Agrarian Capitalism and Struggles over Hegemony in the Bolivian Lowlands

Abstract

In 2006, President Morales announced that his administration would end land inequality in Bolivia. Agrarian elites in the lowlands department of Santa Cruz, known as the economic engine of Bolivian agriculture, strongly oppose this position and have vowed to counter it to safeguard the agrarian order. From visions of a capitalist moral compass of production to the promotion of sector unity to safeguard production, agrarian elites are seeking to maintain a hegemony that allows them to control the agrarian sector in the lowlands. Attention to the ways in which agrarian elites ground their struggles over agrarian hegemony is necessary for evaluating the possibilities for the resource democracy advocated by the current administration.