Modernization from above versus reform from below: U.S. policy toward Latin American agricultural development

Abstract

Summary This article distinguishes two tendencies in United States policy towards Latin American agriculture: a redistributionist tendency, favouring the break‐up of large private estates into small peasant plots; and a productionist tendency, favouring technical efficiency on existing holdings as the key to successful development. It is shown that this latter tendency has come increasingly to prevail in U.S. Government circles over the past decade, a shift in policy which is assumed to reflect political as well as strictly economic considerations. The endorsement of land reform, at least on the level of declared policy, in the early years of the Kennedy administration, has been followed by a reappraisal which brings U.S. policy more in line with the preferences of the large landowners who are among the most reliable political allies of the United States. (Ed.)