Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS)

Independence and Free Trade in the Andes

Author(s): Tristan Platt
Source: Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 15, No. 2 (1996), pp. 255-259
Published by: Wiley on behalf of Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS)
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3339510
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 Bull. Latin Am. Ra.,Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 255-259, 1996
Copyright ? 1996 Society for Latin American Studies
Pergamon Published by Elsevier Ltd
Printed in Great Britain. All rights re
0261-3050/96 $15.00 + 0.0

0261-3050(95)00025-9
REVIEW ESSAY

Independence and Free Trade in the An

TRISTAN PLATT
University of St Andrews

Lema, Ana Maria, Barragan, Rossana, Huber, Hans, Jimenez, Iv

inaceli, Ximena, Qayum, Seemin and Soux, Maria Luisa (eds)
Bosquejo del estado en que se halla la riqueza nacional de Bolivi
Aldeano hijo de ella. Afio de 1830. Plural Editores/Facultad d
nidades y Ciencias de la Education, Universidad Nacional Ma
San Andres (La Paz). 284 pp. $9.00 pbk.

This is a valuable book. First, because it presents a new witness to th

years of republican life in Bolivia (1825-1830), when the first exp
were made with the free-trading policies which would become domin
a time after 1872. The anonymous author, who refers to hims
'Villager' (Aldeano), describes the disastrous effects of these poli
a position of patriotic justice. We hear a new contemporary voic
and distinctive, whose complex relation with the intellectual an
currents of his time will attract all those interested in the birth of the
American Republics.
Second, the book is remarkable for the editorial work carried out by the
Coordinadora de Historia of La Paz, led by Ana Maria Lema. This
collective edition is of high quality, as is also the level of the critical essays
which follow the text.
The 'Villager'?whom I suspect is from Oruro, though it is not Dalence
(the article by Maria Luisa Soux on his possible identities is a good starting-
place for the reader)?was well-read, though not exceptionally so among his
contemporaries. Many of the questions he asks can also be found in the
Questionnaire given in 1832 to the candidates for the post of first Professor
of Political Economy in the recently founded Universidad de San Andres
(La Paz).1 The editors have traced the Villager's social and intellectual
affiliations, comparing his perceptions with those of other contemporaries
(such as the foreign travellers discussed in Ana Maria Lema's essay); and
there emerges a 'philosopher'? as he declares himself to be?who has read
Montesquieu, Bentham and Smith (the latter transmitted indirectly through
Say), Descartes and Condorcet, among those explicitly mentioned (see the
essays of Rossana Barragan and Ximena Medinaceli).
The Villager constantly refers to the 'philosophers' of the Nation as those
responsible for channelling the wisdom of the Enlightenment towards the

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 256 BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH

country and reflecting on the modifications to be m

positions in the light of empirical observation and infe
causes of the wretched state of the Nation. These observations and
inferences (and here Rossana Barragan points out the Villager's use of
Newtonian method) lead him to criticise the eurocentric policies of othe
'philosophers' such as Sucre and Bolivar. Hence, in spite of his pleas of
ignorance and distance from public life, the Villager's manuscript is
conceived essentially as a 'philosophical' intervention in a debate o
enlightened creoles, where the author's philosophical speciality is Politica
Economy.
'Foreign free trade', he says, is at the root of all the country's ills, since it is
the cause of poverty and everything that flows therefrom: low population,
lack of education, decline of civic morality, absence of patriotism, irreligion,
and the internal and external weakness of the State (see Ivan Jimenez's essay
for a reconsideration of Sucre's economic policy, and Hans Huber's on fiscal
policy). Above all, it leads to 'luxury': all classes, regardless of their
economic resources, have developed a passion for English cloth and glass
manufactures, for French wines and dishes, which are not productive
commodities; and some even proceed to destroy an entire dinner service in
a potlatch of conspicuous consumption. In one exquisite passage, the
Villager reproduces a dialogue between a wealthy man and his wife or
mistress: she insists that her man buy her the clothes and adoraments most
recently arrived from Europe in order to be able to compete with the other
society ladies. Our author recommends strong moral control by husbands
over their wives to restrain such acts of feminine irresponsibility, a recom-
mendation which Seemin Qayum, in a suggestive essay, terms an act of
'sexual protectionism'.
This olympian attitude also underlies a highly elitist political analysis, and
shows itself in a Project for a Law to correct the situation. The Villager does
not adopt the classic protectionist position based on tariff controls to limit,
more or less selectively, those foreign imports which might asphyxiate
national production. He recognises the foreigner's right to sell where he
pleases, because 'he does no violence to anyone'.2 Hence his only solution is
to prohibit the lower classes from consuming imported articles, which would
be permitted only to those with an income of more than 500 pesos per
annum. I find it difficult to believe that the Villager himself did not enjoy an
income above this amount?but that, in his scheme of things, would be a
legitimate privilege for an enlightened philosopher, as it would be too for the
highest Magistrates.
For there are two intensely hierarchical visions of society which are
articulated in the Villager's discourse. On the one hand, there is a neoclassic
and Bonapartist rhetoric, where Cato's frugality and the modest life of the
Gracchi may serve to guide an attempt to restore what he calls the 'Empire
of the World', Rome. In this Republican order, the people is nominally
sovereign, but by a social contract has ceded its powers to the Magistrates
(an Andean echo of Locke and Rousseau), to whom it owes every respect,
and who can make legitimate use of imported goods to strengthen with
visible symbols their distinction from the mass of the people.3

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 REVIEW ESSAY 257

On the other hand?and here the Colonial model is introduced?the caste

divisions in Bolivian society are so strong that the Indians even deserve a
separate legislation from that of the enlightened citizens. Immersed, even
more than the rest of the country, in the 'savagery' inherited by all from the
'Colonial yoke', the Indians and urban artisans must be protected from their
worst instincts through police vigilance, the only way of ensuring that they
do not dedicate themselves to 'luxury' consumption beyond their means. In
this sense, then, the Villager's protectionism is directed more towards an
internal moralising vigilance by the organs of an enlightened State, than
towards guarding the commercial frontiers.
In this way two elements are reconciled which are at first sight contra-
dictory: his enlightened civism which takes the concept of political freedom
for all citizens as its point of departure; and the intransigent elitism of his
draft Law, where the poverty-stricken majority of the country would be
subject to constant police surveillance. Of course Rome also had three
'orders', and the rights of citizenship were only gradually extended as
Roman power expanded. Our Villager hopes that the same will occur in
Bolivia to the degree that the Indians and artisans become more 'civilised'. If
we add to this his marked interest in agriculture, we can see his retirement to
his farm (in Oruro?) as the self-exile of a Cato, where he could entertain
himself, perhaps, with a self-image constructed in the mould of an ancient
Roman dedicated to the 'honourable' activities of farming and philosophy,
and to the frugal virtues of the heroes of the ancient Republic of the World.
It is from this position, then, that the Villager begins his analysis, making
critical use of the concepts acquired in his readings (above all Say and
Montesquieu) in order to account for the specific situation of Bolivia, and
why it seemed to escape any simple model which might be extrapolated from
a hasty reading of Adam Smith. Here it should be emphasised that, for
Smith himself, the home market is not an alternative to foreign trade: rather,
it is only when the home market is satisfied that any overseas expansion can
begin.4 Moreover, Smith expects capitalists to behave 'morally'. As Heinrich
Lubasz has shown, the famous metaphor of the 'invisible hand' does not
refer?as many neo-liberals suppose?to the market: it is the invisible handof
Providence which watches over the beneficial results ofthe activities of all the
individual entrepreneurs.5 The difference between European countries and
Bolivia does not lie, therefore, in that Bolivia must choose between the home
market and foreign trade; rather, the Bolivian home market must be
supplied by its own products, while simultaneously certain products can
be directed towards overseas markets.
The Villager reviews national exports, and also recognises that certain
products can be imported to the country's benefit. But (unlike Smith) he
insists that the export of bullion should not be permitted, since it is money
which allows the internal circulation of the country's products. Should
Bolivia be exclusively an exporter of metals, he asks (in an explicit criticism
of the common stereotype of the country as 'essentially' mining), without
putting these metals to work internally as means of exchange? Higher silver
production must allow the circulation of more Bolivian products; it should
not simply be used to pay for the unnecessary importation of 'luxury' goods.

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258 BULLETIN OF LATIN AMERICAN RESEARCH

Now, the Villager explicitly identifies political w

The first cannot exist while the second is denied by
free trade'. The problem shifts, therefore, from a qu
more general one of power, above all as regards t
exists between the economies of the different, supp
And it is through his recognition of the problem of
can distance himself from the hegemonic discourses

It is well known that the poor person, through bein

subordinate to the rich person, and that the latter
exercises power over the former. But this subordin
tible with the functions of freedom.

The problem is recognised by liberal jurispr

individual rights. These can have different form
But no freedom can be exercised without the existen
duty, in this case, to respect the freedoms of oth
argument to the sphere of Political Economy, the V
freedom cannot be exercised in Bolivia, because
(commercial) freedom by other countries is carried
tion of a correlative duty to respect the freedoms o
In this way the Villager can escape the simple
positions affirmed by the hegemonic 'philosopher
been to Vienna, Manchester or Chicago to acquire
was a keen reader, and kept himself abreast of
circulated in Europe. But his criticism emerged from
observations 'in the field'. In a memorable paragraph
observations of Condarco Morales and Murra, he d
'ecological complementarity' that existed between th
and Cochabamba, and the effects of 'foreign free tr
kind between puna and valley. We can almost he
impatiently rejecting their old exchange-partners, w
the Valley in search of maize and flour. 'We only ex
they will have said, since they were after the only m
would give them access to the new cloth recently ar
The erosion of the entire social fabric by foreign t
Villager with eloquence and clarity. Although he som
when he says that without money there cannot b
there cannot be mining?his observations arise from
of the local reality. He has taken ideas from his Euro
transformed them so as to produce new analyses m
real situation of the country.
This is perhaps the main lesson of the Villager for
the Andes are we to read the hegemonic texts critica
which circulate around the world, without simply ad
cally and wishing to apply them to a different realit
previous work of taming...?

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 REVIEW ESSAY 259

NOTES

1. This Questionnaire, a fundamental document for the history of the Bolivian Universit
published as an appendix to the present edition.
2. For an analysis of 'liberal violence' in nineteenth-century Bolivia, however, see PLAT
(1987), 'Calendarios tributarios e intervention mercantil', in La participacion indigena en
mercados sur-andinos, HARRIS, O., LARSEN, B. and TANDETER, E. (eds), CERES
Paz).
3. The meanings of the word pueblo are traced by Ximena Medinaceli, foilowing the paths by
DEMELAS, MARIA-DANTELE (1992), L'invention politique: Bolivie, Equateur, Perou au
XlXeme siecle, Recherche sur les Civilisations (Paris).
4. PLATT, T. (1992), 'Divine protection and liberal damnation: exchanging metaphors in
nineteenth-century Potosi', in Contesting Markets: Analyses of Discourse, Ideology and
Practice, DILLEY, R. (ed.), Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh).
5. LUBASZ, H. (1992), 'Adam Smith and the invisible hand', in Contesting Markets: Analyses
of Discourse, Ideology and Practice, DILLEY, R. (ed.), Edinburgh University Press (Edin?
burgh).

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