Proyectistas

According to the classic 1955 definition of José Muñoz Pérez, the phenomenom of proyectismo (the writing of long-term plans) manifested itself in Spain and Spanish America in the eighteenth century as a sophisticated version of the arbitrismo (expediency) of the seventeenth century. Both were derived from the economic crisis experienced by the Spanish monarchy from the early seventeenth century, which was characterized, particularly during the reigns of Philip IV and Charles II, by inflation, industrial decline, falling taxation yields, a declining Indies trade, and repeated state bankruptcies, famines, and epidemics.

While each Arbitrista tended to reduce these complex problems to a single causal factor, capable of being remedied by a simple expedient (arbitrio), the proyectistas of the eighteenth century moved away from panaceas toward the production of more complex treatises, which suggested concrete programs of long-term reform, often derived from their authors' experience of government service. In the imperial sphere, one of the most influential proyectistas was José del Campillo y Cossío (1693–1744), minister of finance in the reign of Philip V, who in his Nuevo sistema de gobierno económico para la América, written in 1743, turned his attention from the economic problems of the peninsula—in 1741 he had produced an important work on the domestic economy entitled Lo que hay de más y de menos en España—to the empire, which he saw as an undeveloped market for Spanish manufactures and as an unexploited source of raw materials for Spanish industry. His main proposals: for a series of general inspections, or visitas generales; the creation of intendancies; and the introduction of free trade, became the basis for the imperial reform program implemented by Charles III and his ministers beginning in 1763.

Other influential proyectistas, who also held important government posts, included Gerónimo de Uztáriz (1670–1732), Bernardo Ward (d. 1762/63), Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes (1723–1803), and Gaspar de Jovellanos (1744–1811).

See alsoArbitristas; Charles II of Spain.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

José Muñoz Pérez, "Los proyectos sobre España e Indias en el siglo XVIII: El proyectismo como género," in Revista de Estudios Políticos 81 (1955): 169-195.

Jean Vilar, Literatura y economía: La figura satírica del arbitrista en el Siglo de Oro (1973).

Sara Almarza, "El comercio en el siglo XVIII: Arbitrios a las autoridades," in Revista de Indias 45, no. 175 (1985): 13-26.

María Luisa Martínez De Salinas Alonso, "Contribución al estudio sobre los arbitristas. Nuevos arbitrios para las Indias a principios del siglo XVII," in Revista de Indias 50, no. 188 (1990): 161-169.

Additional Bibliography

Blanco, Mónica and Ma Eugenia Romero Sotelo. Tres siglos de economía novohispana, 1521–1821. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México: Editorial Jus, 2000.

Campillo y Cosío, José del and Dolores Mateos Dorado. Dos escritos politicos. Oviedo: Junta General del Principado de Asturias, 1993.

Marichal, Carlos Daniela Marino and Ana Lidia García. De colonia a nación: Impuestos y política en México, 1750–1860. México: El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Históricos, 2001.

Sánchez Santiró, Ernest, Luis Jáuregui and Antonio Ibarra. Finanzas y política en el mundo iberoamericano: Del antiguo régimen a las naciones independientes, 1754–1850. México, D.F.: Universidad Autónoma de México, Facultad de Economía: Instituto de Investigaciones Mora, 2001.

                                         John R. Fisher