Antecedents to Daniel Cosío Villegas's Post-Revolutionary Ideology: Justo Sierra's Critique of Mexico's Legendary Wealth and Trinidad Sánchez Santos's Assault on Porfirian Progress

Abstract

This essay investigates the extent to which continuity existed between Porfirian and post-revolutionary Mexico from the vantage point of economic ideology. During the late Porfirian era two distinct critiques emerged. Justo Sierra and other cientificos, regime insiders, in official and semi-official discourse, articulated one: a critique of Mexico9s legendary wealth. As a means to discredit the Diaz regime, liberal and conservative opponents of the government, especially social Catholic journalist Trinidad Sanchez Santos, articulated the other: a social critique of Porfirian material progress. During the Reconstruction period of the 1920s, post-revolutionary intellectual Daniel Cosio Villegas wove both these critiques together. Since he fused cientificos9 official critique of Mexico9s natural riches and opposition groups9 assault on the Diaz regime9s celebration of Porfirian progress, this essay reveals that Cosio Villegas9s post-revolutionary economic ideology was a hybrid that had continuities and discontinuities with the discourse of the Porfirian regime.