Subsistence and the state: Municipal government policies and urban markets in developing nations; the case of Mexico City and Guadalajara, 1877-1910

This dissertation addresses the problem of how a developing nation reconciles the demands of industrialization with the problem of subsistence maintenance. The study focuses on Mexico City and Guadalajara during the Porfiriato (1877-1910), and used ethnohistorical methods to analyze published and unpublished national, state, and municipal government documents, photographs, newspapers, travelers accounts, etc., of the period. The main thesis is that municipal governments, public market venders, and street venders play a crucial role in providing cheap subsistence goods to a poor urban population that is usually the backbone of an industrial labor force. Faced with scarce resources, the municipal governments of Mexico City and Guadalajara developed a series of strategies and implemented policies to increase revenues to pay for its services (revenue maximization policy) and to guarantee basic subsistence goods and services for its growing and increasingly poor urban population (subsistence goods maximization policy). The vender sector of the economy had an important place in both, by being a source of steady and not inconsiderable revenues, and by providing affordable goods to the poor. To maximize revenues, the municipalities were forced into a minimum investment strategy, with the result that structures deteriorated, the quality of goods for consumers was poor, and market and street venders made a minimal living. In order to supply goods to the poor, the municipalities helped and protected venders from merchants, municipal rules and regulations, even adverse economic conditions. An examination of these policies, largely unstated by the municipality but understood by those it affected, throws light on what appears to be arbitrary or conflicting styles of municipal management, and shows venders to be rational decision-makers. Finally, observing the municipality at its daily work, suggests the process of governing in developing nations to be a give and take, a balancing of conflicting needs and interest groups in an atmosphere of mounting problems and diminishing resources.