The Uruguayan Economy: Its Basic Nature and Current Problems

Abstract

The economic history of Uruguay from the turn of the century up to the early 1950's is characterized by economic growth, by extensive governmental involvement in economic activity, and by an ardent secularist faith in the welfare state ideals of the great José Batlle y Ordóñez and the Batllista tradition which lived on after him. Its small size, stable democracy, and apparent aloofness from the problems of the rest of the continent have earned la Republica Oriental del Uruguay such sobriquets as the “Switzerland” or “Utopia” of South America. Beginning in the early 1950's, however, there were signs that this country which had for so long been a model laboratory for progress and reform to its crisis-ridden neighbors, was itself about to face a crisis. The economic dimension of the Uruguayan crisis is that the annual per capita gross national product (currently about 500 dollars) has not risen for over a decade, and has in fact declined slightly in the last several years.