Figure 1.--'Peon acasillado' is a Mexican term describing a landlaes resident laborer on a hacienda aspart of an essentially forced labor system approaching slavery. The term describes debt bondage or indentured servitude. 'Peon acasillado' is also the title of this linocut print by Mexican artist Arturo García Bustos (1926-2017). Itw as created in 1947. The print is now part of the portfolio 'Estampas de la Revolución Mexicana' (Prints of the Mexican Revolution) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. García Bustos dramatically depicts a peon with a macvhete harvesting maize (corn). Corn of course was the foundation of Mexican agriculture and civiization beginning i meso-America. Today Mexico has to import corn from the United States.

Most of the Mexico rural population was very poor, primarily because the people working the land did not own it or very much of it. This was the land ownership pattern for much of the world population for most of history--except for the United States. The Mexican lower class fell into two distinct and uneven groups. The first managed to live in at or just above the poverty, but with some basic dignity. This included independent farmers with small land holdings, too small to support decent life style. They were also under presser from the of the Grandes always eager to acquire more land. And many of the rural lower-middle class was poor enough to cross over the border element into the lower class. The great bulk of the lower class and rural population was the landless agricultural labor. The lower class continued the miserable existence that had been the case since the Conquest and colonial times. The Porfiriato had introduced industry, but the growing urban work force while brought unto the money economy, continued to exist at very low levels. One author provides a concise picture of the Mexican lower classes. "The city proletariat lived from hand to mouth. The ranchero lived in dread in dread of of the large landowner's [hacendados) machinations to deprive him of his land while himself was constantly scheming how to deprive the Indian who happened to possess a patch of ground. The large mass of agricultural laborers [peones] were either managing to eke out a miserable existence by means of that very path of ground with the additional labor on the land of the large landowner (peon eventual), or living under a system approaching forced labor peon acasillado) on the land of the hacendado, fed on nothing but corn cakes [tortillas] spiced with chile, a semi-occasional allowance of beans, an occasional allowance of meat, but a reasonably steady flow of pulque [moonshine tequila]." 【 Handman, p. 208. 】 The level of suppression and exploitation is difficult to measure in qualitative terms. This is because much of the rural poor were barely involved in the monied economy. Ans since especially the Indians hardly involved at all. And even if involved, wages are an imperfect measuring tool. This is because exchange rates fluctuate and high wages may nor be a valid indicator independent of prices. One researcher using adult heights provides insights as to how the lower classes fared during the Porfiriato. He found that the benefits of industrialization fomented during the Díaz regime 'did not have a favorable impact on the well being of the laboring population.' 【 Lopez-Alonso 】

Sources

Handman, Max Sylvius. "The Mexican Revolution and the standard of living," The Southwestern Political Science Quarterly Vol. I, No. 3 (December 1920), pp. 207-18.

Lopez-Alonso, Moramay. "Growth with inequality: Living standards in Mexico, 1850-1950," .Journl of Latin American Studies Vol. 39 (Cammbridge University Press: United Kingdom, 2007), pp. 81-101. The author used data on the height of Federal and militua recruits and on passport applications. Height is a proxy for living standards and showed no benefit to laboring classes, but improvments among elites. The data also showed benefits to the laboring class and the welfare prograns of the PRI duting the Cárdenas administration.

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