Book Reviews

407

The language of the book, far from being ostentatious, exudes high
literary standards and is very engaging and most importantly undidactic.
As for shortcomings, the book does suffer from one: it lacks a comparative
perspective which could have focused on similar accounts of resistances
of workers to capitalist excesses elsewhere in the world. It nevertheless
possesses the ingredients to engage alike the student and teacher of
working-class politics.

Note
1. Following James Ferguson’s celebrated phrase in his book entitled, The anti-
politics machine: development, depoliticization and bureaucratic power in
Lesotho (Minneapolis, MN: Minnesota University Press, 1994).

Pradeep Shinde
Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
E-mail: pradeeppradeeplse@hotmail.com

Aillón, Lorgio Orellana (2016), Resurgimiento y caída de la gente

decente: Un sendero en la formación de una clase-etnia dominante
en Bolivia, 1940–2003 [Rise and fall of the decent people: The
path to the formation of a dominant class-ethnicity in Bolivia,
1940–2003]. La Paz: IESE, p. 371, 2016, US $7.18. ISBN:
9789990540789.
DOI: 10.1177/2277976018801693

Lorgio Orellana Aillón has presented an innovative approach to the

formation of the Bolivian upper class between 1940 and 2003. Using
both Foucauldian and Marxist concepts, Aillón is able to identify the
social constellation that forms what he calls the ‘decent people’, a social
group formed around the dominant ethnic-based class. Few studies can
actually manage the mix of such antagonistic methodologies. The reason
why Aillón achieved his objective is that he was more concerned on
understanding the concrete social relations than to fit his findings into
one or other theory. By doing so, he was able to understand both the
history of class struggle in Bolivia and how the small segment of the
local ruling class was able to reinvent itself, changing from an oligo-
polistic mining position to that of financial/comprador. It means that he
has answered an important question that should be asked by anyone that
wants to understand how neo-colonial oligarchies arise, alongside the
old ones, even in contemporary contexts. The answer to this question
408 Book Reviews

could be achieved by interviewing members of such oligarchies and

analysing the social composition of the ruling class. This is what Aillón
has undertaken in this book.
Aillón points out that the formation of the so-called ‘decent people’
originated in the Bolivian old oligarchy, a social constellation that can
only be understood by considering its historical evolution. Bolivia’s old
oligarchy was composed of two different groups linked to silver and tin,
which ruled since the nineteenth century until 1952. The silver oligarchy
was in power from the second half of the nineteenth century until 1899.
It was a mining bourgeoisie whose interests were connected to the inter-
national market. Its power was based on the alliance between the land-
owners and monopoly capital. Its ethnic composition was based on the
ties of kinship around the identity of the creole families, which descended
directly from the Spanish settlers. These families were characterized by
strong xenophilia (love of foreigners) and disdain for the natives. The tin
oligarchy settled in power after the 1898–99 civil war, when part of the
mining and comprador bourgeoisie that was excluded from the silver
oligarchy’s power structure allied itself to the lower classes and indigenous
ethnic groups. After taking power, the new oligarchy betrayed the lower
classes and indigenous people, forming an alliance with the old oligarchy.
The alliance arc of the tin oligarchy was exactly the same as with the
silver oligarchy: landowners, comprador bourgeoisie, and monopoly
capital. However, now it brought also representatives of the middle
classes, journalists, military personnel, writers, among other, to the state
bureaucracy.
In the context of the rule of the old oligarchies, the so called ‘decent
people’ consisted of the economic elite that had access to ‘high’ culture
and formal education. In 1950, it meant less than four percent of the
economically active population, according to Aillón. The ‘high’ culture
clubs were some of their main meeting places, where alliances were
formed. For this elite, natives could never be ‘decent people’, since they
could not embody Western culture. Only mestizos, after achieving formal
education, and leaving behind any native culture, could become ‘decent
people’. Then, they could be called ‘doctors’, or culture bearers, and that
could be accommodated in the state apparatus. In this context, it is very
clear that ‘decent people’ were actually an ethnic-based class, a kind of
caste, supported by legal privileges, such as owing of land, earning an
income greater than 200 Bolivianos, and having an education to vote and
be voted.
With the revolution of 1952, the old oligarchies were overthrown
from power. The leadership of the National Revolutionary Movement
Book Reviews 409

(NRM), in order to consolidate its power, built its support among the
middle classes, creating an imaginary of a national alliance of classes as
a new mark of stability. Thus, mestizo groups were actually leading the
country for the first time in history. The revolution destroyed the material
bases of the social reproduction of the ‘decent people’ when it expropriated
their assets and exiled some members of the old ruling classes. This
process led to the relative impoverishment of middle and high classes,
creating a kind of levelling from the bottom, which helped to consolidate
the social myth of miscegenation. From then on, people from different
ethnic origins started to identify themselves as mestizos and as members
of the middle classes. Until then, according to Aillón, people that had
both European and native ancestry were more likely to emphasize their
European heritage. That can be explained by the fact that people tended
to be influenced by the social identity of those that were in power. When
the NRM ascended to power, the national identity temporarily ceased to
be seen as completely negative.
The author has shown that the NRM never truly overcame the social
and ethnic cleavage in its own worldview. Part of the NRM leadership
came from the ‘decent people’, and although believing in formal educa-
tion as a mean to achieve development, the leadership still thought that
true formal culture could only be achieved by middle class mestizos, and
never by indigenous workers. Even if they were nationalists, the leader-
ship still accepted Western culture. One could say that their political
project was to extend the ‘decent people way of life’ to the illiterate
masses through the enhancement of Bolivia’s educational system. In fact,
they despised the natives that actually existed in Bolivia, despite idolizing
mestizaje (miscegenation). The discourse of education and merit served,
in a contradictory way, as (a) a barrier that separated the elite from the
rest of the population; and at the same time (b) created the opportunity
for the mestizo population, and even to some native workers that
embraced the Western way of life, both as a group and as individuals, to
climb the social ladder.
During the NRM government, since the ‘decent people’, as a class-
ethnicity, were not in power, and most of their material base of social
reproduction had been stripped away, they could not rely solely on legal
and economic privileges to keep their group cohesion. During that time,
two main mechanisms helped the social reproduction of the ‘decent
people’: The existence of exclusive schools that were considered superior
to the rest and where the majority of the students were either from foreign
families or from traditional influential Bolivian families. Those schools,
such as the Colegio La Salle, formed a kind of social bubble where the
410 Book Reviews

elite could form social ties. Also, higher education, especially when
acquired in foreign universities, was seen as a distinguishing sign. There
began also an incipient internationalization of the ‘decent people’, either
as a consequence of forced exile, or as a result of the search for study
abroad. This internationalization was still a dispersed process, but slowly
led to both professionalization (through tertiary education) and renovation
of the social constellation that formed the ‘decent’ ones.
According to Aillón, NRM policies were seen as a kind of ethnic
excess, since it allowed the rapid ascent of the mestizos and even the
native working class. According to the author, this was one of the reasons
behind the 1964 military coup. After the coup, the Bolivian state initiated
a racial and social cleansing based on the mechanism of meritocracy,
sustained by a discourse of development. From there on, those who had
completed higher education abroad had a large advantage, which gave
‘decent people’ access to important positions in the state bureaucracy.
It did not take long until they were able to strengthen their private
companies, and form new privileged ties. By this means, the families of
the old oligarchies were able to join the new post-revolution power
structure of 1952. From then on, the government’s policy began to
promote the interests of mining families, and to use the repressive state
apparatus to ensure ‘social peace’.
The policy pursued by the right-wing dictatorship of 1964 and the
‘decent people’ was to foment capitalism by using the state machinery
for its own sake, and to seek financial and commercial alliances abroad.
The result was a concentration of power and wealth around finance
capital which dominated the local comprador bourgeoisie, and even the
local industrial bourgeoisie. The Banzer government (1971–1978) was
effectively a military-business government that consolidated the alliance
between the heirs of the old oligarchies, the big industrial entrepreneurs,
and finance capital (local and mainly foreign), forming a new financial
and comprador bourgeoisie.
In the decades between the Banzer dictatorship and the governments
of the ‘Patriotic Agreement’, a new oligarchy was formed through the
proximity of the representatives of the financial sector, cemented on
renowned surnames, ethnic identity, class identity, and meritocratic
criteria, including access and influence among international credit insti-
tutions. The formation of a new oligarchy was due, in large, part to the
confidence-building policy chosen by the rulers. Through the selection
of people belonging to specific social circles, especially those linked to
multinationals, credit institutions, and financial institutions, it was sought
(a) to ensure the support of those circles to the government and (b) to
bring people who came from trusted circles, of those already in power,
Book Reviews 411

into the government. The ministerial and technical teams of the admin-
istrations between 1985 and 2003 were created through meritocratic
professional criteria, and through the indication and influence of the
interpersonal circles formed by an ethnic cultural elite. This indication
depended, as a rule, on the personal trajectory of the nominees within the
circles consulted.
This process, which sought the approval of banking entities and
multinationals, brought into the circle of the ‘decent people’ capitalists
who, until then, were not part of the traditional families. New social
spaces of reproduction of the ‘decent people’ were formed. The ministerial
formation of the governments between 1985 and 2003, analysed by
Aillón, reveal some of the social spaces which served as pillars of
political power: capitalist activity; business associations; the academic
world; and foreign agencies. That is, it was an alliance between entrepre-
neurs, foreign agencies, and academics.
Between 1985 and 2003, the ‘decent people’ managed to stay in power.
This was possible, thanks to the rapprochement between the military,
former oligarchies, and businessmen, since the dictatorship era. The
democracy established after 1985, in practice, served the interests of this
business and military alliance, around the new oligarchy, based on
renowned surnames and high cultural formation, with international
support. It was an elitist state, which ruled against the interests of the
mestizo and indigenous majority. In 2003, the popular movement over-
threw that model, which in the discourse was democratic and inclusive,
but in practice was exclusive. When they asked for Gonzalo Sánchez de
Lozada’s resignation, they understood that they were fighting against a
foreign government, given its ethnic and xenophilic background.
What Lorgio Orellana Aillón shows, therefore, is that Bolivia, a
country with a colonial past, sustained a ruling class based on ethni-
city and social identity. But that identity was not only a past feature, it
was reinvented during Bolivia’s modern history, by maintaining the
ethnic identity of the ruling elite, its xenophilia, and its disdain for the
natives. It occurred by changing the main class factions from the mining
bourgeoisie to the financial one, and the social spaces of reproduction.
Aillón’s interpretation demonstrates both knowledge of the Marxist
approach to class relations and the ability to interpret discourse, and is
highly recommended.

Apoena C. Cosenza
Researcher, Political Economy and Economic History
Laboratory, University of São Paulo, São Paulo
Email: apoenacc@gmail.com