Abstract
Lorgio Orellana Aillón has presented an innovative approach to the formation of the Bolivian upper class between 1940 and 2003. Using both Foucauldian and Marxist concepts, Aillón is able to identify the social constellation that forms what he calls the ‘decent people’, a social group formed around the dominant ethnic-based class. Few studies can actually manage the mix of such antagonistic methodologies. The reason why Aillón achieved his objective is that he was more concerned on understanding the concrete social relations than to fit his findings into one or other theory. By doing so, he was able to understand both the history of class struggle in Bolivia and how the small segment of the local ruling class was able to reinvent itself, changing from an oligopolistic mining position to that of financial/comprador. It means that he has answered an important question that should be asked by anyone that wants to understand how neo-colonial oligarchies arise, alongside the old ones, even in contemporary contexts. The answer to this question could be achieved by interviewing members of such oligarchies and analysing the social composition of the ruling class. This is what Aillón has undertaken in this book.
Aillón points out that the formation of the so-called ‘decent people’ originated in the Bolivian old oligarchy, a social constellation that can only be understood by considering its historical evolution. Bolivia’s old oligarchy was composed of two different groups linked to silver and tin, which ruled since the nineteenth century until 1952. The silver oligarchy was in power from the second half of the nineteenth century until 1899. It was a mining bourgeoisie whose interests were connected to the international market. Its power was based on the alliance between the landowners and monopoly capital. Its ethnic composition was based on the ties of kinship around the identity of the creole families, which descended directly from the Spanish settlers. These families were characterized by strong xenophilia (love of foreigners) and disdain for the natives. The tin oligarchy settled in power after the 1898–99 civil war, when part of the mining and comprador bourgeoisie that was excluded from the silver oligarchy’s power structure allied itself to the lower classes and indigenous ethnic groups. After taking power, the new oligarchy betrayed the lower classes and indigenous people, forming an alliance with the old oligarchy. The alliance arc of the tin oligarchy was exactly the same as with the silver oligarchy: landowners, comprador bourgeoisie, and monopoly capital. However, now it brought also representatives of the middle classes, journalists, military personnel, writers, among other, to the state bureaucracy.
In the context of the rule of the old oligarchies, the so called ‘decent people’ consisted of the economic elite that had access to ‘high’ culture and formal education. In 1950, it meant less than four percent of the economically active population, according to Aillón. The ‘high’ culture clubs were some of their main meeting places, where alliances were formed. For this elite, natives could never be ‘decent people’, since they could not embody Western culture. Only mestizos, after achieving formal education, and leaving behind any native culture, could become ‘decent people’. Then, they could be called ‘doctors’, or culture bearers, and that could be accommodated in the state apparatus. In this context, it is very clear that ‘decent people’ were actually an ethnic-based class, a kind of caste, supported by legal privileges, such as owing of land, earning an income greater than 200 Bolivianos, and having an education to vote and be voted.
With the revolution of 1952, the old oligarchies were overthrown from power. The leadership of the National Revolutionary Movement (NRM), in order to consolidate its power, built its support among the middle classes, creating an imaginary of a national alliance of classes as a new mark of stability. Thus, mestizo groups were actually leading the country for the first time in history. The revolution destroyed the material bases of the social reproduction of the ‘decent people’ when it expropriated their assets and exiled some members of the old ruling classes. This process led to the relative impoverishment of middle and high classes, creating a kind of levelling from the bottom, which helped to consolidate the social myth of miscegenation. From then on, people from different ethnic origins started to identify themselves as mestizos and as members of the middle classes. Until then, according to Aillón, people that had both European and native ancestry were more likely to emphasize their European heritage. That can be explained by the fact that people tended to be influenced by the social identity of those that were in power. When the NRM ascended to power, the national identity temporarily ceased to be seen as completely negative.
The author has shown that the NRM never truly overcame the social and ethnic cleavage in its own worldview. Part of the NRM leadership came from the ‘decent people’, and although believing in formal education as a mean to achieve development, the leadership still thought that true formal culture could only be achieved by middle class mestizos, and never by indigenous workers. Even if they were nationalists, the leadership still accepted Western culture. One could say that their political project was to extend the ‘decent people way of life’ to the illiterate masses through the enhancement of Bolivia’s educational system. In fact, they despised the natives that actually existed in Bolivia, despite idolizing mestizaje (miscegenation). The discourse of education and merit served, in a contradictory way, as (a) a barrier that separated the elite from the rest of the population; and at the same time (b) created the opportunity for the mestizo population, and even to some native workers that embraced the Western way of life, both as a group and as individuals, to climb the social ladder.
During the NRM government, since the ‘decent people’, as a class-ethnicity, were not in power, and most of their material base of social reproduction had been stripped away, they could not rely solely on legal and economic privileges to keep their group cohesion. During that time, two main mechanisms helped the social reproduction of the ‘decent people’: The existence of exclusive schools that were considered superior to the rest and where the majority of the students were either from foreign families or from traditional influential Bolivian families. Those schools, such as the Colegio La Salle, formed a kind of social bubble where the elite could form social ties. Also, higher education, especially when acquired in foreign universities, was seen as a distinguishing sign. There began also an incipient internationalization of the ‘decent people’, either as a consequence of forced exile, or as a result of the search for study abroad. This internationalization was still a dispersed process, but slowly led to both professionalization (through tertiary education) and renovation of the social constellation that formed the ‘decent’ ones.
According to Aillón, NRM policies were seen as a kind of ethnic excess, since it allowed the rapid ascent of the mestizos and even the native working class. According to the author, this was one of the reasons behind the 1964 military coup. After the coup, the Bolivian state initiated a racial and social cleansing based on the mechanism of meritocracy, sustained by a discourse of development. From there on, those who had completed higher education abroad had a large advantage, which gave ‘decent people’ access to important positions in the state bureaucracy. It did not take long until they were able to strengthen their private companies, and form new privileged ties. By this means, the families of the old oligarchies were able to join the new post-revolution power structure of 1952. From then on, the government’s policy began to promote the interests of mining families, and to use the repressive state apparatus to ensure ‘social peace’.
The policy pursued by the right-wing dictatorship of 1964 and the ‘decent people’ was to foment capitalism by using the state machinery for its own sake, and to seek financial and commercial alliances abroad. The result was a concentration of power and wealth around finance capital which dominated the local comprador bourgeoisie, and even the local industrial bourgeoisie. The Banzer government (1971–1978) was effectively a military-business government that consolidated the alliance between the heirs of the old oligarchies, the big industrial entrepreneurs, and finance capital (local and mainly foreign), forming a new financial and comprador bourgeoisie.
In the decades between the Banzer dictatorship and the governments of the ‘Patriotic Agreement’, a new oligarchy was formed through the proximity of the representatives of the financial sector, cemented on renowned surnames, ethnic identity, class identity, and meritocratic criteria, including access and influence among international credit institutions. The formation of a new oligarchy was due, in large, part to the confidence-building policy chosen by the rulers. Through the selection of people belonging to specific social circles, especially those linked to multinationals, credit institutions, and financial institutions, it was sought (a) to ensure the support of those circles to the government and (b) to bring people who came from trusted circles, of those already in power, into the government. The ministerial and technical teams of the administrations between 1985 and 2003 were created through meritocratic professional criteria, and through the indication and influence of the interpersonal circles formed by an ethnic cultural elite. This indication depended, as a rule, on the personal trajectory of the nominees within the circles consulted.
This process, which sought the approval of banking entities and multinationals, brought into the circle of the ‘decent people’ capitalists who, until then, were not part of the traditional families. New social spaces of reproduction of the ‘decent people’ were formed. The ministerial formation of the governments between 1985 and 2003, analysed by Aillón, reveal some of the social spaces which served as pillars of political power: capitalist activity; business associations; the academic world; and foreign agencies. That is, it was an alliance between entrepreneurs, foreign agencies, and academics.
Between 1985 and 2003, the ‘decent people’ managed to stay in power. This was possible, thanks to the rapprochement between the military, former oligarchies, and businessmen, since the dictatorship era. The democracy established after 1985, in practice, served the interests of this business and military alliance, around the new oligarchy, based on renowned surnames and high cultural formation, with international support. It was an elitist state, which ruled against the interests of the mestizo and indigenous majority. In 2003, the popular movement overthrew that model, which in the discourse was democratic and inclusive, but in practice was exclusive. When they asked for Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s resignation, they understood that they were fighting against a foreign government, given its ethnic and xenophilic background.
What Lorgio Orellana Aillón shows, therefore, is that Bolivia, a country with a colonial past, sustained a ruling class based on ethnicity and social identity. But that identity was not only a past feature, it was reinvented during Bolivia’s modern history, by maintaining the ethnic identity of the ruling elite, its xenophilia, and its disdain for the natives. It occurred by changing the main class factions from the mining bourgeoisie to the financial one, and the social spaces of reproduction. Aillón’s interpretation demonstrates both knowledge of the Marxist approach to class relations and the ability to interpret discourse, and is highly recommended.