Population Growth and Social Change in Late 19th Century Spain
1.2. Transf. Social. Population Growth Population growth in late nineteenth-century Spain took place during the demographic transition. This transition was more delayed than in Western Europe and of lesser intensity. It meant an increase in population due to a reduction in mortality while keeping the birth rate constant. Birth rates did not decline in Spain until the twentieth century, allowing the Spanish population to continue to grow. The birth and death rates remained higher than in other industrialized countries. In turn, a process of urbanization began, which was slow but steady, due to late and incomplete agricultural development. In most major Spanish cities, population growth was more pronounced in the periphery than in the inner city. The process of urbanization was gradual. High emigration from the Canary Islands and the northern coast of Latin America contributed to the settlement of a growing population where there was work for everyone. This intense migratory flow was interrupted by the First World War.
In a Stratified Class Society The bourgeois liberal revolution established a new model of class society, replacing the former estate society. It created new social classes based on wealth, where wealth determined social status and political participation, which was limited to those covered by census suffrage. The social groups of the new system were the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, while the power of privileged groups from the Old Regime continued to persist. The society of the 19th century is characterized by great social inequality between the upper and lower classes.
A: The new ruling groups included the high nobility, formed by large landowners, who eventually shared influence with the bourgeoisie to establish liberalism. With the introduction of liberalism, the high nobility significantly increased its capital by taking advantage of confiscations to enlarge their estates, their assets being greater than those of the bourgeoisie. This led some members of the bourgeoisie to attempt to imitate the ennobled. The nobility enjoyed considerable influence in the court of Elizabeth II.
In the late nineteenth century, the nobility began to lose power to the bourgeoisie, which started exploring new business opportunities and joining the gentry. The gentry, specializing in business, prospered and opted for investment in land purchases rather than riskier business ventures. Many of them became landowners or renters, buying titles of nobility or marrying into noble families. This group also enjoyed significant political influence.
The industrial bourgeoisie lived on the outskirts, had less economic power than the nobility and landed gentry, and had virtually no political influence, being a small group. This situation made it difficult to establish a more productive industrial development model. The new upper class, formed by the upper middle class and what was once called the aristocracy, held a monopoly on political power based on census voting while controlling almost all economic power.
Unlike the nobility, the gentry, typical of the north, faced social and economic deterioration, merging with the rural middle class, which was largely anti-liberal and Carlist in its militancy in the north.
B: The middle classes experienced growth with the increase of liberal professions, administrative officials, media owners, and traders in urban areas. This group was primarily linked to urban growth management and services. There were differences among the middle classes in large cities and small towns; the petty bourgeoisie in large cities was more advanced and favored social reforms, while those in small towns were less educated and held conservative ideologies.
-C. The vast majority of the population constituted the popular classes. Urban and rural groups were disadvantaged by the liberal revolution. Rural groups: The liberal revolution ended serfdom for the peasantry but also allowed access to land ownership. The peasants became tenant farmers or laborers, remaining dependent on landowners. Laborers suffered miserable working conditions after the confiscation of communal lands, making them the most marginalized group.
Urban groups included employees of craft workshops and a new group of industrial workers, who suffered from harsh working and living conditions. There was no legislation regulating working conditions in the name of freedom of contract. They were underpaid, working 12 to 14 hours a day, and if they had an accident or became too old to work, they received no compensation and had no protection whatsoever. They lived in unsanitary conditions where hunger, disease, and increased mortality were prevalent.
Genesis and Development of the Labor Movement in Spain The wealth gap intensified social conflict between the rich (industrial bourgeoisie and landowners) and the popular classes (industrial workers and landless), who gradually acquired class consciousness. Peasant revolts were constant in the 19th century in Andalusia. These were spontaneous demonstrations of defiance (land occupations, destruction of crops, assaults on landowners’ homes) driven by conditions of poverty and chronic hunger. The second major confiscation of communal lands radicalized the peasant uprisings, which were harshly repressed by the army and Civil Guard.
The labor movement began with the Luddite movement (destruction of machines), which was a spontaneous reaction similar to that of farmers. The law expressly prohibited workers’ associations, so the first workers’ organizations were born in Catalonia (1840) as mutual aid societies grouped by trades. These early societies and unions still lacked an assertive program. However, despite being banned, they increasingly resorted to strikes to pressure employers. This first association moved between being forbidden and tolerated.
Politically, part of the labor movement supported the republican Democrats, who later left to join internationalism and form their own class organizations.