As the world capitalist system developed during the nineteenth century non-slave labour became a commodity that circulated around the globe and contributed to capital accumulation in metropolitan centres. The best examples are the emigration of millions of Asian indentured servants and European labourers to areas of European colonisation. Asians replaced emancipated African slaves on plantations in the Caribbean and South America, supplemented a declining slave population in Cuba, built railways in California, worked in mines in South Africa, laboured on sugarcane plantations in Mauritius and Fiji, and served on plantations in southeast Asia. Italian immigrants also replaced African slaves on coffee estates in Brazil, worked with Spaniards in the seasonal wheat harvest in Argentina, and, along with other Europeans, entered the growing labour market in the United States. From the perspective of capital, these workers were a cheap alternative to local wage labour and, as foreigners without the rights of citizens, they could be subjected to harsher methods of social control.1

Between 1900 and 1914, Argentina experienced the period of greatest growth of its railway network (see Fig. 1). During this time its total length was increased by about 12,000 miles, thus improving on the increase achieved during the railway boom of the 1880s. As before, the new peak was associated with a massive inflow of foreign capital which reached record levels: about 2,000 million gold pesos, against 800 millions during the 1880s. Furthermore, the new railway constructions were mainly made after 1907 and located in the pampas (see Tables 1 and 2). This rapid growth has been explained by many authors mainly as a global consequence of the so-called Mitre law (national law 5315), sanctioned in 1907, which standardised railway legislation in a way that favoured foreign investors, giving rise to an investment boom, especially among the British groups settled in the pampas.1

The cry for land is, without any doubt, the loudest, the most dramatic and the most desperate sound in Guatemala.’ So wrote the Guatemalan bishops in 1988. In their country's long history, the bishops stated, only one president – Jacobo Arbenz – had addressed the issue of land reform.1 Inaugurated in 1951, Arbenz presided over the most successful agrarian reform in the history of Central America. The reports of the US embassy bear testimony to the fact that within eighteen months land was distributed to 100,000 peasant families, amid little violence and without adversely affecting production.2 Praise for initiating the reform does not belong, however, solely to Arbenz. As his wife observed, ‘Alone, he could not have done it’. Praise should also be given to the Communist party of Guatemala, whose leaders were Arbenz's closest personal and political friends.3

This article discusses the distinct historical phases in the development of the Nicaraguan Atlantic Coast region as the essential background to an analysis of the process of autonomy currently unfolding there. It identifies three main periods: English colonial rule; enclave economy when US companies were involved in a number of extractive enterprises; and, finally, control by the Sandinistas who came to power in 1979 after the overthrow of the Somoza dictatorship.

The Atlantic Coast has been a forgotten area of study. Only recently, because of the Miskito Indian question, has the academic world and the public at large taken more interest. The tendency nevertheless has been to focus on the treatment of the Miskito population (and especially its temporary relocation from its traditional lands) not only as the most important issue, but as the only issue. While the Miskitos have been a proper cause for concern the Miskito question is only a small aspect of a complex set of social, political, economic and ethnic relations existing on the Atlantic Coast. The Miskitos are but one of six ethnic groups living on the Atlantic Coast.

Introduction: Puerto Rican scholars have recently undertaken the task of re-interpreting the populist political project of the Partido Popular Democrático (PPD) during the decade of the 1940s. The new studies on this subject have focused on the class basis of the PPD's leadership, the class interests articulated in the policies adopted by the PPD government, and the structural context within which this party came to power and implemented its programme.

During the 1950s and 1960s Puerto Rico's industrial transformation was accompanied by social stability and relatively peaceful labour relations, which were essential for a development programme dependent upon foreign investments. The state took a central role in this process, as it guided economic activity and mobilised vital human and material resources. However, by the late 1960s profound changes in the island's political economy threatened this state-guided development programme. This essay traces the history of Puerto Rican economic change and the relationship between industrial transformation and the state's capacity to manage the operation of the economy, particularly industrial relations up to the late 1970s. Four features of this process will be examined: (1) labour relations during the early phase of industrialisation; (2) the changes in the economy resulting from the expansion of capital-intensive industrial sectors; (3) the impact of these changes on the state's capacity to manage the political economy, particularly its fiscal policy; and (4) how these changes altered the nature of state-labour relations.