Economic Society of the Friends of the Country

The Economic Society of the Friends of the Country was an institution to promote the economic and educational progress of Venezuelan society. The society was inspired by similar organizations that arose in Europe in the middle of the eighteenth century. It was created by the Organic Law of Public Education of 18 March 1826 and was finally organized in 1829. It consisted of a representative group of notables from diverse professions and of various political orientations. Their object was to diagnose Venezuelan society and take steps that would promote progress in the recently formed republic.

The society's primary areas of concern were agriculture, commerce, the arts and crafts, and public instruction. It created a commission to examine each of these areas. The society put out documents expressing views about the organization of the state, judicial codes, and economic liberalism. It designed various studies gauging the problems and deficiencies in Venezuela and often laid out the solutions that its members felt should be implemented. The society engaged in intensive activities from its beginnings in 1829, and many of them are recorded in the periodical published by the institution itself, Memorias de la Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País. From the outbreak of Las Reformas Revolution in 1835, it was in a partially dismantled state until its final extinction in 1847.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ramón Hernández Ron, La Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País (1943).

Sociedad Económica De Amigos Del País, Caracas, Memorias y estudios, 1829–1839, 2 vols. (1958).

Additional Bibliography

Parra Pérez, Caracciolo, Cristóbal L Mendoza and Rafael Angel Rivas Dugarte. Historia de la primera República de Venezuela. Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1992.

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