Mariaana Medina
Barickman
INDV 150-Section C
1 February 2013

The Middle Class in Latin America

Latin America went thought three different phases from the 1910s through today. In the 1910’s Latin America was ruled by large landowners who ruled the government and the liberal oligarchic regime that control the export economy. When the world wide economic crash of 1929/30 the liberal oligarchic regime fell and left Latin America with no way to support itself. After the crash the middle class and lower class started to fight for their rights and wanted more power in the political scene. By the late 1940’s most countries went through military coups because the large landowners and industrial owners where not happy that the government was helping the lower class and taking land from them. The middle was not a progressive middle class because since the 1910s, the upper class had all the power and if anything changed it was because the lower class was behind it.
In Mexico the middle class was not making a difference because they did not have any power politically and they were such a small percentage of the population. The Mexican revolution started with the upper class in 1910. Francisco Madero, a wealthy landowner, overthrows the Porfirio Diaz dictatorship. Meanwhile the lower class, led by Zapata and Villa where demanding a land reform to the lower class. When Madero won the presidency in 1912 but he was never able to control the lower class and a year later he was overthrown and executed.
In the 1960s when Mexico was going through it growth, factory owners where making all the money and the middle class stated the same.
In 1930, Brazil had a revolution led by Getulio Vargas. The liberal revolution represented a victory for the urban class to reform. Vargas created a new constitution that guaranteed the rights of labor, women, and state intervention in