La desintegración de la economía colonial: Comercio y moneda en el interior del espacio colonial (1800–1860)

Abstract

This collection deals with the disintegration of the colonial economic system in the vice-royalty of Río de la Plata between 1800 and 1860. It focuses on regional trade and monetary and fiscal policies, seeking to evaluate the impact of independence: the collapse of Potosí’s silver mines, the end of the Spanish commercial monopoly, political fragmentation, the debasement of metallic currencies, the reorientation of economic flows toward the Atlantic, competition from cheap European manufactures, and the consequent weakening of interior regional economies. Its nine essays deal with each region’s relative success in reorienting its economy in the face of the crisis of Upper Peru. The Littoral, because of its productive affinities with Buenos Aires, was the most successful. Entre Ríos, in particular, took advantage of the Anglo-French blockade (1845–48) to develop a profitable trade with Brazil, Paraguay, and Europe. Salta and Jujuy suffered a decline in the mule trade but compensated with new connections to Pacific ports. Córdoba continued to send woolens to Buenos Aires until the 1840s. In short, the book argues that the disintegration of the colonial economic space was a protracted process, as regions and merchants adapted to the new conditions posed by independence.Some essays touch on the effects of the decline of Bolivian silver mining. The Boliv-ian government debased its metallic currency while registering increasing trade deficits; this spread the degraded silver coins throughout the former viceroyalty. Meanwhile, Buenos Aires province combated increasing budget deficits by issuing inconvertible paper money, leading to unprecedented inflation. Monetary and fiscal policies stimulated the hoarding of “good money,” and merchants not only had to rebuild commercial circuits but also deal with the vagaries of scarce or devaluated currencies.Irigoin and Schmit’s introduction poses the volume’s fundamental problems and questions: How did the postindependence fiscal autonomy influence commerce and monetary flows? How did economic processes affect political processes? Did the collapse of mining in Potosí, combined with the free trade in Atlantic and Pacific ports, have such a devastating effect upon the economies of the interior?Guillermo Lira and Alicia Gil Lázaro argue that the 1801–5 Potosí crisis was temporary and that merchants tried to maintain their old ways of doing business after independence. The elite’s adaptability made them key players in reestablishing commercial and monetary connections. The Anchorena family, for instance, built a successful international business network in the midst of the wars. Viviana Conti suggests that between 1820 and 1850, Salta and Jujuy’s merchants reacted to Bolivian currency debasement and commercial dependence from Buenos Aires by shifting to the Pacific ports of Cobija and Valparaíso. Esteban Nicolini and Carlos F. Scrimini estimate the evolution of Tucumán’s monetary stock for 1825–53, obtaining a figure that seems modest in relation to the value of commercial transactions. They also observe a decline in prices that appears inconsistent with the alleged accumulation of metallic exports from Bolivia. Miguel Rosal contributes fresh data about the composition of river exports from neighboring areas to Buenos Aires in the 1840s. The Littoral region was the fastest growing area, while the central region, especially Córdoba, saw its participation in the Buenos Aires trade decline.C. S. Assadourian and S. Palomeque estimate imports and exports for Córdoba province from 1800 to 1830, confirming earlier assumptions about the decline of mule exports to Upper Peru and woolens to Buenos Aires and the Littoral. They show that European competition slashed Córdoba’s demand for cotton textiles from Catamarca, while the civil war increased the demand for tobacco and soles from the same province. The montoneras’ disruption of Cuyo’s wine trade with Buenos Aires turned Córdoba into a temporary center for wine distribution. Córdoba went from a moderate trade surplus in the 1800s to a trade deficit in the 1830s. Schmit’s essay shows how, in the midst of the Anglo-French blockade to Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos conducted a lucrative re-export trade with southern Brazil and Montevideo. Against Rosas’s warnings, they continued exporting hides through the eastern ports on the Uruguay River. Nevertheless, Entre Ríos merchants faced problems with currency and attempted to minimize the use of metal coinage in their transactions.Irigoin, in the most intellectually challenging contribution of the volume, evaluates the effects of Bolivia’s currency debasement versus Buenos Aires province’s inflationary financing. This created a division in the economic space of the ex-viceroyalty: in the north, only metallic coins were accepted, while in the Littoral and Buenos Aires paper money circulated. Both systems led to the hoarding of “good money” and created an apparent currency shortage. Silver currency flowed into the Littoral and Buenos Aires, as the interior tried to compensate for trade deficits toward the coast with surpluses from Upper Peru. Financing civil wars by debasing currency or issuing inconvertible money generated a cost for consumers that was unevenly distributed among regions. The interior provinces ended up paying—in inflated prices and import duties—for Buenos Aires’ failure to control its budget and stabilize the currency.Most essays pay tribute to Assadourian’s notion of the articulation of internal markets within the “colonial economic space,” and the idea of an original Potosí–Buenos Aires “axis” and its disarticulation following independence still informs their work. Alternative explanations coming from neo-institutional theories or neoclassical economic models tend to be resisted. Efforts to quantify flows of commerce do not find an equivalent dose of economic theory or reasoning. Several key variables for understanding interregional trade and monetary flows (such as transportation costs, productivity, taxation rates, monetary stocks, or interest rates) are neglected. Similarly, the authors do not deal with price or wage convergence, a question that should be central to studies of the integration or disintegration of economic spaces.Beyond certain basics, the contributors do not share the same vocabulary or preoccupations. Irigoin talks of transaction costs and of the relationship between political coalitions and monetary and fiscal regimes. Other contributors keep close to the notions of “mercantile circuits” and “commercial networks.” Irigoin’s preoccupation with inflationary financing and currency debasement is not matched by the other essays. Schmit pays some attention to the question of multiple currencies, and Nicolini and Scribini address the apparent accumulation of metallic reserves in Tucumán. But the other authors center their analyses on the regional flows of trade and pay little attention to monetary policies.This book makes an impressive contribution to the economic history of South America. It complements earlier efforts to quantify commercial flows with analyses of the fiscal and monetary dimensions of the problem. Some of the data is useful, if interpreted with caution, but the quality of the collection is uneven. Argentine scholars seem unwilling (Irigoin excepted) to incorporate the analytical tools of the new economic history or the new institutional economics. The book problematizes existing understandings about regional specialization and the rise or decline of certain commercial circuits but fails to provide a new understanding, in economic and institutional terms, of the postindependent economy.