Ruralism (Spanish: Ruralismo) is a right-wing traditionalist political ideology in Uruguay.
Ruralists defend the traditional Latin American agrarian economic model based on extensive livestock production, liberal capitalism, social conservatism and fiscal austerity, vindicating the hacienda and estancia system. Traditionally associated with the rural population and the interests of landowners, the movement has been present both in the Blanco and Colorado factions as well as in economic pressure groups or short-lived political parties.
Ideology
Uruguayan ruralism can be traced back to the 19th century, despite its largest extent was achieved in the 20th century. The movement has been placed by scholars among the liberal-conservative opposition to the social reforms of José Batlle y Ordóñez.
Ruralism sees the large Uruguayan countryside as the main comparative advantage of the country in the global market. Therefore, the movement considers rural development as the ideal economic model for the country and rejected the import substitution industrialization program promoted by the 20th-century governments.
Ruralists are fiscally conservative and hold positive views of the early Uruguayan fiscal policy, in which there were almost no direct taxes except for a rarely collected property tax. Ruralists firmly opposed the various tax reforms enacted by Batlle, most of which were mainly focused on rural landowners and greatly increased the governmental revenue. The movement was also against progressive taxation, considering it immoral and calling it "fiscal larceny".
Ruralists vindicate the rural population as people who appeal to "their own efforts" and kept "physical and moral health" in contrast to hedonistic, materialistic and "corrupted" urban citizens. In 1933, while calling for the March on Montevideo demonstration, El Debate newspaper stated:Montevideo, epicurean and materialistic, official residence of the Colegiado, fatal headquarters of that legislature that keeps imposing taxes (...), nest of predacious politicians (...) Montevideo, egoist and sensuous, that does not want to see the terrible evils the countryside is suffering, that disdains its pains (...) Just then shall Montevideo wake up from its comfort and the oligarchs shall understand (...) that their pleasures are at risk!The main aspect of the Uruguayan ruralist rhetoric is based on a supposed attack by a lavish, disorderly, improductive and spendthrift city on a productive, communitarianist and morally superior agrarian society. The defense of rural interests, therefore, would imply anti-statist positions that stopped the aggressive taxation and economic intervention policies by which the government sought to finance its bureaucratic apparatus and drift resources from the countryside to the urban areas. Ruralists have historically shown contempt towards public servants and professional politicians who "live out of the state budget" and "envy" the meritocratic prosperity achieved by the rural population.
Early ruralists saw morality as deriving from the "soil and blood" and not out of abstract reason, considering that the rural society naturally made citizens virtuous due to its demand of hard work and honesty, in contrast to an urban context that promoted immorality. Daily life at rural areas theoretically built people's character and kept them away from sloth and indecency. As Luis Alberto de Herrera stated, ranches were seen as "workshops of rightful men, home to work and noblesse, where there is no place for idleness, and where no evils can be learned" and a "synonym of decency, of honesty, of traditional hospitality, of decorum and serene joy, to sum up, of happiness". Landowners were praised for defending their workers from illness, gambling and drunkness, "evils" that ran rampant in poor towns. Herrera pointed that "an hacendado must be a constant apologist of the most excellent sobriety among his peons". Ranches were therefore seen as "cradle" of the local civilization and of traditional values, and its social prevalence was key for the future of the country and its alleged "rural destiny".
Ruralism is radically against any sort of redistributive land reform and defends the traditional estancia land ownership model, as well as the right to property. Ruralists hold a favourable view of cattle ranchers, defending their economic and social role, and consider livestock production as a positive activity both for the national economy and those who practise it, contradicting the developmentalist projects that tried to promote intensive farming.
Ruralist thought has been deeply influenced by European liberalism and early capitalist economics and morality. Most ruralist favoured laissez-faire economics, despite some minor factions defended the creation of an agrarianist dirigist system.
Ruralists denied the existence of class conflict in the countryside, considering that the presence of a unifying "rural culture" made estancias into a harmonious "great family" with no conflicting interests between peons and landowners. Herrera summed up his beliefs on the topic by describing the estancia of his parents:We were an ordered and discrete family. Our doors were guarded by old criollo traditions, that are the honour of the Hispanic people. We lived happily on our austere averageness. The employer was the best friend of his workers. They were united by the love for work. The children of the peons of old were risen among those of the estanciero, calling each other "tú" (Spanish informal pronoun); and so it would be always on every scale of life. Those poor were less poor than they are now, but there was less display. We believed in order and in happy abundance, without surprises at our hearts and no fevers in our bodies. But then the reformists came, and after laughing out loud of that patriarchal composure, which they saw as a sign of backwardness and imbecility, they started to break it up.
History
Militarism The development of capitalism in Uruguay in the late 19th century was a complex and slow process due to the heavy political turmoil the country had experienced since its independence. Despite most of the countryside belonged either to individual landowners or to the state, the boundaries between different estancias were unclear and the constant civil wars hindered the country's agrarian modernization and rural investment.
After the economic devastation caused by the Revolution of the Lances (1870–1873), most of the Uruguayan economic elite and Blanco caudillos supported a coup d'état by president Pedro Varela and colonel Lorenzo Latorre with the aim of establishing a militaristic government that would impose social peace and modernize the national economy. Latorre finally took power in 1876, starting a period known as Militarism.
During the dictatorial rule, the state implemented an economic model based on the export of primary goods, using the military apparatus to stabilize the country and secure the right to property. The birth of a new system started the political involvement of rural ranchers, who actively collaborated with the regime to defend their interests.The modernization process, actively promoted by rural landowners, caused a series of economic and social changes that consolidated the agro-export model. Land ownership was greatly concentrated, what favoured the implementation of the latifundio-minifundio land tenure structure.
The introduction of sheep farming and of selective breeding improved exports and national income, making extensive farming the most common productive activity in the country. Lastly, the development of a wage labour system strengthened rural capitalism.
The agro-export model would be the national economic system until the early 20th century, when it was replaced by statist industrialization.
ARU
The modernization process was supported by the creation of the most powerful rural board of trade, the Rural Association of Uruguay (Spanish: Asociación Rural del Uruguay) in 1871.
The ARU advocated for a well defined agenda, and pressed the government for a series of measures that were in most cases carried out. The Association promoted the development of public work projects, the creation of professional armed and police forces, as well as a legal reform.
During its early years, the Association supported scientific research in the Uruguayan countryside and founded its own laboratory in 1898. The guild also owned a library with more than 3,000 tomes.
The following governments after the end of the military dictatorship gradually distanced themselves from the Association.
Revolution of 1904
The Revolution of 1904 was a peasant revolt led by General Aparicio Saravia against the Colorado government of José Batlle y Ordóñez.
Saravia opposed the reformist policies of the government, and supported the preservation of an economic model based on the countryside. Saravia had triumphed in a previous revolt in 1897 in which he had taken control of the local police, what gave him a large military strength. Unlike most of the Uruguayan ranchers, who had demilitarized their territories since the modernization, Saravia was able to rise a powerful army at his northern estancia "El Cordobés", from where he had also taken part in the Brazilian Federalist Revolution.After Batlle broke the Pact of the Cross (Spanish: Pacto de la Cruz), by which it was compelled to let blanco politicians to take part on his government, Saravia ordered all ranchers to sell their cattle, levy their men and go to "El Cordobés" in order to take part in an "armed protest". Saravia recruited 15,000–20,000 men and, after the government refused to negotiate, launched the revolution.
The Blanco Party had formed an organized army with a strong hierarchy oi the previous years, but a fair amount of the revolutionaries were not associated with the party and were mere peasants expulsed from their lands after the modernization. Many soldiers used the mottos "Aire libre y carne gorda" (lit: free air and fat meat) or "Patria para todos" (lit: fatherland for everyone) as a display of social discontent. The revolution was not limited to political causes, but was mostly motivated by the desire of the impoverished rural population to improve their conditions of living.
Saravia was killed in action in the Battle of Masoller, what caused the end of the Revolution. Saravia has been described as the "epigone" of the ruralist tradition and remains one of the most important historical figures of the Blanco Party.
Rural Federation and La encuesta rural In 1915, during the second presidency of Batlle y Ordóñez, ruralist hardliners created the Rural Federation (Spanish: Federación Rural) as a way of taking a more confrontational approach against the government. The foundation of the organization was actively supported by the ARU, as well as by the conservative factions of the traditional parties.
According to Luis Alberto de Herrera, one of its founders and most relevant members, the conservative "alliance of ranchers" was founded with the objective of opposing the "jacobin" policies of batllists, and promote "agrarian nationalism". Ruralists saw batllism as "the worst enemy" that "severed the country" trying to harm the countryside from the "fallacious and deceitful city of the south".
In 1920, the Federation made a national survey called "La encuesta rural" to study the situation of the countryside from a ruralist point of view. The research pointed that the places of worst poverty and moral vice of the countryside were not the estancias, but the rancheríos where most of the unemployed and impoverished population lived. The article concluded, therefore, that estancias could be credited with promoting moral virtue and economic development. The study finished with a call for an educational reform and for a different wage policy.
Minor ruralist parties