Jonathan C. Brown

Institute of Latin American Studies
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712
jcbrown@mail.utexas.edu

Latin America is presently engaged in a series of economic reforms, which may appear to the political scientist and economist as absolutely unprecedented. Country after country in this hemisphere are integrating themselves into the global economy. They are lowering tariffs, selling off state-owned industries, making domestic industry more competitive, curbing inflation, cutting public spending, reducing the foreign debt, emphasizing exports, encouraging private investment, welcoming foreign capital, and joining free trade associations.
These measures represent free-market, neo-Liberal reforms that the United States has been advocating for Latin America for decades. Yet, when faced in 1994 with that paragon of free market reforms ‹ an international customs union with Mexico known a s NAFTA ‹ the American public and even Congress nearly gagged. The big fear in the US was the loss of jobs to Mexico. American labor unions were united in their opposition to NAFTA.
Mexican workers were also worried. Although the debate over NAFTA was very subdued in Mexico ‹ until the rebellion in Chiapas, at least ‹ laborers there were fearful that protected and inefficient Mexican industries would fail under the competi tion of foreign imports and that thousands of workers would be unemployed. Yet, in the midst of the NAFTA debate, we had been assured by a group of prominent economists that free trade would eventually result in more jobs for workers on both sides of the Rio Grande, and that the income of workers would be enhanced. The big question then is this: What will be the effect of free trade on workers in the long run?
Here is where the historian can contribute to the debate. After all, free trade and global economic integration have been tried several times before in Latin America.
"Eras of Free Trade Reforms in Latin America"
1492 to 1580 - Conquest
1750 to 1810 - Bourbon & Pombaline Reforms
1880 to 1930 - First Stage of Modernization
1982 to ?? - Privatization & Free Trade
Thus, we can provide the historical answers to the question about effect of these historical periods of free trade upon Latin American workers. But conversely, in these days in which historians are giving workers more agency in their own lives, we can al so assess what impact Latin American workers have had on free trade itself.
In this paper, I relegate my comments to the second period of economic reforms ‹ the second half of the 18th century. The answers I have derived from this synthetic historical analysis may be both discouraging and hopeful for those of us concerned w ith the fate of workers under today's free trade regime. For this previous period of free trade reforms brought hardship, oppression, sharpening caste and class distinctions, and unequal distribution of wealth to the workers of Latin America.
Yet, at the same time, the laborers themselves salvaged from these experiences greater opportunities for mobility and personal independence, increased material welfare, and eventually greater participation in national affairs. But most importantly, thes e very same workers became so disgruntled with their inequitable share of the burdens and of the rewards of free trade that they eventually contributed actively to the decline of free trade regimes. The participated wholeheartedly in the destructive Wars of Independence throughout Latin America that eventually brought an end to free trade reforms.
The reader may ask what relevance this exercise may have for Latin America's renewed flirtation today with free market reforms. In the short run, perhaps we might expect that more jobs will be created. Although I must confess, this has yet to hap pen in Mexico and Argentina, although it may be the case in Chile. One difference between the previous ages of reform and the one we are now in is that the present reforms are dismantling large public sectors that had been non-existent in the eighteenth century. Latin America today has a labor surplus rather than a labor shortage. Where had this large public sector come from? It resulted from another era of labor resistance to free trade reforms. The fourth period of free trade, between 1880 and 1930, came to an end in a convulsion of labor militancy, strikes, and worker support for revolution and nationalization of industries.
Also, we can expect a widening gap in the distribution of income, as many workers transfer out of high-wage jobs in the public sector into the lower-paying jobs in the modern, privately-owned sectors. Certainly, widespread unemployment might widen that i ncome gap.
We might also expect the resurgence of coercive labor practices in new forms ‹ if not slavery and the mita, then the exploitation of young, single female workers in the maquiladora industries, for instance.
Finally, the period from 1982 to the present has not been friendly to organized labor in Latin America. Independent labor leaders like La Quina of the Mexican petroleum workers have been jailed, while national labor leaders such Fidel Velásquez be grudgingly support the free-trade reforms.
On the other hand, I do not believe we ought to despair for the conditions in the new workplace. If history is a measure, then the workers in time will find the means to defend themselves. And, if free trade does not allow the Latin American workers to appropriate their fair share of the profits, then they may be prepared to help bring an end to free trade once again ‹ as they did in the revolutions of 1810.