Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2014
The issue that arose in the republican era and that would explain many of the developments in the post-1930 period was the social question. The slow emergence of an urban middle class and an industrial labor force created new social tensions that the old oligarchic government could not resolve with simple repression. It would take a political revolution and a completely new vision to begin to deal with the question of the incorporation of these new groups into national society in a coherent way.
Thus the Vargas revolution had as one of its core concerns the involvement of the state in dealing with the new social realities of an ever-more complex society. The Vargas period was one in which the state began to create a series of basic institutions to deal with labor relations, public health, pensions, and the economy, all designed to move the traditional oligarchic rural-based society into the modern era. This was done with a nondemocratic government that could forge new alliances with the growing industrial sector and harness the emerging urban middle class and the evolving labor movement into a permanent support of the regime in exchange for worker protections and the creation of a state-supported welfare regime. Its authoritarian nature allowed it to reduce the power of the old oligarchies and prevent them from successfully opposing these changes as it built up new alliances.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.