The Porfiriato
Railways, telegraph, and a third of the country in few hands
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Porfirio Díaz was a general who seized power in Mexico by coup in 1876 and governed the country, with one brief interruption, until 1911. The period is the standard example of growth without distribution: output rose sharply while real wages for rural labourers fell. Laws on "vacant land" transferred village commons to companies able to document title, which villages rarely could. By the end, under one per cent of the population owned most of the arable land, and Díaz's own remark that Mexico was "so far from God and so close to the United States" summed up the economic dependence he had built.
For children
Porfirio Díaz ruled Mexico for over thirty years. The country gained railways, industry and foreign investment — but land was concentrated in very few hands, and most peasants lost what they had. It ended in revolution.
Sources
- Katz, The Secret War in Mexico (1981)
- Encyclopædia Britannica: «Porfirio Díaz»
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