With the recent turn to neoliberalism in Latin America, efforts to understand the power of the market have preoccupied intellectuals and politicians alike. Through a careful examination of periodicals, official publications, and published sources written by prominent liberals, social Catholics, and radicals from late Porfirian Mexico, Richard Weiner demonstrates how elites in that period were equally preoccupied with defining the impact of the market on politics and society. As with current debates, Porfirian elites conceived the market in broad, ambiguous terms. To understand these terms, Weiner draws on anthropologist James Carrier’s concept of market “models” (e.g., land or labor) to traverse the labyrinthine world of Porfirianera economic thought (pp. 7 – 8).
Citing the works of Albert Hirschman and Ricardo Salvatore, Weiner “treat[s] dialogues about the market as a form of sociopolitical discourse that played a pivotal role in the construction of Mexican identity” (p. ix). According to Weiner, Porfirian...