When a substantial economic interest emerges in a society, it will find a means of organized expression despite the presence of influences that tend to discourage it, such as a Latin individualism “hostile to organized group behavior” and a lack of sympathy, inherited from the Mexican revolution, for “capitalistic economic assumptions.” This is one of several conclusions at which Merle Kling arrives at the end of her monograph on the origin, objectives, structure, operational activities—and on the decision-making personalities—of a Mexican “opinionmolding” group—named, the Institute of Social and Economic Research, referred to throughout the text as the Instituto. Painstakingly and plentifully annotated, with a liberal sprinkling of tables, the work conveys a wealth of information in its 67 pages.
From her account we draw that the group she describes is a sort of institutional disciple of Adam Smith, with directors who would find themselves at home with Von Mises, Hayeck, Hazlitt, and Barry Goldwater, but ill at ease in the presence of Keynes, Hansen, or Galbraith; that its professed principles and purposes (The Greatest Good for the Greatest Number) differ little from those of NAM and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; and that its opinion-molding methods (distribution by mail of pamphlets and single sheets called hojas) resemble those of such endowed organizations as FEE (Foundation for Economic Education).
We learn also that this Mexican group, like its counterparts elsewhere in the world, has its “images in conflict,” its ambivalences, and its dichotomies. Example: Members who inveigh against government intervention but who at the same time demand tariff protection for their particular locally-made product, while the Instituto itself, for all its abhorrence of statism or government encroachment, is not above accepting a subsidy in the form of low postage rates on its mailed literature.
The monograph is noteworthy for its comprehensiveness and penetration. Indeed the reader, if not alert, may find himself bemused away from a weighing of the merits of its several theses by admiration for its methodology and form.
