Corporatism and Social Conflict: Mexico City's Market Vendors' Quest for Progress, 1946–58

Using material from presidential archives, Gobernación reports, and newspaper articles, this paper explores the participation of Mexico City's public market vendors in urban politics and social conflicts. During this period the city witnessed rapid economic growth, partly driven by the support that capitalists obtained from the government. This process underlay a negotiated class peace that required that state actors kept prices for wage goods low. As a locus of retail transactions, markets were ridden with tension. Conflict erupted as the government fixed prices, encouraged direct sales from producers, and supplied subsidized foodstuffs. Producers big and small, large-scale merchants from the city, and market vendors competed over the distribution of profit margins. Complicating the situation further, population growth led to increasing numbers of peddlers, who clashed with market vendors. Building upon previous organizational experience vendors dealt with these challenges by making use of corporatist political structures. Not only did they participate in national electoral campaigns but they also elected sympathetic congressmen by means of the CNOP, and strengthened vendor civil associations to lobby at the local level. Through these institutions and organizations vendors sought to secure their position as retailers by gaining access to improved market infrastructure, protection from competition, and arbitration in distributional struggles. At stake was the livelihood of vendors and their families, and the construction of a way of life that was increasingly middle class. The transformation of markets, the repression of peddlers, and the market building boom show how influential organized vendors became in city politics.