The problem of the subsistence and living conditions of the urban popular sectors in El Salvador: consumption, income and shortage, 1914-1944.

Abstract

The article analyses the living conditions of urban popular groups, through the case of the problematic acquisition of basic consumer goods during the world’s wars and interwar periods. By contrasting available statistics and archive’s documents, we present the foodstuffs and other goods prices trends, compare them with these groups incomes and describe the conflictive dynamic of food shortages and high prices. Though fragmentary, the resultant image allows us to deepen our knowledge over the contradictions and problems of the model of agrarian exportation and external development. Specifcally, the paper sheds light on everyday material precariousness and uncertainty that defne the life of these heterogeneous urban groups and also in the resultant pressures over the Salvadoran State and dominant classes, as well as over the predominant liberal economic principles.

Revista de Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales, n° 9, january-june 2017: 95-145