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El Salvador The Upper Sector
In relation to the total population, the Salvadoran elite was
very small; by the early 1980s it constituted approximately 2
percent of the population. This social sector, however, owned 60
percent of the nation's productive land, exercised direct or
indirect control over all key productive sectors of the economy,
and accounted for one-third of the national income.
The economic interests of the elite fell into three general
categories: export-oriented agribusiness, including coffee,
cotton, sugar, and cattle; commercial and financial enterprises,
including insurance, financial investment, real estate,
utilities, and banks; and relatively newer retail and industrial
interests, including distributorships and manufacturing. Given
the continued dominance of export agriculture and of financial
interests in the 1980s, this third category remained less
significant overall.
Among the elite, there were divisions based on relative
social status and prestige as determined by ancestry. The oldest
and most prestigious families were those associated with the
colonial "founding fathers" who had developed export agriculture.
Next in the pecking order were the families, mainly involved in
banking and finance, whose European ancestors had immigrated to
El Salvador in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
with a useful knowledge of foreign markets. The newest elite
families, on the lowest social rung of the upper echelon,
included Lebanese, Palestinians, and Jews and were pejoratively
referred to as "Turcos" by the "older" elites. These most recent
immigrants constituted the bulk of the Salvadoran merchant class;
they tended to socialize primarily within their own group.
Despite these social distinctions, the Salvadoran elite as a
whole was interconnected through bonds of shared economic
interest, direct business dealings, particularly between the
agribusiness and financial sectors, and frequent intermarriage.
The families of the oligarchy generally intermarried. Daughters
anticipated lives as pampered mothers and wives, while sons
expected a place in one of the family businesses. Generally,
members of elite families tended to live in San Salvador, whence
they traveled periodically to their plantations, which were
usually directed on site by resident administrators, or to
Western Europe or the United States for business or recreation.
The elite educated their children in private schools and in
United States universities, entertained at fashionable clubs, and
enjoyed extravagant conspicuous consumption.
To reconcile their differences and represent their interests,
the elite organized into associations. Most notable among these
associations was the National Association of Private Enterprise
(Asociacion Nacional de la Empresa Privada--ANEP), which has
expressed oligarchy views through various declarations in the
media and before the government
(see Political Dynamics
, ch. 4).
The economic oligarchy, although traditionally the most
influential sector of Salvadoran society, was not the most
powerful in and of itself. The Salvadoran upper sector also
included the officer ranks of the military. Active or retired
military personnel headed the government from 1932 to 1982, and,
as a result, ambitious individual military officers and officer
factions also emerged as interest groups in their own right.
Members of the military gradually became involved in the elite
economic structure--managing and directing banks, the social
security institute, the national airline, and the census bureau,
as well as owning large estates and becoming involved in export
agriculture. This combination of the officer corps and the elite
families constituted the most powerful political and economic
force in the country.
Although their interests became closely interwoven, the
economic oligarchy and the military remained separate entities. A
few select military personnel were adopted into the oligarchy
after their retirement, but few in the military were welcomed
into the more exclusive San Salvador clubs frequented by the
elite. For its own part, the officer corps was a closed and
cliquish group; 90 percent of its members were graduates of the
Captain General Gerardo Barrios Military Academy (Escuela Militar
Capitan General Gerardo Barrios) and organized in mutually
supportive networks based on graduating class membership. Each
graduating class formed a group known as a tanda, whose
members assisted each other and entered alliances with other
tandas to broker the allocation of command and staff
positions within the armed forces
(see Officer Corps Dynamics
, ch. 5). The military served as one of the few mechanisms of
upward mobility in Salvadoran society. The expectation of power
and prestige was a considerable motivator for cadets, most of
whom typically came from a Salvadoran middle-class background.
Data as of November 1988
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