The Social Origins of Protectionism and Free Trade in Nineteenth-Century Lima

Abstract

Nineteenth-century Peru is customarily taken as a hyperbolic example of how the triumph of economic liberalism in Latin America hindered prospects for sustained economic development. While historians now agree that guano-age liberalism triggered adverse economic and social consequences, the roots of Peruvian free trade policy remain shrouded in mystery. Most recently, dependency writers elevated free trade into a major component of their posited transition to ‘neocolonialism’ after Independence. However, this new periodization is not convincing for it fails to explain how liberal policies actually took hold, symptomatic of the insufficient attention given to internal dynamics of change.