Even if these two points cannot be taken as conclusive, nonetheless they strongly suggest that the peasantry had been well under the control of the bourgeoisie since the end of the revolution. While this statement does not deny that revolts, jacqueries, pressure by institutional means have taken place, it stipulates that such pressures did not substantially affect the agrarian policies of the various Mexican governments. This points is quite important particularly with reference to the Bolivian case.
   If not because of peasant pressure, why has an agrarian reform been implemented at all? We will not try to answer extensively this legitimate question. Our line of attack of this question, however, would be the following; we would argue that the reform pursued — often not simultaneously — two goals: that of depriving the landed aristocracy of its basis of power, land, and at the same time transform the peasantry from a force of potential disturbance to the role of guardian of the revolution; and, secondly, economic development. On this latter goal we will dwell in later pages.
Agrarian Reform and Development
   Economic development figures prominently among the goals of the agricultural policy of the Mexican post-revolutionary governments. The nature of the revolution and of the class that emerged victorious, gave to this aim a specific mold: economic development had to be achieved in a capitalistic framework. This bias implied that
   1.    private property be preferred to collective property, the ejido, for its allegedly better economic potentialities.
   2.    again in the name of economic efficiency, small properties be maintained only as welfare measure,13 while large, capital intensive properties be publicly supported. The revolutionary ideal of a middle peasantry, self-sufficient and economically strong, is abandoned. The capitalistic farm worked by wage labor was favored in two ways: by allowing a reconcentration of small properties, and by avoiding the thorough fragmentation of the latifundia.
   We will attempt to prove the above statements by analyzing at a certain length two policies of the reform program, legislation and credit.
   Legislation. — Les ut recapitulate briefly our arguments. We believe that the agrarian legislation prepared the ground for the reconcentration of land and capital by avoiding a thorough repartition of the latifundia as well as by permitting their reconstitution. These clauses were the most important in this regard:
1. Land distribution centers around the village institution. Only the land which lies in the range of seven kms. from the center of the village can be expropriated,
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