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The Servant Class in a Developing Country: Ecuador*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Emily M. Nett
Emily M. Nett*
Affiliation:
La Universidad Central, Quito, Ecuador
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Extract

Emphasis today is on the political and economic factors in social change in undeveloped countries. This approach, combined with the wholehearted acceptance of the role of the middle class as a psychological leavening agent in such countries, tends to obscure the presence of other factors. Especially are there other categories of human beings who are responding to the forces put into play by world changes and by the increasing pressures exerted upon the social systems of which they are a part. Recently, some of these groups have been given more notice, such as students, intellectuals, labor union members, etc. Another such important category is the servant class which for the most part has been ignored and yet which appears significant, even though not as a political group, in terms of both the effects it has on changes being attempted in social organizations and on the personality development of nationals in such countries.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Inter-American Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , July 1966 , pp. 437 - 452
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1966

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Footnotes

*

This article was written during the author's two-year (1963-1965) stay in Ecuador where she accompanied her husband Roger Nett, also a sociologist, on a USAID-sponsored project. During part of this time she was associated with the Universidad Central of Quito.

References

1 Alexander, R. J., “The Emergence of Modern Political Parties in Latin America,” Chapter 5 in Politics of Change in Latin America, Maier, J. and Weatherhand, R. W. (eds.) (New York, Frederick A. Praeger), 1964.Google Scholar

2 Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. W. (trans.), Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1946), pp. 180–181.Google Scholar

3 Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1957. A supplement to the Statistical Abstracts of the United States, United States Department of Commerce, Series D72-122, p. 74.

4 In terms of what people actually do, the category “service” is somewhat misleading since it does not include many persons who are actually performing services for other people. In it are counted waiters, policemen, barbers, and porters, but not bus drivers, taxicab drivers and chauffeurs, deliverymen and routemen (167,000 and 427,000, respectively, for the United States in I960). Source: Ibid., Series D123-572, pp. 75-78.

5 Statistical Abstracts of the United States, 1962, U.S. Department of Commerce. Table No. 297, p. 226.

6 Características de la población y vivienda del Ecuador del 25 de noviembre 1962. Datos preliminares de una muestra del 3%, Junta Nacional de Planificación y Coordinación Económica, División Estadística y Censos (Quito, Ecuador, 1964). Tabla No. 1. p. 23.

7 Saunders, J. V. D., La población del Ecuador: un análisis del censo de 1950, (Quito: Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana, 1959), pp. 33, 34. Translation mine.Google Scholar

8 Historical Statistics of the United States, op. cit., and Características de la población y vivienda del Ecuador del 25 de noviembre 1962, op. cit., Tabla No. 10, pp. 48-49.

9 The estimate that 60 to 65 per cent of the service workers in the country are employed in private households is based on the observation that, although Ecuador, in its two largest cities which contain about one-fifth of all the population, has all the appearances of a modern nation with all the services available to those few who can afford them, in reality it is still organizationally oriented toward a system of household services.

10 Lynes, R., “How America Solved the Servant Problem,” Harper's Magazine, July 1963, pp. 46–54.Google Scholar

11 Bedford, S., The Sudden View: A Traveller's Tale From Mexico (Atheneum, N.Y., 1963).Google Scholar Her conclusion regarding Indians and Spaniards is similar: “The gulf between conqueror and conquered has settled into the gulf between class and class. Each still draws from a different tradition; neither has tried to learn consciously from the other. When they are on good terms, they call each other niños, children. There they live side by side in domestic proximity, familiar and remote, trusting and aloof, like so many fréres de lait, boys, one from the village, one from the manor, who shared the same wet nurse.” pp. 193-4.

12 See any general history of Latin America for a description of the patrón system, its position of importance in the culture and its persistence through time. For example, Fagg, John E., Latin America, A General History (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1963).Google Scholar

13 Admittedly, this incident is taken from a movie about Mexico and the discussion here concerns Ecuador. The postal systems of the two countries undoubtedly differ considerably insofar as the historical and present situations of the countries are dissimilar. Certainly, Mexico City, with a population of well over 7,000,000, has a more highly organized and complete system of collection and delivery in comparison with Quito which does not even place mail boxes on the streets. Nevertheless, common problems in administration of personnel appear to exist, considering the predicament of Cantinflas.

14 This estimate derives from the following computations: The Canton of Quito has a population of 354,746 of which 119,236 were economically active in 1962. Fourteen per cent of the economically active population of the Canton (which included 52,210 economically active persons in the rural areas) were personal service workers, making 17,000 for the city proper. Since the number of service workers employed in households is not known, the assumption was made that approximately 40% of the personal service workers were household servants (based on the fact that almost one-third of the economically active population of the province in which Quito is located was employed in manufacturing industries and construction, and extrapolating from the U.S. figures). An estimate of 6,800 household servants in the city of Quito results. The figures are found in Segundo caso de población y primer censo de vivienda—Pichincha 25 de noviembre de 1962. Junta Nacional de Planificación y Coordinación Económica, Division de Estadisticas y Censos, 1964 Tabla No. 8, p. 304.

15 Letwin, W., “Four Fallacies About Economic Development,” Daedalus, Summer 1963, pp. 396–414.Google Scholar

16 Kolzochyk, B., “Law and Social Change in Latin America: The Alliance for Progress,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, LIV, No. 4 (Nov. 1964), pp. 491–502.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 El Comercio, Quito, 18 d emarzo de 1965.

18 Bemelmans, Ludwig, The Donkey Inside (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1947).Google Scholar

19 Garzón, G. Mantilla, “Se prevé que la población del Ecuador se duplicará en 20 años”, El Comercio, Quito, 4 de abril de 1965, p. 3.Google Scholar

20 Hauser, et al. Urbanization in Latin America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961).Google Scholar

21 Mantilla, op. cit.