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Colonialism, “efficiency” and development: Re‐examining Puerto Rico's land reform, 1935–1945
Author(s) -
AyalaMcCormick Diego
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of agrarian change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.63
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1471-0366
pISSN - 1471-0358
DOI - 10.1111/joac.12400
Subject(s) - agrarian reform , land reform , colonialism , politics , industrialisation , agrarian society , governor , redistribution (election) , political economy , puerto rican , land values , economics , development economics , political science , economic growth , agriculture , geography , land use , sociology , ethnology , market economy , law , archaeology , physics , civil engineering , engineering , thermodynamics
Existing historiography on Puerto Rico's agrarian reform programme in the early 1940s fails to explain why the reform resulted in the nationalization of sugar cane plantations and the formation of “Proportional Profit Farms” rather than land redistribution. This analysis examines the interplay between the New Deal and Puerto Rican political forces in the 1930s to help answer this question. It concludes that land redistribution was preferred among local forces and that the Proportional Profit Farms were a result of federal intervention by the New Deal, embodied most clearly in the figure of Rexford Tugwell, Puerto Rico's appointed governor from 1941 to 1946. This intervention calls for a re‐examination of the New Deal's role in Puerto Rico's long‐term economic development in the 20th century, particularly in laying down a model of dependent development and industrialization.