Peasants and Workers

William Suárez-Potts

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Chapter 13 Peasants and Workers

In: A Companion to Latin American Legal History

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William Suárez-Potts

William Suárez-Potts
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 324–346

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004436091_015

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Abstract

Much of the law relevant to peasants and workers is historically constituted along with its subjects. Since the early decades of Iberian rule in the Americas, law has been an important part of the relationship between peasants and workers and elites. Indeed, the concept of worker or peasant owes much to its legal aspects. Meanwhile, if elites have endeavored to rule over peasants and workers through law, the latter have regularly resorted to the same legal orders to challenge their subjugation. This chapter summarizes the law affecting peasants and workers, in connection first with the colonial legal regime that was transformed by the adoption of liberal, republican law in the nineteenth century, which emphasized individual rights of private property and contract. Next, it recounts the turn toward social legislation to accommodate the demands of an emerging working class and an increasingly landless peasantry, which resulted in substantial agrarian and labor reform by the mid-twentieth century. The chapter concludes with the neoliberal turn since the 1980s, somewhat deflected because of political shifts after 1998.

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A Companion to Latin American Legal History

Series: Legal History Library, Volume: 64

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004436091

Publisher:: Brill | Nijhoff

Print Publication Date:: 25 Nov 2023

Subjects
- American Studies
  - Latin America
- History
  - Legal History

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Chapter 13 Peasants and Workers

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A Companion to Latin American Legal History

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