A Look at a Book: Bakers & Basques: A Social History of Bread in Mexico

Weis, Robert. Bakers and Basques a social history of bread in Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2012.

With the historical emphasis on corn as the staple food in Mexico, this book is an important conversation on how bread was one of the main markers of difference between the urban and rural population in Mexico. While poorer consumers might have eaten lower quality bread, figures in this book show that a substantial amount of bread was eaten across class lines.

Bread was important in the urban Mexico City, while corn ruled in the rural areas. But when bread shortages increased, there were ripple effects all through the market, causing the price of the tortilla to skyrocket. The title, Bakers & Basques, highlights the Basque role as owner of bread making facilities (and sometimes much further down the supply chain) while Mexican bakers tended to be struggling to eek out a living on a meager wage based on completion of loaves versus an hourly wage that wasn't negotiated until well into the 20th century with articles from the 1917 Constitution.

The fight for reasonable wages was complicated because of bread's preeminence in the urban diet, so while the bread making facilities were considered private, the government felt it needed to intervene to appease owners while preventing strikes that caused bread shortages. This meant that other industries with unionized employees gained ground at a much faster clip than Mexican bakers because of the complex policies and negotiations around bread. While the more politically powerful and well-capitalized bread-making facilities tended to be owned by Basques, many Mexican-owned bread makers also existed, but tended to employ family members.

It is incredible to think that Mexican bread makers would align themselves with Basque owners as well as government officials in order to crush businesses owned by Mexican families, but this is precisely the case. The bread makers, who had it badly enough, unionized in order to increase the effectiveness of their political power exerted through strikes, the most disruptive of their tactics. Because the smaller, Mexican-owned shops were able to use some of the savings on wages and various fees that the larger operations had to pay, they were able to offer heavier bread for less. This attracted the ire of the Basque shop owners, and the unionized Mexican bakers working for the Basques couldn't use the family outfits to add to their union power.

The book also highlights a problem of exceptionalism common to studies of capitalism that seek a superior cultural trait that somehow lends itself to more entrepreneurialism than other cultures. More likely, the Basques were able to leverage built in advantages through familial and cultural links with a combination of networks developed with people in government positions that tilted policy to their interests. It was pressure from workers that forced the need to modernize. The author shows how "bread had been a symbol of urban civility and social modernization; afterward, it became a sign of the revolutionary government's commitment to the well-being of the proletariat." (7)

The first chapter discusses the complications that strong regulation of bread from the Spanish Crown brought to the market. For example, bread had to be sold in certain areas with an official brand, and every aspect of the production to consumption was regulated. The Crown and officials beneath themselves felt themselves the only ones who could protect consumers from the greed of bread vendors. Some officials saw the bread monopolies as useful because they could be used as an extension of state power. (15) The bread families were in a position to be involved in government, as well, so this contributed to a further concentration of power at the top. The gremio (trade union or guild) was a club that could be bought into only by owners. It is interesting that deregulating the bread market, an idea promulgated by Revillagigedo, was an attempt to reduce the power of the bread oligarchs by allowing anyone to enter the bread trade freely.

The second chapter enters after independence, when Mexico underwent a crisis because of the massive flight of Spanish capital. The difficulties in making bread encouraged new bread makers to get involved, but they were no longer part of the state apparatus of control, and therefore were less controllable when prices rose. The lack of food supply was tied to the government, so food shortages would inevitably be blamed on it. Some government fiscal policies were to blame, however, such as Santa Anna's flooding the market with copper coinage and demanding part of taxes to be paid in silver. When copper was found to be counterfeit, the government took the copper with the promise that it would be exchanged, meanwhile holding up workers salaries, who rose up in response. As bakeries closed their doors, the populace rose up, as well. (27) One of the most significant changes for workers was the fall of the empeño system, where workers were indebted to bread-making businesses. The author notes a lack of ability to regulate the food market along with a lack of the kind of embedded relationship the gremios had previously that contributed to a good deal of scarcity and chaos. (31)

Perhaps the most important take away from this book is that regulation, not competition, was the tool bread makers made use of to edge out competition and ensure their monopoly over the trade. An uneasy balance between government's obligation to protect consumers by ensuring affordable bread at the cost of workers is another theme that deserves attention. The author cites the triumph of Basque bread makers as emblematic of the Porfiriato, in that foreign capital and labor flooded Mexican markets.