Sorting out the mixed economy: the rise and fall of welfare and developmental states in the americas

403 Pages·2019·34.665 MB·English

by  Offner, Amy C

Sorting Out the Mixed Economy
Histories of Economic Life
Jeremy Adelman, Sunil Amrith, and Emma Rothschild,
Series Editors
Sorting Out the Mixed Economy: The Rise and Fall of Welfare and Developmental
States in the Americas by Amy C. Offner
Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America
by Joshua Specht
The Promise and Peril of Credit: What a Forgotten Legend about Jews and Finance
Tells Us about the Making of European Commercial Society by Francesca
Trivellato
A People’s Constitution: The Everyday Life of Law in the Indian Republic
by Rohit De
A Local History of Global Capital: Jute and Peasant Life in the Bengal Delta
by Tariq Omar Ali
Sorting Out the Mixed
Economy
The Rise and Fall of Welfare
and Developmental States
in the Americas
Amy C. Offner
Princeton University Press
Princeton & Oxford
Copyright © 2019 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press
41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR
press.princeton.edu
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Control Number 2019940870
ISBN 978-0-691-19093-8
British Library Cataloging- in- Publication Data is available
Editorial: Eric Crahan and Thalia Leaf
Production Editorial: Leslie Grundfest
Jacket Design: Layla Mac Rory
Production: Merli Guerra
Publicity: Alyssa Sanford and Julia Hall
Copyeditor: Dawn Hall
Jacket image: Leopoldo Richter (1896–1984), Untitled. Gouache & ink on paper.
Private collection. Photo © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images
This book has been composed in Arno
Printed on acid- free paper. ∞
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For my father and in memory of my mother

Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
A Note on Language xv
Introduction 1
Part I. Building the Decentralized State
1 Decentralization in One Valley 21
2 Land Reform in Local Hands and Local Minds 50
3 Private Homes and Economic Orders 79
Part II. Stewards of the State
4 Economics as a Public Mission 115
5 Management as a Universal Technique 144
Part III. Looking Outward
6 The Great Society as Good Business 175
7 The American Dream Comes Home 214
8 Decentralization Reborn 249
Epilogue: Sorting Out the Mixed Economy 275
vii
viii Contents
Notes 291
Archives and Repositories 359
Oral History Interviews 363
Index 365
Illustrations
Maps
1.1. Major Mountains and Rivers of Colombia 28
1.2. Colombian Po liti cal Divisions and Regional Autonomous
Corporations, ca. 1962 29
2.1. The Cauca Valley, ca. 1985 52
3.1. Bogotá during the early 1980s 99
Figures
1.1. In 1952, General Motors published an abridged edition of
Lilienthal’s book Big Business and distributed it to 100,000
employees. 25
1.2. “The Cauca Valley Bible”: A 1954 cartoon from El País in
Cali shows a child telling his father, “ Daddy, I bet you’re still
reading the Lilienthal Plan.” 37
1.3. CVC executive director Bernardo Garcés Córdoba stands
with CVC engineers at the site of the Calima Dam, circa 1960. 47
2.1. In its 1966 annual report, Colombia’s agrarian reform
agency, INCORA, showcased new irrigation works in La
Unión, Valle del Cauca. 66
2.2. A CVC staff newsletter from 1958 depicts the mobilization
of local c attle ranchers who opposed the CVC’s land tax
of 4/1,000. 73
2.3. “More graphic proof of INCORA’s attacks and trickery.” 77
3.1. “Conviértase en Don Propetario” (“Become Mr. Property
Owner”). 80
3.2. Ciudad Techo on December 17, 1961, when John F. Kennedy
visited for a cornerstone- laying ceremony. 90
ix