Thus, both acted (Mexico successfully, Colombia much less so) to restrict democracy and promote capitalism (part of a broader erosion of democratic culture across the hemisphere, I will suggest). Both Liberal and Conservative political elites determined that too much democracy was inimical to capitalist development.
In other words, in the context of already vibrant democratic experiments, what did the quest for capitalist development tell us about the historical relationship between capitalism and democracy around the world? In both Colombia and Mexico, the correlation was negative. This essay, after briefly exploring why we should consider mid-nineteenth-century Colombia and Mexico as democratic, will focus on what those in control of the state thought they had to do to secure this capitalist development.
Dismissing criticisms that President Porfirio Díaz’ long rule was undemocratic, they instead applauded the regime’s obtainment of order, thus allowing material progress: “Men of experience care little or nothing if governments are republican or monarchical what is important is that, under one name or the other, in this or that form, that they realize the ends of the State-security and justice, progress through order.” 1 In both Mexico and Colombia, the last quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed projects to restrict vibrant, if often disorderly, democratic cultures, undertaken with the goals of promoting capitalist economic development. All (.)ġIn turn-of-the-century Mexico, the editors of La Gaceta Comercial surveyed the accomplishments of the decades-long project of national regeneration called the Porfiriato. 1 “Gobiernos caros y gobiernos baratos.” La Gaceta Comercial, 2 March 1900.