On Coercion and Market

This is an statistics-heavy book that I picked up because I wanted to learn a bit more about the mita (annual forced migratory labor) system and how it functioned, which is mostly in chapter 2, but I read the book all the way through because I was also curious about Tandeter’s arguments.

Enrique Tandeter examines Potosí, the center of one of America’s largest silver mines in the colonial period (and it was the largest in the 16th century). Although the 17th century saw the fortunes of Potosí decline, it had a modest reversal and the profitability of Potosí’s mines began to increase again in the 18th century. This book does not cover the initial boom or the 17th century decline; the book is more modest than that, and only covers the fortunes of the mines during the 18th century.

Tandeter’s goal here is to weigh on debates regarding the importance of the mita to Potosí. In the 18th century, thanks in part to Enlightenment ideas, there was a push to end the mita and a polemical literature emerged dealing with this topic. Weighing in on these polemics as well as economic data, Tandeter finds that Potosí would have been unprofitable if not for forced laborers (who made up half of the labor force) acquired by the mita. Although these laborers were paid a (very low) wage while they worked, Tandeter finds that owners and operators of the mines were able to push off the real costs onto indigenous communities.

Here, Tandeter relies on a conceptual framework produced by historians of Africa. Those historians argue that there are three elements that must be paid in order to have a labor force. First, there is the maintenance of the worker during employment (reconstitution). Second, there is the maintenance of workers during idle periods—whether they be through illness, unemployment, etc. (maintenance). Finally, there is the maintenance of the workers’ offspring, which will make up the future labor force (reproduction). Generally, free labor systems require that employers cover all three of these things through either heightened wages or some sort of social system, otherwise they will not be able to attract workers. However, the mita system only required that wages be enough to cover the reconstitution of workers. Care of children and maintenance of sick/unemployed workers were both costs swallowed by indigenous communities in the Andes. Had they been required to pay for all three elements, Potosí would not have generated enough income to cover the costs of exploitation.

I don’t love this sort of research and found the book to be a bit of a slog while evaluating the evidence, but I did find it illuminating and I now have a better sense of how the social structure around Potosí (especially the mita) worked, at least, in the 18th century.