During the twentieth century coffee has been the second most traded commodity in the world economy (oil is the first); much of it has come from Latin America and for many countries it has been a leading export. There are three aspects to this seminar. The first is to consider the development of the world coffee market: what were its peculiar features; why did Brazil manage to dominate production for so long; and why did other producers in Latin America arise in the early twentieth century? Second, we need to consider the extent to which foreigners or Latin Americans benefited from the trade. The third set of issues concerns the social and economic effects of coffee within producing countries: why do some coffee regions of Latin America become marked by plantations and labour coercion while others develop a more egalitarian structure?
*R.H. Bates, Open-Economy Politics: the political economy of the world coffee trade, chaps. 1-3
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