Paul. Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. London: Verso, third edition, 1993.

Fischel, W.J. “Djahbadh.” In Encyclopedia of Islam, volume 2, 382-83. Leiden: Brill, 1992.

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Hausman, Daniel, and Michael McPherson. “Taking Ethics Seriously: Economics and Contemporary Moral Philosophy.” Journal of Economic Literature 31, no. 2 (1993): 671-731.

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Islahi, A. Azim. History of Economic Thought in Islam. Aligharh, India: Department of Economics, Aligharh Muslim University, 1996.

Issawi, Charles. An Arab Philosophy of History: Selections from the Prolegomena of Ibn Khaldun of Tunis (1332-1406). London: John Muray, 1950.

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[1] This is the liberal version of the secular and materialist worldviews. There is also the totalitarian version which does not have faith in the individuals’ ability to manage private property in a way that would ensure social well-being. Hence its prescription is to curb individual freedom and to transfer all means of production and decision making to a totalitarian state. Since this form of the secular and materialist worldview failed to realize human well-being and has been overthrown practically everywhere, it is not discussed in this paper.

[2] The literature on economic development is full of assertions that improvement in income distribution is in direct conflict with economic growth. For a summary of these views, see Cline, 1973, Chapter 2. This has, however, changed and there is hardly any development economist now who argues that injustice can help promote development.

[3] North has used the term ‘nasty’ for all such behavior. See the chapter “Ideology and Free Rider,” in North, 1981.

[4] Some of these scholars include Abu Yusuf (d. 798), al-Mawardi (d. 1058), Abu Ya’la (d. 1065), Nazam al-Mulk (d.1092), al-Ghazali (d. 1111), Ibn Taymiyyah (d. 1328), Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), Shah Walliyullah (d. 1762), Jamaluddin al-Afghani (d. 1897), Muhammad ‘Abduh (d. 1905), Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938), Hasan al-Banna (d. 1949), Sayyid Mawdudi (d. 1979), and Baqir al-Sadr (d. 1980).

[5] Some of these authors include al-Katib (d. 749), Ibn al-Muqaffa (d. 756) al-Nu‘man (d. 974), al-Mawardi (d. 1058), Kai Ka’us (d. 1082), Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092), al-Ghazali (d. 1111), al-Turtushi (d. 1127). (For details, see Essid, 1995, pp.19-41.)

[6] For the fallacy of the Great Gap thesis, see Mirakhor (1987) and Ghazanfar (2003), particularly the “Foreword” by Todd Lowry and the “Introduction” by Ghazanfar.

[7] The full name of the book (given in the bibliography) may be freely translated as “The Book of Lessons and the Record of Cause and Effect in the History of Arabs, Persians and Berbers and their Powerful Contemporaries.” Several different editions of the Muqaddimah are now available in Arabic. The one I have used is that published in Cairo by al-Maktabah al-Tijarriyah al-Kubra without any indication of the year of publication. It has the advantage of showing all vowel marks, which makes the reading relatively easier. The Muqaddimah was translated into English in three volumes by Franz Rosenthal. Its first edition was published in 1958 and the second edition in 1967. Selections from the Muqaddimah by Charles Issawi were published in 1950 under the title, An Arab Philosophy of History: Selections from the Prolegomena of Ibn Khaldun of Tunis (1332-1406).

A considerable volume of literature is now available on Ibn Khaldun. This includes Spengler, 1964; Boulakia, 1971; Mirakhor, 1987; and Chapra, 2000.

[8] For some of these contributions, see Spengler, 1964; DeSmogyi, 1965; Mirakhor, 1987; Siddiqi, 1992; Essid, 1995; Islahi, 1996; Chapra, 2000; and Ghazanfar, 2003.

[9] For a more detailed discussion of taxation by various Muslim scholars, see the section on “Literature on Mirrors for Princes” in Essid, 1995, pp. 19-41.

[10] This letter is a significant development over the letter of Abu Yusuf to Caliph Harun al-Rashid (1933/34, pp. 3-17). It is more comprehensive and covers a larger number of topics.

[11] These are “On tax revenues and the reason for their being low and high” (pp. 279-80) and “Injustice ruins development” (pp. 286-410).

[12] Bear in mind the fact that this was stated at the time when commodity money, which it is not possible for the government to ‘create,’ was used, and fiduciary money, had not become the rule of the day.

[13] This was during the Slave (Mamluk) Dynasty in Egypt, which is divided into two periods. The first period was that of the Bahri (or Turkish) Mamluks (1250-1382), who have generally received praise in the chronicles of their contemporaries. The second period was that of the Burji Mamluks (Circassians, 1382-1517). This period was beset by a series of severe economic crises. (For details see Allouche, 1994.)

[14] Shah Walliyullah al-Dihlawi, popularly known as Walliyullah, was born in 1703, four years before the death of the Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb (1658-1707). Aurangzeb’s rule, spanning a period of forty-nine years, was followed by a great deal of political instability – ten different changes in rulers during Walliyullah’s life-span of 59 years – leading ultimately to the weakening and decline of the Mughal Empire.

[15] For a brief account of the general decline and disintegration of the Muslim world during the fourteenth century, see Muhsin Mahdi, 1964, pp. 17-26.

[16] For a discussion of the causes of Muslim decline, see Chapra, 2000, pp. 173-252.

[17] According to Blaug (1985), economics became an academic discipline in the 1880s (p. 3).

Citation: Chapra, M. “Islamic Economics: What It Is and How It Developed”. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. March 16, 2008. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/islamic-economics-what-it-is-and-how-it-developed/

Raymond L. Cohn, Illinois State University (Emeritus)

For good reason, it is often said the United States is a nation of immigrants. Almost every person in the United States is descended from someone who arrived from another country. This article discusses immigration to the United States from colonial times to the present. The focus is on individuals who paid their own way, rather than slaves and indentured servants. Various issues concerning immigration are discussed: (1) the basic data sources available, (2) the variation in the volume over time, (3) the reasons immigration occurred, (4) nativism and U.S. immigration policy, (5) the characteristics of the immigrant stream, (6) the effects on the United States economy, and (7) the experience of immigrants in the U.S. labor market.

For readers who wish to further investigate immigration, the following works listed in the Reference section of this entry are recommended as general histories of immigration to the United States: Hansen (1940); Jones (1960); Walker (1964); Taylor (1971); Miller (1985); Nugent (1992); Erickson (1994); Hatton and Williamson (1998); and Cohn (2009).

The Available Data Sources

The primary source of data on immigration to the United States is the Passenger Lists, though U.S. and state census materials, Congressional reports, and company records also contain material on immigrants. In addition, the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) web site at the University of Minnesota (http://www.ipums.umn.edu/usa/) contains data samples drawn from a number of federal censuses. Since the samples are of individuals and families, the site is useful in immigration research. A number of the countries from which the immigrants left also kept records about the individuals. Many of these records were originally summarized in Ferenczi (1970). Although records from other countries are useful for some purposes, the U.S. records are generally viewed as more complete, especially for the period before 1870. It is worthy of note that comparisons of the lists between countries often lead to somewhat different results. It is also probable that, during the early years, a few of the U.S. lists were lost or never collected.

Passenger Lists

The U.S. Passenger Lists resulted from an 1819 law requiring every ship carrying passengers that arrived in the United States from a foreign port to file with the port authorities a list of all passengers on the ship. These records are the basis for the vast majority of the historical data on immigration. For example, virtually all of the tables in the chapter on immigration in Carter et. al (2006) are based on these records. The Passenger Lists recorded a great deal of information. Each list indicates the name of the ship, the name of the captain, the port(s) of embarkation, the port of arrival, and the date of arrival. Following this information is a list of the passengers. Each person’s name is listed, along with age, gender, occupation, country of origin, country of destination, and whether or not the person died on the voyage. It is often possible to distinguish family groups since family members were usually grouped together and, to save time, the compilers frequently used ditto marks to indicate the same last name. Various data based on the lists were published in Senate or Congressional Reports at the time. Due to their usefulness in genealogical research, the lists are now widely available on microfilm and are increasingly available on CD-rom. Even a few public libraries in major cities have full or partial collections of these records. Most of the ship lists are also available on-line at various web sites.

The Volume of Immigration

Both the total volume of immigration to the United States and the immigrants’ countries of origins varied substantially over time. Table 1 provides the basic data on total immigrant volume by time period broken down by country or area of origin. The column “Average Yearly Total – All Countries” presents the average yearly total immigration to the United States in the time period given. Immigration rates – the average number of immigrants entering per thousand individuals in the U.S. population – are shown in the next column. The columns headed by country or area names show the percentage of immigrants coming from that place. The time periods in Table 1 have been chosen for illustrative purposes. A few things should be noted concerning the figures in Table 1. First, the estimates for much of the period since 1820 are based on the original Passenger Lists and are subject to the caveats discussed above. The estimates for the period before 1820 are the best currently available but are less precise than those after 1820. Second, though it was legal to import slaves into the United States (or the American colonies) before 1808, the estimates presented exclude slaves. Third, though illegal immigration into the United States has occurred, the figures in Table 1 include only legal immigrants. In 2015, the total number of illegal immigrants in the United States is estimated at around 11 million. These individuals were mostly from Mexico, Central America, and Asia.

Trends over Time

From the data presented in Table 1, it is apparent that the volume of immigration and its rate relative to the U.S. population varied over time. Immigration was relatively small until a noticeable increase occurred in the 1830s and a huge jump in the 1840s. The volume passed 200,000 for the first time in 1847 and the period between 1847 and 1854 saw the highest rate of immigration in U.S. history. From the level reached between 1847 and 1854, volume decreased and increased over time through 1930. For the period from 1847 through 1930, the average yearly volume was 434,000. During these years, immigrant volume peaked between 1900 and 1914, when an average of almost 900,000 immigrants arrived in the United States each year. This period is also second in terms of the rate of immigration relative to the U.S. population. The volume and rate fell to low levels between 1931 and 1946, though by the 1970s the volume had again reached that experienced between 1847 and 1930. The rise in volume continued through the 1980s and 1990s, though the rate per one thousand American residents has remained well below that experienced before 1915. It is notable that since about 1990, the average yearly volume of immigration has surpassed the previous peak experienced between 1900 and 1914. In 2015, reflecting the large volume of immigration, about 15 percent of the U.S. population was foreign-born.

Table 1
Immigration Volume and Rates

Sources: Years before 1820: Grabbe (1989). 1820-1970: Historical Statistics (1976). Years since 1970: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (various years). Note: Entries with a zero indicate less than one-half of one percent. Entries with dashes indicate no information or no immigrants. 2002-2015: Department of Homeland Security: Office of Immigration Statistics (various years).

Sources of Immigration

The sources of immigration have changed a number of times over the years. In general, four relatively distinct periods can be identified in Table 1. Before 1881, the vast majority of immigrants, almost 86% of the total, arrived from northwest Europe, principally Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, and Scandinavia. During the colonial period, though the data do not allow an accurate breakdown, most immigrants arrived from Britain, with smaller numbers coming from Ireland and Germany. The years between 1881 and 1893 saw a transition in the sources of U.S. immigrants. After 1881, immigrant volume from central, eastern, and southern Europe began to increase rapidly. Between 1894 and 1914, immigrants from southern, central, and eastern Europe accounted for 69% of the total. With the onset of World War I in 1914, the sources of U.S. immigration again changed. From 1915 to the present day, a major source of immigrants to the United States has been the Western Hemisphere, accounting for 46% of the total. In the period between 1915 and 1960, virtually all of the remaining immigrants came from Europe, though no specific part of Europe was dominant. Beginning in the 1960s, immigration from Europe fell off substantially and was replaced by a much larger percentage of immigrants from Asia. Also noteworthy is the rise in immigration from Africa in the twenty-first century. Thus, over the course of U.S. history, the sources of immigration changed from northwestern Europe to southern, central and eastern Europe to the Americas in combination with Europe to the current situation where most immigrants come from the Americas, Asia and Africa.

Duration of Voyage and Method of Travel

Before the 1840s, immigrants arrived on sailing ships. General information on the length of the voyage is unavailable for the colonial and early national periods. By the 1840s, however, the average voyage length for ships from the British Isles was five to six weeks, with those from the European continent taking a week or so longer. In the 1840s, a few steamships began to cross the Atlantic. Over the course of the 1850s, steamships began to account for a larger, though still minority, percentage of immigrant travel. By 1873, virtually all immigrants arrived on steamships (Cohn 2005). As a result, the voyage time fell initially to about two weeks and it continued to decline into the twentieth century. Steamships remained the primary means of travel until after World War II. As a consequence of the boom in airplane travel over the last few decades, most immigrants now arrive via air.

Place of Arrival

Where immigrants landed in the United States varied, especially in the period before the Civil War. During the colonial and early national periods, immigrants arrived not only at New York City but also at a variety of other ports, especially Philadelphia, Boston, New Orleans, and Baltimore. Over time, and especially when most immigrants began arriving via steamship, New York City became the main arrival port. No formal immigration facilities existed at any of the ports until New York City established Castle Garden as its landing depot in 1855. This facility, located at the tip of Manhattan, was replaced in 1892 with Ellis Island, which in turn operated until 1954.

Death Rates during the Voyage

A final aspect to consider is the mortality experienced by the individuals on board the ships. Information taken from the Passenger Lists for the period of the sailing ship between 1820 and 1860 finds a loss rate of one to two percent of the immigrants who boarded (Cohn, 2009). Given the length of the trip and taking into account the ages of the immigrants, this rate represents mortality approximately four times higher than that experienced by non-migrants. Mortality was mainly due to outbreaks of cholera and typhus on some ships, leading to especially high death rates among children and the elderly. There appears to have been little trend over time in mortality or differences in the loss rate by country of origin, though some evidence suggests the loss rate may have differed by port of embarkation. In addition, the best evidence from the colonial period finds a loss rate only slightly higher than that of the antebellum years. In the period after the Civil War, with the change to steamships and the resulting shorter travel time and improved on-board conditions, mortality on the voyages fell, though exactly how much has not been determined.

The Causes of Immigration

Economic historians generally believe no single factor led to immigration. In fact, different studies have tried to explain immigration by emphasizing different factors, with the first important study being done by Thomas (1954). The most recent attempt to comprehensively explain immigration has been by Hatton and Williamson (1998), who focus on the period between 1860 and 1914. Massey (1999) expresses relatively similar views. Hatton and Williamson view immigration from a country during this time as being caused by up to five different factors: (a) the difference in real wages between the country and the United States; (b) the rate of population growth in the country 20 or 30 years before; (c) the degree of industrialization and urbanization in the home country; (d) the volume of previous immigrants from that country or region; and (e) economic and political conditions in the United States. To this list can be added factors not relevant during the 1860 to 1914 period, such as the potato famine, the movement from sail to steam, and the presence or absence of immigration restrictions. Thus, a total of at least eight factors affected immigration.

Causes of Fluctuations in Immigration Levels over Time

As discussed above, the total volume of immigration trended upward until World War I. The initial increase in immigration during the 1830s and 1840s was caused by improvements in shipping, more rapid population growth in Europe, and the potato famine in the latter part of the 1840s, which affected not only Ireland but also much of northwest Europe. As previously noted, the steamship replaced the sailing ship after the Civil War. By substantially reducing the length of the trip and increasing comfort and safety, the steamship encouraged an increase in the volume of immigration. Part of the reason volume increased was that temporary immigration became more likely. In this situation, an individual came to the United States not planning to stay permanently but instead planning to work for a period of time before returning home. All in all, the period from 1865 through 1914, when immigration was not restricted and steamships were dominant, saw an average yearly immigrant volume of almost 529,000. In contrast, average yearly immigration between 1820 and 1860 via sailing ship was only 123,000, and even between 1847 and 1860 was only 266,000.

Another feature of the data in Table 1 is that the yearly volume of immigration fluctuated quite a bit in the period before 1914. The fluctuations are mainly due to changes in economic and political conditions in the United States. Essentially, periods of low volume corresponded with U.S. economic depressions or times of widespread opposition to immigrants. In particular, volume declined during the nativist outbreak in the 1850s and the major depressions of the 1870s and 1890s and the Great Depression of the 1930s. As discussed in the next section, the United States imposed widespread restrictions on immigration beginning in the 1920s. Since then, the volume has been subject to more direct determination by the United States government. Thus, fluctuations in the total volume of immigration over time are due to four of the eight factors discussed in the first paragraph of this section: the potato famine, the movement from sail to steam, economic and political conditions in the United States, and the presence or absence of immigration restrictions.

Factors Influencing Immigration Rates from Particular Countries

The other four factors are primarily used to explain changes in the source countries of immigration. A larger difference in real wages between the country and the United States increased immigration from the country because it meant immigrants had more to gain from the move. Because most immigrants were between 15 and 35 years old, a higher population growth 20 or 30 years earlier meant there were more individuals in the potential immigrant group. In addition, a larger volume of young workers in a country reduced job prospects at home and further encouraged immigration. A greater degree of industrialization and urbanization in the home country typically increased immigration because traditional ties with the land were broken during this period, making laborers in the country more mobile. Finally, the presence of a larger volume of previous immigrants from that country or region encouraged more immigration because potential immigrants now had friends or relatives to stay with who could smooth their transition to living and working in the United States.

Based on these four factors, Hatton and Williamson explain the rise and fall in the volume of immigration from a country to the United States. Immigrant volume initially increased as a consequence of more rapid population growth and industrialization in a country and the existence of a large gap in real wages between the country and the United States. Within a number of years, volume increased further due to the previous immigration that had occurred. Volume remained high until various changes in Europe caused immigration to decline. Population growth slowed. Most of the countries had undergone industrialization. Partly due to the previous immigration, real wages rose at home and became closer to those in the United States. Thus, each source country went through stages where immigration increased, reached a peak, and then declined.

Differences in the timing of these effects then led to changes in the source countries of the immigrants. The countries of northwest Europe were the first to experience rapid population growth and to begin industrializing. By the latter part of the nineteenth century, immigration from these countries was in the stage of decline. At about the same time, countries in central, eastern, and southern Europe were experiencing the beginnings of industrialization and more rapid population growth. This model holds directly only through the 1920s, because U.S. government policy changed. At that point, quotas were established on the number of individuals allowed to immigrate from each country. Even so, many countries, especially those in northwest Europe, had passed the point where a large number of individuals wanted to leave and thus did not fill their quotas. The quotas were binding for many other countries in Europe in which pressures to immigrate were still strong. Even today, the countries providing the majority of immigrants to the United States, those south of the United States and in Asia and Africa, are places where population growth is high, industrialization is breaking traditional ties with the land, and real wage differentials with the United States are large.

Immigration Policy and Nativism

This section summarizes the changes in U.S. immigration policy. Only the most important policy changes are discussed and a number of relatively minor changes have been ignored. Interested readers are referred to Le May (1987) and Briggs (1984) for more complete accounts of U.S. immigration policy.

Few Restrictions before 1882

Immigration into the United States was subject to virtually no legal restrictions before 1882. Essentially, anyone who wanted to enter the United States could and, as discussed earlier, no specified arrival areas existed until 1855. Individuals simply got off the ship and went about their business. Little opposition among U.S. citizens to immigration is apparent until about the 1830s. The growing concern at this time was due to the increasing volume of immigration in both absolute terms and relative to the U.S. population, and the facts that more of the arrivals were Catholic and unskilled. The nativist feeling burst into the open during the 1850s when the Know-Nothing political party achieved a great deal of political success in the 1854 off-year elections. This party did not favor restrictions on the number of immigrants, though they did seek to restrict their ability to quickly become voting citizens. For a short period of time, the Know-Nothings had an important presence in Congress and many state legislatures. With the downturn in immigration in 1855 and the nation’s attention turning more to the slavery issue, their influence receded.

Chinese Exclusion Act

The first restrictive immigration laws were directed against Asian countries. The first law was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This law essentially prohibited the immigration of Chinese citizens and it stayed in effect until it was removed during World War II. In 1907, Japanese immigration was substantially reduced through a Gentlemen’s Agreement between Japan and the United States. It is noteworthy that the Chinese Exclusion Act also prohibited the immigration of “convicts, lunatics, idiots” and those individuals who might need to be supported by government assistance. The latter provision was used to some extent during periods of high unemployment, though as noted above, immigration fell anyway because of the lack of jobs.

Literacy Test Adopted in 1917

The desire to restrict immigration to the United States grew over the latter part of the nineteenth century. This growth was due partly to the high volume and rate of immigration and partly to the changing national origins of the immigrants; more began arriving from southern, central, and eastern Europe. In 1907, Congress set up the Immigration Commission, chaired by Senator William Dillingham, to investigate immigration. This body issued a famous report, now viewed as flawed, concluding that immigrants from the newer parts of Europe did not assimilate easily and, in general, blaming them for various economic ills. Attempts at restricting immigration were initially made by proposing a law requiring a literacy test for admission to the United States, and such a law was finally passed in 1917. This same law also virtually banned immigration from any country in Asia. Restrictionists were no doubt displeased when the volume of immigration from Europe resumed its former level after World War I in spite of the literacy test. The movement then turned to explicitly limiting the number of arrivals.

1920s: Quota Act and National Origins Act

The Quota Act of 1921 laid the framework for a fundamental change in U.S. immigration policy. It limited the number of immigrants from Europe to a total of about 350,000 per year. National quotas were established in direct proportion to each country’s presence in the U.S. population in 1910. In addition, the act assigned Asian countries quotas near zero. Three years later in 1924, the National Origins Act instituted a requirement that visas be obtained from an American consulate abroad before immigrating, reduced the total European quota to about 165,000, and changed how the quotas were determined. Now, the quotas were established in direct proportion to each country’s presence in the U.S. population in 1890, though this aspect of the act was not fully implemented until 1929. Because relatively few individuals immigrated from southern, central, and eastern Europe before 1890, the effect of the 1924 law was to drastically reduce the number of individuals allowed to immigrate to the United States from these countries. Yet total immigration to the United States remained fairly high until the Great Depression because neither the 1921 nor the 1924 law restricted immigration from the Western Hemisphere. Thus, it was the combination of the outbreak of World War I and the subsequent 1920s restrictions that caused the Western Hemisphere to become a more important source of immigrants to the United States after 1915, though it should be recalled the rate of immigration fell to low levels after 1930.

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

The last major change in U.S. immigration policy occurred with the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. This law abolished the quotas based on national origins. Instead, a series of preferences were established to determine who would gain entry. The most important preference was given to relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens. By the twenty-first century, about two-thirds of immigrants came through these family channels. Preferences were also given to professionals, scientists, artists, and workers in short supply. The 1965 law kept an overall quota on total immigration for Eastern Hemisphere countries, originally set at 170,000, and no more than 20,000 individuals were allowed to immigrate to the United States from any single country. This law was designed to treat all countries equally. Asian countries were treated the same as any other country, so the virtual prohibition on immigration from Asia disappeared. In addition, for the first time the law also limited the number of immigrants from Western Hemisphere countries, with the original overall quota set at 120,000. It is important to note that neither quota was binding because immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, such as spouses, parents, and minor children, were exempt from the quota. In addition, the United States has admitted large numbers of refugees at different times from Vietnam, Haiti, Cuba, and other countries. Finally, many individuals enter the United States on student visas, enroll in colleges and universities, and eventually get companies to sponsor them for a work visa. Thus, the total number of legal immigrants to the United States since 1965 has always been larger than the combined quotas. This law has led to an increase in the volume of immigration and, by treating all countries the same, has led to Asia recently becoming a more important source of U.S. immigrants.

Though features of the 1965 law have been modified since it was enacted, this law still serves as the basis for U.S. immigration policy today. The most important modifications occurred in 1986 when employer sanctions were adopted for those hiring illegal workers. On the other hand, the same law also gave temporary resident status to individuals who had lived illegally in the United States since before 1982. The latter feature led to very high volumes of legal immigration being recorded in 1989, 1990, and 1991.

The Characteristics of the Immigrants

In this section, various characteristics of the immigrant stream arriving at different points in time are discussed. The following characteristics of immigration are analyzed: gender breakdown, age structure, family vs. individual migration, and occupations listed. Virtually all the information is based on the Passenger Lists, a source discussed above.

Gender and Age

Data are presented in Table 2 on the gender breakdown and age structure of immigration. The gender breakdown and age structure remain fairly consistent in the period before 1930. Generally, about 60% of the immigrants were male. As to age structure, about 20% of immigrants were children, 70% were adults up to age 44, and 10% were older than 44. In most of the period and for most countries, immigrants were typically young single males, young couples, or, especially in the era before the steamship, families. For particular countries, such as Ireland, a large number of the immigrants were single women (Cohn, 1995). The primary exception to this generalization was the 1899-1914 period, when 68% of the immigrants were male and adults under 45 accounted for 82% of the total. This period saw the immigration of a large number of single males who planned to work for a period of months or years and return to their homeland, a development made possible by the steamship shortening the voyage and reducing its cost (Nugent, 1992). The characteristics of the immigrant stream since 1930 have been somewhat different. Males have comprised less than one-half of all immigrants. In addition, the percentage of immigrants over age 45 has increased at the expense of those between the ages of 14 and 44.

Table 2
Immigration by Gender and Age

Notes: From 1918-1970, the age breakdown is “Under 16” and “16-44.” From 1971 to 1998, the age breakdown is “Under 15” and “15-44.” For 2001-2015, it is again “Under 16” and “16-44.”

Sources: 1820-1970: Historical Statistics (1976). Years since 1970: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (various years). 2002-2015: Department of Homeland Security: Office of Immigration Statistics (various years).

Occupations

Table 3 presents data on the percentage of immigrants who did not report an occupation and the percentage breakdown of those reporting an occupation. The percentage not reporting an occupation declined through 1914. The small percentages between 1894 and 1914 are a reflection of the large number of single males who arrived during this period. As is apparent, the classification scheme for occupations has changed over time. Though there is no perfect way to correlate the occupation categories used in the different time periods, skilled workers comprised about one-fourth of the immigrant stream through 1970. The immigration of farmers was important before the Civil War but declined steadily over time. The percentage of laborers has varied over time, though during some time periods they comprised one-half or more of the immigrants. The highest percentages of laborers occurred during good years for the U.S. economy (1847-54, 1865-73, 1881-93, 1899-1914), because laborers possessed the fewest skills and would have an easier time finding a job when the U.S. economy was strong. Commercial workers, mainly merchants, were an important group of immigrants very early when immigrant volume was low, but their percentage fell substantially over time. Professional workers were always a small part of U.S. immigration until the 1930s. Since 1930, these workers have comprised a larger percentage of immigrants reporting an occupation.

Table 3
Immigration by Occupation

a – included with “Farm laborers and foremen”; b – included with “Service workers, etc.”; c – included with “Craftsmen, etc.”; d – included with “Professional.”

Sources: 1820-1970: Historical Statistics (1976). Years since 1970: U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (various years). 2002-2015: Department of Homeland Security: Office of Immigration Statistics (various years). From 1970 through 2001, the INS has provided the following occupational categories: Professional, specialty, and technical (listed above under “Professional”); Executive, administrative, and managerial (listed above under “Managers, etc.”); Sales; Administrative support (these two are combined and listed above under “Clerical, etc.”); Precision production, craft, and repair; Operator, fabricator, and laborer (these two are combined and listed above under “Craftsmen, etc.”); Farming, forestry, and fishing (listed above under “Farm laborers and foremen”); and Service (listed above under “Service workers, etc.). Since 2002, the Department of Homeland Security has combined the Professional and Executive categories.  Note: Entries with a zero indicate less than one-half of one percent. Entries with dashes indicate no information or no immigrants.

Skill Levels

The skill level of the immigrant stream is important because it potentially affects the U.S. labor force, an issue considered in the next section. Before turning to this issue, a number of comments can be made concerning the occupational skill level of the U.S. immigration stream. First, skill levels fell substantially in the period before the Civil War. Between 1820 and 1831, only 39% of the immigrants were farmers, servants, or laborers, the least skilled groups. Though the data are not as complete, immigration during the colonial period was almost certainly at least this skilled. By the 1847-54 period, however, the less-skilled percentage had increased to 76%. Second, the less-skilled percentage did not change dramatically late in the nineteenth century when the source of immigration changed from northwest Europe to other parts of Europe. Comparing 1873-80 with 1899-1914, both periods of high immigration, farmers, servants, and laborers accounted for 66% of the immigrants in the former period and 78% in the latter period. The second figure is, however, similar to that during the 1847-54 period. Third, the restrictions on immigration imposed during the 1920s had a sizable effect on the skill level of the immigrant stream. Between 1930 and 1970, only 31-34% of the immigrants were in the least-skilled group.

Fourth, a deterioration in immigrant skills appears in the numbers in the 1980s and 1990s, and then an improvement appears since 2001. Both changes may be an illusion.. In Table 3 for the 1980s and 1990s, the percentage in the “Professional” category falls while the percentages in the “Service” and “Farm workers” categories rise. These changes are, however, due to the amnesty for illegal immigrants resulting from the 1986 law. The amnesty led to the recorded volume of immigration in 1989, 1990, and 1991 being much higher than typical, and most of the “extra” immigrants recorded their occupation as “Service” or “Farm laborer.” If these years are ignored, then little change occurred in the occupational distribution of the immigrant stream during the 1980s and 1990s. Two caveats, however, should be noted. First, the illegal immigrants can not, of course, be ignored. Second, the skill level of the U.S. labor force was improving over the same period. Thus, relative to the U.S. labor force and including illegal immigration, it is apparent the occupational skill level of the U.S. immigrant stream declined during the 1980s and 1990s.  Turning to the twenty-first century, the percentage of the legal immigrant stream in the highest-skilled category appears to have increased. This conclusion is also not certain because the changes that occurred in how occupations were categorized beginning in 2001 make a straightforward comparison potentially inexact. This uncertainty is increased by the growing percentage of immigrants for which no occupation is reported. It is not clear whether a larger percentage of those arriving actually did not work (recall that a growing percentage of legal immigrants are somewhat older) or if more simply did not list an occupation. Overall, detecting changes in the skill level of the legal immigrant stream since about 1930 is fraught with difficulty.

The Effects of Immigration on the United States Economy

Though immigration has effects on the country from which the immigrants leave, this section only examines the effects on the United States, mainly those occurring over longer periods of time. Over short periods of time, sizeable and potentially negative effects can occur in a specific area when there is a huge influx of immigrants. A large number of arrivals in a short period of time in one city can cause school systems to become overcrowded, housing prices and welfare payments to increase, and jobs to become difficult to obtain. Yet most economists believe the effects of immigration over time are much less harmful than commonly supposed and, in many ways, are beneficial. . The following longer-term issues are discussed: the effects of immigration on the overall wage rate of U.S. workers; the effects on the wages of particular groups of workers, such as those who are unskilled; and the effects on the rate of economic growth, that is, the standard of living, in the United States. Determining the effects of immigration on the United States is complex and virtually none of the conclusions presented here are without controversy.

Immigration’s Impact on Overall Wage Rates

Immigration is popularly thought to lower the overall wage rate in the United States by increasing the supply of individuals looking for jobs. This effect may occur in an area over a fairly short period of time. Over longer time periods, however, wages will only fall if the amounts of other resources don’t change. Wages will not fall if the immigrants bring sufficient amounts of other resources with them, such as capital, or cause the amount of other resources in the economy to increase sufficiently. For example, historically the large-scale immigration from Europe contributed to rapid westward expansion of the United States during most of the nineteenth century. The westward expansion, however, increased the amounts of land and natural resources that were available, factors that almost certainly kept immigration from lowering wage rates. Immigrants also increase the amounts of other resources in the economy through running their own businesses, which both historically and in recent times has occurred at a greater rate among immigrants than native workers. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the westward frontier had been settled. A number of researchers have estimated that immigration did lower wages at this time (Hatton and Williamson, 1998; Goldin, 1994), though others have criticized these findings (Carter and Sutch, 1999). For the recent time period, most studies have found little effect of immigration on the level of wages, though a few have found an effect (Borjas, 1999).

Even if immigration leads to a fall in the wage rate, it does not follow that individual workers are worse off. Workers typically receive income from sources other than their own labor. If wages fall, then many other resource prices in the economy rise. For example, immigration increases the demand for housing and land and existing owners benefit from an increase in the current value of their property. Whether any individual worker is better off or worse off in this case is not easy to determine. It depends on the amounts of other resources each individual possesses.

Immigration’s Impact on Wages of Unskilled Workers

Consider the second issue, the effects of immigration on the wages of unskilled workers. If the immigrants arriving in the country are primarily unskilled, then the larger number of unskilled workers could cause their wage to fall if the overall demand for these workers doesn’t change. A requirement for this effect to occur is that the immigrants be less skilled than the U.S. labor force they enter. As discussed above, during colonial times immigrant volume was small and the immigrants were probably more skilled than the existing U.S. labor force. During the 1830s and 1840s, the volume and rate of immigration increased substantially and the skill level of the immigrant stream fell to approximately match that of the native labor force. Instead of lowering the wages of unskilled workers relative to those of skilled workers, however, the large inflow apparently led to little change in the wages of unskilled workers, while some skilled workers lost and others gained. The explanation for these results is that the larger number of unskilled workers resulting from immigration was a factor in employers adopting new methods of production that used more unskilled labor. As a result of this technological change, the demand for unskilled workers increased so their wage did not decline. As employers adopted these new machines, however, skilled artisans who had previously done many of these jobs, such as iron casting, suffered losses. Other skilled workers, such as many white-collar workers who were not in direct competition with the immigrants, gained. Some evidence exists to support a differential effect on skilled workers during the antebellum period (Williamson and Lindert, 1980; Margo, 2000). After the Civil War, however, the skill level of the immigrant stream was close to that of the native labor force, so immigration probably did not further affect the wage structure through the 1920s (Carter and Sutch, 1999).

Impact since World War II

The lower volume of immigration in the period from 1930 through 1960 meant immigration had little effect on the relative wages of different workers during these years. With the resumption of higher volumes of immigration after 1965, however, and with the immigrants’ skill levels being low through 2000, an effect on relative wages again became possible. In fact, the relative wages of high-school dropouts in the United States deteriorated during the same period, especially after the mid-1970s. Researchers who have studied the question have concluded that immigration accounted for about one-fourth of the wage deterioration experienced by high-school dropouts during the 1980s, though some researchers find a lower effect and others a higher one (Friedberg and Hunt, 1995; Borjas, 1999). Wages are determined by a number of factors other than immigration. In this case, it is thought the changing nature of the economy, such as the widespread use of computers increasing the benefits to education, bears more of the blame for the decline in the relative wages of high-school dropouts.

Economic Benefits from Immigration

Beyond any effect on wages, there are a number of ways in which immigration might improve the overall standard of living in an economy. First, immigrants may engage in inventive or scientific activity, with the result being a gain to everyone. Evidence exists for both the historical and more recent periods that the United States has attracted individuals with an inventive/scientific nature. The United States has always been a leader in these areas. Individuals are more likely to be successful in such an environment than in one where these activities are not as highly valued. Second, immigrants expand the size of markets for various goods, which may lead to lower firms’ average costs due to an increase in firm size. The result would be a decrease in the price of the goods in question. Third, most individuals immigrate between the ages of 15 and 35, so the expenses of their basic schooling are paid abroad. In the past, most immigrants, being of working age, immediately got a job. Thus, immigration increased the percentage of the population in the United States that worked, a factor that raises the average standard of living in a country. Even in more recent times, most immigrants work, though the increased proportion of older individuals in the immigrant stream means the positive effects from this factor may be lower than in the past. Fourth, while immigrants may place a strain on government services in an area, such as the school system, they also pay taxes. Even illegal immigrants directly pay sales taxes on their purchases of goods and indirectly pay property taxes through their rent. Finally, the fact that immigrants are less likely to immigrate to the United States during periods of high unemployment is also beneficial. By reducing the number of people looking for jobs during these periods, this factor increases the likelihood U.S. citizens will be able to find a job.

The Experience of Immigrants in the U.S. Labor Market

This section examines the labor market experiences of immigrants in the United States. The issue of discrimination against immigrants in jobs is investigated along with the issue of the success immigrants experienced over time. Again, the issues are investigated for the historical period of immigration as well as more recent times. Interested readers are directed to Borjas (1999), Ferrie (2000), Carter and Sutch (1999), Hatton and Williamson (1998), and Friedberg and Hunt (1995) for more technical discussions.

Did Immigrants Face Labor Market Discrimination?

Discrimination can take various forms. The first form is wage discrimination, in which a worker of one group is paid a wage lower than an equally productive worker of another group. Empirical tests of this hypothesis generally find this type of discrimination has not existed. At any point in time, immigrants have been paid the same wage for a specific job as a native worker. If immigrants generally received lower wages than native workers, the differences reflected the lower skills of the immigrants. Historically, as discussed above, the skill level of the immigrant stream was similar to that of the native labor force, so wages did not differ much between the two groups. During more recent years, the immigrant stream has been less skilled than the native labor force, leading to the receipt of lower wages by immigrants. A second form of discrimination is in the jobs an immigrant is able to obtain. For example, in 1910, immigrants accounted for over half of the workers in various jobs; examples are miners, apparel workers, workers in steel manufacturing, meat packers, bakers, and tailors. If a reason for the employment concentration was that immigrants were kept out of alternative higher paying jobs, then the immigrants would suffer. This type of discrimination may have occurred against Catholics during the 1840s and 1850s and against the immigrants from central, southern, and eastern Europe after 1890. In both cases, it is possible the immigrants suffered because they could not obtain higher paying jobs. In more recent years, reports of immigrants trained as doctors, say, in their home country but not allowed to easily practice as such in the United States, may represent a similar situation. Yet the open nature of the U.S. schooling system and economy has been such that this effect usually did not impact the fortunes of the immigrants’ children or did so at a much smaller rate.

Wage Growth, Job Mobility, and Wealth Accumulation

Another aspect of how immigrants fared in the U.S. labor market is their experiences over time with respect to wage growth, job mobility, and wealth accumulation. A study done by Ferrie (1999) for immigrants arriving between 1840 and 1850, the period when the inflow of immigrants relative to the U.S. population was the highest, found immigrants from Britain and Germany generally improved their job status over time. By 1860, over 75% of the individuals reporting a low-skilled job on the Passenger Lists had moved up into a higher-skilled job, while fewer than 25% of those reporting a high-skilled job on the Passenger Lists had moved down into a lower-skilled job. Thus, the job mobility for these individuals was high. For immigrants from Ireland, the experience was quite different; the percentage of immigrants moving up was only 40% and the percentage moving down was over 50%. It isn’t clear if the Irish did worse because they had less education and fewer skills or whether the differences were due to some type of discrimination against them in the labor market. As to wealth, all the immigrant groups succeeded in accumulating larger amounts of wealth the longer they were in the United States, though their wealth levels fell short of those enjoyed by natives. Essentially, the evidence indicates antebellum immigrants were quite successful over time in matching their skills to the available jobs in the U.S. economy.

The extent to which immigrants had success over time in the labor market in the period since the Civil War is not clear. Most researchers have thought that immigrants who arrived before 1915 had a difficult time. For example, Hanes (1996) concludes that immigrants, even those from northwest Europe, had slower earnings growth over time than natives, a finding he argues was due to poor assimilation. Hatton and Williamson (1998), on the other hand, criticize these findings on technical grounds and conclude that immigrants assimilated relatively easily into the U.S. labor market. For the period after World War II, Chiswick (1978) argues that immigrants’ wages have increased relative to those of natives the longer the immigrants have been in the United States. Borjas (1999) has criticized Chiswick’s finding by suggesting it is caused by a decline in the skills possessed by the arriving immigrants between the 1950s and the 1990s. Borjas finds that 25- to 34-year-old male immigrants who arrived in the late 1950s had wages 9% lower than comparable native males, but by 1970 had wages 6% higher. In contrast, those arriving in the late 1970s had wages 22% lower at entry. By the late 1990s, their wages were still 12% lower than comparable natives. Overall, the degree of success experienced by immigrants in the U.S. labor market remains an area of controversy.

References

Borjas, George J. Heaven’s Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Briggs, Vernon M., Jr. Immigration and the American Labor Force. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984.

Carter, Susan B., and Richard Sutch. “Historical Perspectives on the Economic Consequences of Immigration into the United States.” In The Handbook of International Migration: The American Experience, edited by Charles Hirschman, Philip Kasinitz, and Josh DeWind, 319-341. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1999

Carter, Susan B., et. al.  Historical Statistics of the United States: Earliest Times to the Present – Millennial Edition. Volume 1: Population. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Chiswick, Barry R. “The Effect of Americanization on the Earnings of Foreign-Born Men.” Journal of Political Economy 86 (1978): 897-921.

Cohn, Raymond L. “A Comparative Analysis of European Immigrant Streams to the United States during the Early Mass Migration.” Social Science History 19 (1995): 63-89.

Cohn, Raymond L.  “The Transition from Sail to Steam in Immigration to the United States.” Journal of Economic History 65 (2005): 479-495.

Cohn, Raymond L. Mass Migration under Sail: European Immigration to the Antebellum United States. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Erickson, Charlotte J. Leaving England: Essays on British Emigration in the Nineteenth Century. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.

Ferenczi, Imre. International Migrations. New York: Arno Press, 1970.

Ferrie, Joseph P. Yankeys Now: Immigrants in the Antebellum United States, 1840-1860. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.

Friedberg, Rachael M., and Hunt, Jennifer. “The Impact of Immigrants on Host Country Wages, Employment and Growth.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 9 (1995): 23-44.

Goldin, Claudia. “The Political Economy of Immigration Restrictions in the United States, 1890 to 1921.” In The Regulated Economy: A Historical Approach to Political Economy, edited by Claudia Goldin and Gary D. Libecap, 223-257. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

Grabbe, Hans-Jürgen. “European Immigration to the United States in the Early National Period, 1783-1820.” Proceeding of the American Philosophical Society 133 (1989): 190-214.

Hanes, Christopher. “Immigrants’ Relative Rate of Wage Growth in the Late Nineteenth Century.” Explorations in Economic History 33 (1996): 35-64.

Hansen, Marcus L. The Atlantic Migration, 1607-1860. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1940.

Hatton, Timothy J., and Jeffrey G. Williamson. The Age of Mass Migration: Causes and Economic Impact. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Jones, Maldwyn Allen. American Immigration. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Second Edition, 1960.

Le May, Michael C. From Open Door to Dutch Door: An Analysis of U.S. Immigration Policy Since 1820. New York: Praeger, 1987.

Margo, Robert A. Wages and Labor Markets in the United States, 1820-1860. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Massey, Douglas S. “Why Does Immigration Occur? A Theoretical Synthesis.” In The Handbook of International Migration: The American Experience, edited by Charles Hirschman, Philip Kasinitz, and Josh DeWind, 34-52. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1999.

Miller, Kerby A. Emigrants and Exiles: Ireland and the Irish Exodus to North America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Nugent, Walter. Crossings: The Great Transatlantic Migrations, 1870-1914. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992.

Taylor, Philip. The Distant Magnet. New York: Harper & Row, 1971.

Thomas, Brinley. Migration and Economic Growth: A Study of Great Britain and the Atlantic Economy. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1954.

U.S. Department of Commerce. Historical Statistics of the United States. Washington, DC, 1976.

U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. Statistical Yearbook of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, various years.

Walker, Mack. Germany and the Emigration, 1816-1885. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964.

Williamson, Jeffrey G., and Peter H. Lindert, Peter H. American Inequality: A Macroeconomic History. New York: Academic Press, 1980.

Citation: Cohn, Raymond L. “Immigration to the United States”. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. Revised August 2, 2017. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/immigration-to-the-united-states/

Sumner La Croix, University of Hawai’i and East-West Center

The Hawaiian Islands are a chain of 132 islands, shoals, and reefs extending over 1,523 miles in the Northeast Pacific Ocean. Eight islands — Hawai’i, Maui, O’ahu, Kaua’i, Moloka’i, Lana’i, Ni’ihau, and Kaho’olawe — possess 99 percent of the land area (6,435 square miles) and are noted for their volcanic landforms, unique flora and fauna, and diverse climates.

From Polynesian Settlement to Western Contact

The Islands were uninhabited until sometime around 400 AD when Polynesian voyagers sailing double-hulled canoes arrived from the Marquesas Islands (Kirch, 1985, p. 68). Since the settlers had no written language and virtually no contact with the Western world until 1778, our knowledge of Hawai’i’s pre-history comes primarily from archaeological investigations and oral legends. A relatively egalitarian society and subsistence economy were coupled with high population growth rates until about 1100 when continued population growth led to a major expansion of the areas of settlement and cultivation. Perhaps under pressures of increasing resource scarcity, a new, more hierarchical social structure emerged, characterized by chiefs (ali’i) and subservient commoners (maka’ainana). In the two centuries prior to Western contact, there is considerable evidence that ruling chiefs (ali’i nui) competed to extend their lands by conquest and that this led to cycles of expansion and retrenchment.

Captain James Cook’s ships reached Hawai’i in 1778, thereby ending a long period of isolation for the Islands. Captain James King observed in 1779 that Hawaiians were generally “above the middle size” of Europeans, a rough indicator that Hawaiians generally had a diet superior to eighteenth-century Europeans. At contact, Hawaiian social and political institutions were similar to those found in other Polynesian societies. Hawaiians were sharply divided into three main social classes: ali’i (chiefs), maka’ainana (commoners), and kahuna (priests). Oral legends tell us that the Islands were usually divided into six to eight small kingdoms consisting of an island or part of an island, each governed by an ali’i nui (ruling chief). The ali’i nui had extensive rights to all lands and material goods and the ability to confiscate or redistribute material wealth at any time. Redistribution usually occurred only when a new ruling chief took office or when lands were conquered or lost. The ali’i nui gave temporary land grants to ali’i who, in turn, gave temporary land grants to konohiki (managers), who then “contracted” with maka’ainana, the great majority of the populace, to work the lands.

The Hawaiian society and economy has its roots in extended families (‘ohana) working cooperatively on an ahupua’a, a land unit running from the mountains to the sea. Numerous tropical root, tuber, and tree crops were cultivated. Taro, a wetland crop, was cultivated primarily in windward areas, while sweet potatoes and yams, both dryland crops, were cultivated in drier leeward areas. The maka’ainana apparently lived well above subsistence levels, with extensive time available for cultural activities, sports, and games. There were unquestionably periods of hardship, but these times tended to be associated with drought or other causes of poor harvest.

Unification of Hawai’i and Population Decline

The long-prevailing political equilibrium began to disintegrate shortly after the introduction of guns and the spread of new diseases to the Islands. In 1784, the most powerful ali’i nui, Kamehameha, began a war of conquest, and with his superior use of modern weapons and western advisors, he subdued all other chiefdoms, with the exception of Kaua’i, by 1795. Each chief in his ruling coalition received the right to administer large areas of land, consisting of smaller strips on various islands. Sumner La Croix and James Roumasset (1984) have argued that the strip system conveyed durability to the newly unified kingdom (by making it more costly for an ali’i to accumulate a power base on one island) and facilitated monitoring of ali’i production by the new king. In 1810, Kamehameha reached a negotiated settlement with Kaumuali’i, the ruling chief of Kaua’i, which brought the island under his control, thereby bringing the entire island chain under a single monarchy.

Exposure to Western diseases produced a massive decline in the native population of Hawai’i from 1778 through 1900 (Table 1). Estimates of Hawai’i’s population at the time of contact vary wildly, from approximately 110,000 to one million people (Bushnell, 1993; Dye, 1994). The first missionary census in 1831-1832 counted 130,313 people. A substantial portion of the decline can be attributed to a series of epidemics beginning after contact, including measles, influenza, diarrhea, and whooping cough. The introduction of venereal diseases was a factor behind declining crude birth rates. The first accurate census conducted in the Islands revealed a population of 80,641 in 1849. The native Hawaiian population reached its lowest point in 1900 when the U.S. census revealed only 39,656 full or part Hawaiians.

Table 1: Population of Hawai’i

Sources: Total population from http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/db99/index.html, Table 1.01, Dye (1994), and Bushnell (1993). Native Hawaiian population for 1853-1960 from Schmitt (1977), p. 25. Data from the 2000 census includes people declaring “Native Hawaiian” as their only race or one of two races. See http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable?_ts=18242084330 for the 2000 census population.

The Rise and Fall of Sandalwood and Whaling

With the unification of the Islands came the opening of foreign trade. Trade in sandalwood, a wood in demand in China for ornamental uses and burning as incense, began in 1805. The trade was interrupted by the War of 1812 and then flourished from 1816 to the late 1820s before fading away in the 1830s and 1840s (Kuykendall, 1957, I, pp. 86-87). La Croix and Roumasset (1984) have argued that the centralized organization of the sandalwood trade under King Kamehameha provided the king with incentives to harvest sandalwood efficiently. The adoption of a decentralized production system by his successor (Liholiho) led to the sandalwood being treated by ali’i as a common property resource. The reallocation of resources from agricultural production to sandalwood production not only led to rapid exhaustion of the sandalwood resource but also to famine.

As the sandalwood industry declined, Hawai’i became the base for the north-central Pacific whaling trade. The impetus for the new trade was the 1818 discovery of the “Offshore Ground” west of Peru and the 1820 discovery of rich sperm whale grounds off the coast of Japan. The first whaling ship visited the Islands in 1820, and by the late 1820s over 150 whaling ships were stopping in Hawai’i annually. While ship visits declined somewhat during the 1830s, by 1843 over 350 whaling ships annually visited the two major ports of Honolulu and Lahaina. Through the 1850s over 500 whaling ships visited Hawai’i annually. The demise of the Pacific whaling fleet during the U.S. Civil War and the rapid rise of the petroleum industry led to steep declines in the number of ships visiting Hawai’i, and after 1870 only a trickle of ships continued to visit.

Missionaries and Land Tenure

In 1819, King Kamehameha’s successor, Liholiho, abandoned the system of religious practices known as the kapu system and ordered temples (heiau) and images of the gods desecrated and burnt. In April 1820, missionaries from New England arrived and began filling the religious void with conversions to protestant Christianity. Over the next two decades as church attendance became widespread, the missionaries suppressed many traditional Hawaiian cultural practices, operated over 1,000 common schools, and instructed the ali’i in western political economy. The king promulgated a constitution with provisions for a Hawai’i legislature in 1840. It was followed, later in the decade, by laws establishing a cabinet, civil service, and judiciary. Under the 1852 constitution, male citizens received the right to vote in elections for a legislative lower house. Missionaries and other foreigners regularly served in cabinets through the end of the monarchy.

In 1844, the government began a 12-year program, known as the Great Mahele (Division), to dismantle the traditional system of land tenure. King Kauikeaouli gave up his interest in all island lands, retaining ownership only in selected estates. Ali’i had the right to take out fee simple title to lands held at the behest of the king. Maka’ainana had the right to claim fee simple title to small farms (kuleana). At the end of the claiming period, maka’ainana received less than ~40,000 acres of land, while the government (~1.5 million acres), the king (~900,000 acres), and the ali’i (~1.5 million acres) all received substantial shares. Foreigners were initially not allowed to own land in fee simple, but an 1850 law overturned this restriction. By the end of the 19th century, commoners and chiefs had sold, lost, or given up their lands, with foreigners and large estates owning most non-government lands.

Lilikala Kame’eleihiwa (1992) found the origins of the Mahele in the traditional duty of a king to undertake a redistribution of land and the difficulty of such an undertaking during the initial years of missionary influence. By contrast, La Croix and Roumasset (1990) found the origins of the Mahele in the rising value of Hawaii land in sugar cultivation, with fee simple title facilitating investment in the land, irrigation facilities, and processing factories.

Sugar, Immigration, and Population Increase

The first commercially-viable sugar plantation, Ladd and Co., was started on Kaua’i in 1835, and the sugar industry achieved moderate growth through the 1850s. Hawai’i’s sugar exports to California soared during the U.S. Civil War, but the end of hostilities in 1865 also meant the end of the sugar boom. The U.S. tariff on sugar posed a major obstacle to expanding sugar production in Hawai’i during peacetime, as the high tariff, ranging from 20 to 42 percent between 1850 and 1870, limited the extent of profitable sugar cultivation in the islands. Sugar interests helped elect King Kalakaua to the Hawaiian throne over the British-leaning Queen Emma in February 1874, and Kalakaua immediately sought a trade agreement with the United States. The 1876 reciprocity treaty between Hawai’i and the United States allowed duty-free sales of Hawai’i sugar and other selected agricultural products in the United States as well as duty-free sales of most U.S. manufactured goods in Hawai’i. Sugar exports from Hawai’i to the United States soared after the treaty’s promulgation, rising from 21 million pounds in 1876 to 114 million pounds in 1883 to 224.5 million pounds in 1890 (Table 2).

Table 2: Hawai’i Sugar Production (1000 short tons)

Sources: Data for 1850-1970 are from Schmitt (1977), pp. 418-420. Data for 1990 and 1999 are from http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/db99/index.html, Table 22.09. Data for 1850-1880 are exports. Data for 1910-1990 are converted to 96° raw value.

The reciprocity treaty set the tone for Hawai’i’s economy and society over the next 80 years by establishing the sugar industry as the Hawai’i’s leading industry and altering the demographic composition of the Islands via the industry’s labor demands. Rapid expansion of the sugar industry after reciprocity sharply increased its demand for labor: Plantation employment rose from 3,921 in 1872 to 10,243 in 1882 to 20,536 in 1892. The increase in labor demand occurred while the native Hawaiian population continued its precipitous decline, and the Hawai’i government responded to labor shortages by allowing sugar planters to bring in overseas contract laborers bound to serve at fixed wages for 3-5 year periods. The enormous increase in the plantation workforce consisted of first Chinese, then Japanese, then Portuguese contract laborers.

The extensive investment in sugar industry lands and irrigations systems coupled with the rapid influx of overseas contract laborers changed the bargaining positions of Hawai’i and the United States when the reciprocity treaty was due for renegotiation in 1883. La Croix and Christopher Grandy (1997) argued that the profitability of the planters’ new investment was dependent on access to the U.S. market, and this improved the bargaining position of the United States. As a condition for renewal of the treaty, the United States demanded access to Pearl Bay [now Pearl Harbor]. King Kalakaua opposed this demand, and in July 1887, opponents of the government forced the king to accept a new constitution and cabinet. With the election of a new pro-American government in September 1887, the king signed an extension of the reciprocity treaty in October 1887 that granted access rights to Pearl Bay to the United States for the life of the treaty.

Annexation and the Sugar Economy

In 1890, the U.S. Congress enacted the McKinley Tariff, which allowed raw sugar to enter the United States free of duty and established a two-cent per pound bounty for domestic producers. The overall effect of the McKinley Tariff was to completely erase the advantages that the reciprocity treaty had provided to Hawaiian sugar producers over other foreign sugar producers selling in the U.S. market. The value of Hawaiian merchandise exports plunged from $13 million in 1890 to $10 million in 1891 to a low point of $8 million in 1892.

La Croix and Grandy (1997) argued that the McKinley Tariff threatened the wealth of the planters and induced important changes in Hawai’i’s domestic politics. King Kalakaua died in January 1891, and his sister succeeded him. After Queen Lili’uokalani proposed to declare a new constitution in January 1893, a group of U.S. residents, with the incautious assistance of the U.S. Minister and troops from a U.S. warship, overthrew the monarchy. The new government, dominated by the white minority, offered Hawai’i for annexation by the United States from 1893. Annexation was first opposed by U.S. President Cleveland, and then, during U.S. President McKinley’s term, failed to obtain Congressional approval. The advent of the Spanish-American War and the ensuing hostilities in the Philippines raised Hawai’i’s strategic value to the United States, and Hawai’i was annexed by a joint resolution of Congress in July 1898. Hawai’i became a U.S. territory with the passage of the Organic Act on June 14, 1900.

Economic Integration with the United States

In 1900 annexation by the United States eliminated bound labor contracts and freed the existing labor force from their contracts. After annexation, the sugar planters and the Hawaii government recruited workers from Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Spain, Portugal, Puerto Rico, England, Germany, and Russia. The ensuing flood of immigrants swelled the population of the Hawaiian Islands from 109,020 people in 1896 to 232,856 people in 1915. The growth in the plantation labor force was one factor behind the expansion of sugar production from 289,500 short tons in 1900 to 939,300 short tons in 1930. Pineapple production also expanded, from just 2,000 cases of canned fruit in 1903 to 12,808,000 cases in 1931.

La Croix and Price Fishback (2000) established that European and American workers on sugar plantations were paid job-specific wage premiums relative to Asian workers and that the premium paid for unskilled American workers fell by one third between 1901 and 1915 and for European workers by 50 percent or more over the same period. While similar wage gaps disappeared during this period on the U.S. West Coast, Hawai’i plantations were able to maintain a portion of the wage gaps because they constantly found new low-wage immigrants to work in the Hawai’i market. Immigrant workers from Asia failed, however, to climb many rungs up the job ladder on Hawai’i sugar plantations, and this was a major factor behind labor unrest in the sugar industry. Edward Beechert (1985) concluded that large-scale strikes on sugar plantations during 1909 and 1920 improved the welfare of sugar plantation workers but did not lead to recognition of labor unions. Between 1900 and 1941, many sugar workers responded to limited advancement and wage prospects on the sugar plantation by leaving the plantations for jobs in Hawai’i’s growing urban areas.

The rise of the sugar industry and the massive inflow of immigrant workers into Hawaii was accompanied by a decline in the Native Hawaiian population and its overall welfare (La Croix and Rose, 1999). Native Hawaiians and their political representatives argued that government lands should be made available for homesteading to enable Hawaiians to resettle in rural areas and to return to farming occupations. The U.S. Congress enacted legislation in 1921 to reserve specified rural and urban lands for a new Hawaiian Homes Program. La Croix and Louis Rose have argued that the Hawaiian Homes Program has functioned poorly, providing benefits for only a small portion of the Hawaiian population over the course of the twentieth century.

Five firms-Castle & Cooke, Alexander & Baldwin, C. Brewer & Co., Theo. Davies & Co., and American Factors-came to dominate the sugar industry. Originally established to provide financial, labor recruiting, transportation, and marketing services to plantations, they gradually acquired the plantations and also gained control over other vital industries such as banking, insurance, retailing, and shipping. By 1933, their plantations produced 96 percent of the sugar crop. The “Big Five’s” dominance would continue until the rise of the tourism industry and statehood induced U.S. and foreign firms to enter Hawai’i’s markets.

The Great Depression hit Hawai’i hard, as employment in the sugar and pineapple industries declined during the early 1930s. In December 1936, about one-quarter of Hawai’i’s labor force was unemployed. Full recovery would not occur until the military began a buildup in the mid-1930s in reaction to Japan’s occupation of Manchuria. With the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, the number of U.S. military personnel in Hawai’i increased to 48,000 by September 1940.

World War II and its Aftermath

The Japanese attack on the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 led to a declaration of martial law, a state that continued until October 24, 1944. The war was accompanied by a massive increase in American armed service personnel in Hawai’i, with numbers increasing from 28,000 in 1940 to 378,000 in 1944. The total population increased from 429,000 in 1940 to 858,000 in 1944, thereby substantially increasing the demand for retail, restaurant, and other consumer services. An enormous construction program to house the new personnel was undertaken in 1941 and 1942. The wartime interruption of commercial shipping reduced the tonnage of civilian cargo arriving in Hawai’i by more than 50 percent. Employees working in designated high priority organizations, including sugar plantations, had their jobs and wages frozen in place by General Order 18 which also suspended union activity.

In March 1943, the National Labor Relations Board was allowed to resume operations, and the International Longshoreman’s Union (ILWU) organized 34 of Hawai’i’s 35 sugar plantations, the pineapple plantations, and the longshoremen by November 1945. The passage of the Hawai’i Employment Relations Act in 1945 facilitated union organizing by providing agricultural workers with the same union organizing rights as industrial workers.

After the War, Hawai’i’s economy stagnated, as demobilized armed services personnel left Hawai’i for the U.S. mainland. With the decline in population, real per capita personal income declined at an annual rate of 5.7 percent between 1945 and 1949 (Schmitt, 1976, pp. 148, 167). During this period, Hawai’i’s newly formed unions embarked on a series of disruptive strikes covering West Coast and Hawai’i longshoremen (1946-1949); the sugar industry (1946); and the pineapple industry (1947, 1951). The economy began a nine-year period of moderate expansion in 1949, with the annual growth rate of real personal income averaging 2.3 percent. The expansion of propeller-driven commercial air service sent visitor numbers soaring, from 15,000 in 1946 to 171,367 in 1958, and induced construction of new hotels and other tourism facilities and infrastructure. The onset of the Korean War increased the number of armed service personnel stationed in Hawai’i from 21,000 in 1950 to 50,000 in 1958. Pineapple production and canning also displayed substantial increases over the decade, increasing from 13,697,000 cases in 1949 to 18,613,000 cases in 1956.

Integration and Growth after Statehood

In 1959, Hawai’i became the fiftieth state. The transition from territorial to statehood status was one factor behind the 1958-1973 boom, in which real per capita personal income increased at an annual rate of 4 percent. The most important factor behind the long expansion was the introduction of commercial jet service in 1959, as the jet plane dramatically reduced the money and time costs of traveling to Hawai’i. Also fueled by rapidly rising real incomes in the United States and Japan, the tourism industry would continue its rapid growth through 1990. Visitor arrivals (see Table 3) increased from 171,367 in 1958 to 6,723,531 in 1990. Growth in visitor arrivals was once again accompanied by growth in the construction industry, particularly from 1965 to 1975. The military build-up during the Vietnam War also contributed to the boom by increasing defense expenditures in Hawai’i by 3.9 percent annually from 1958 to 1973 (Schmitt, 1977, pp. 148, 668).

Table 3: Visitor Arrivals to Hawai’i

Source: Hawai’i Tourism Authority, http://www.hawaii.gov/dbedt/monthly/historical-r.xls at Table 5 and http://www.state.hi.us/dbedt/monthly/index2k.html.

From 1973 to 1990, growth in real per capita personal income slowed to 1.1 percent annually. The defense and agriculture sectors stagnated, with most growth generated by the relentless increase in visitor arrivals. Japan’s persistently high rates of economic growth during the 1970s and 1980s spilled over to Hawai’i in the form of huge increases in the numbers of Japanese tourists and in the value of Japanese foreign investment in Hawai’i. At the end of the 1980s, the Hawai’i unemployment rate was just 2-3 percent, employment had been steadily growing since 1983, and prospects looked good for continued expansion of both tourism and the overall economy.

The Malaise of the 1990s

From 1991 to 1998, Hawai’i’s economy was hit by several negative shocks. The 1990-1991 recession in the United States, the closure of California military bases and defense plants, and uncertainty over the safety of air travel during the 1991 Gulf War combined to reduce visitor arrivals from the United States in the early and mid-1990s. Volatile and slow growth in Japan throughout the 1990s led to declines in Japanese visitor arrivals in the late 1990s. The ongoing decline in sugar and pineapple production gathered steam in the 1990s, with only a handful of plantations still in business by 2001. The cumulative impact of these adverse shocks was severe, as real per capita personal income did not change between 1991 and 1998.

The recovery continued through summer 2001 despite a slowing U.S. economy. It came to an abrupt halt with the terrorism attack of September 11, 2001, as domestic and foreign tourism declined sharply.

References

Beechert, Edward D. Working in Hawaii: A Labor History. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985.

Bushnell, Andrew F. “The ‘Horror’ Reconsidered: An Evaluation of the Historical Evidence for Population Decline in Hawai’i, 1778-1803.” Pacific Studies 16 (1993): 115-161.

Daws, Gavan. Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1968.

Dye, Tom. “Population Trends in Hawai’i before 1778.” The Hawaiian Journal of History 28 (1994): 1-20.

Hitch, Thomas Kemper. Islands in Transition: The Past, Present, and Future of Hawaii’s Economy. Honolulu: First Hawaiian Bank, 1992.

Kame’eleihiwa, Lilikala. Native Land and Foreign Desires: Pehea La E Pono Ai? Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1992.

Kirch, Patrick V. Feathered Gods and Fishhooks: An Introduction to Hawaiian Archaeology and Prehistory. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985.

Kuykendall, Ralph S. A History of the Hawaiian Kingdom. 3 vols. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1938-1967.

La Croix, Sumner J., and Price Fishback. “Firm-Specific Evidence on Racial Wage Differentials and Workforce Segregation in Hawaii’s Sugar Industry.” Explorations in Economic History 26 (1989): 403-423.

La Croix, Sumner J., and Price Fishback. “Migration, Labor Market Dynamics, and Wage Differentials in Hawaii’s Sugar Industry.” Advances in Agricultural Economic History 1 (2000): 31-72.

La Croix, Sumner J., and Christopher Grandy. “The Political Instability of Reciprocal Trade and the Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom.” Journal of Economic History 57 (1997): 161-189.

La Croix, Sumner J., and Louis A. Rose. “The Political Economy of the Hawaiian Homelands Program.” In The Other Side of the Frontier: Economic Explorations into Native American History, edited by Linda Barrington. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1999.

La Croix, Sumner J., and James Roumasset. “An Economic Theory of Political Change in Pre-Missionary Hawaii.” Explorations in Economic History 21 (1984): 151-168.

La Croix, Sumner J., and James Roumasset. “The Evolution of Property Rights in Nineteenth-Century Hawaii.” Journal of Economic History 50 (1990): 829-852.

Morgan, Theodore. Hawaii, A Century of Economic Change: 1778-1876. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948.

Schmitt, Robert C. Historical Statistics of Hawaii. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1977.