1. Introduction
The recent discovery that Chile is a country affected by the scourge of moral harassment at work, Mobbing or psychoterrorism at work, forces us to carry out an analysis with a historical perspective and to turn our eyes to what the socio-economic situation was at the dawn of the emergence in our land of the Spanish outposts that conquered the rain forests of the South and the bucolic landscapes of the north center of this belt that supports the southern cone of the Pacific attacks in order to unravel the national or internal causes of moral harassment at work.
2. History
On this tour we find that the first to venture through these parts, coming down from Cusco, Peru, was the advance Diego de Almagro, who left for the South, in July 1535, accompanied by 1,200 men. After a painful journey through the highlands, he crossed the Andes and arrived in the Copiapó region the following year. He could not remain in those lands, called Chile, due to the Manco Inca rebellion and the absence of indigenous urban centers of consideration, so he had to return to Peru.
Later it was Pedro de Valdivia, who largely led and financed the expedition that would end in the conquest of central Chile, the recognition of Cuyo and Tucumán. Without major difficulties, he subdued the Atacameños and Diaguitas of northern Chile and smaller native groups in the center of the territory.
He founded in 1541 the city of Santiago del Nuevo Extremo, which is today the capital.
The continuation of the conquest process took him further to the South, entering territories of the magnificent Araucanian warriors, where after bloody battles he found death.
In 1550, historians of the Reyno de Chile say that there was a great combat between the Araucanians and the Spaniards near the great river of the South, the Bio Bío. But this was only the beginning of a war that would last until the middle of the 17th century, for almost four hundred years. In 1553 there was an important uprising by the indigenous people of the Arauco and Tucapel regions. Valdivia was killed and the conquest of Chile became unstable, a situation that remained for much of the sixteenth century.
3. The encomenderos
Encomienda comes from the Latin "In commendam". The phrase "In commendam" was used by the Catholic Church when someone temporarily held an ecclesiastical office. "Commendam" which means "trust" or "custody". "Commenda" comes from the verb "commendare" which means "to put something in custody". The words "command", "commander", and "commander" have the same root.
The Entrustment consisted of the delivery of land, of the indigenous people who lived there and of all the wealth that they could contain, in the soil, subsoil and waters. According to Spanish laws, the Indians submitted to the encomendero for their "protection, education and evangelization", but, apart from serving almost as slaves, they had to pay tribute.
Its evolution was fundamental for the economy since it was an institution created by the Spanish Crown under Indian law, whose main objective was to reward the service of the conquerors in the new colonies of America, in exchange for the protection and evangelization of their commanders.. These were groups of indigenous people, in some cases very numerous, who had the obligation to pay taxes for their encomendero.
- The commission as an institution varied in the different countries of Latin America where the granting of privileges, granted after 1492, was applied according to the particular characteristics of each place, had in its beginnings a hereditary character, but after a few years the capitulations were granted for one or two lives and under the condition of confirmation by the Crown. Undoubtedly the formation of generations in semi-captivity traded the freedom of their spirit for a life subjected to the dictates of the encomendero. The encomienda gradually lost its reason for being, among other reasons, due to the fall of the aboriginal population, the disappearance of the conquerors hungry for rewards and the peace of the empire in most of the provinces, however, the distributions persisted until the end of the Colonial period.Labor categories such as slavery, encomienda, distribution, etc. They operated in a very diverse way according to customs and religions. Therefore, the generations do not necessarily account for many local situations. Also in the context of the conquest process, the captured native was enslaved in order to work in the extraction of precious metals and in the encomiendas. The pressures exerted by sectors of the church and the decrease of the indigenous population, determined that the crown allowed the entry of African blacks to replace the original workforce.Also in the context of the conquest process, the captured native was enslaved in order to work in the extraction of precious metals and in the encomiendas. The pressures exerted by sectors of the church and the decrease of the indigenous population, determined that the crown allowed the entry of African blacks to replace the original workforce.Also in the context of the conquest process, the captured native was enslaved in order to work in the extraction of precious metals and in the encomiendas. The pressures exerted by sectors of the church and the decrease of the indigenous population, determined that the crown allowed the entry of African blacks to replace the original workforce.
4. The tenancy
- In the 18th century, the demographic increase of the free mestizos and the progressive disappearance of the indigenous people, among other things due to the blots brought by the Spanish in their bodies infected with syphilis, plagues, colds and other unknown in these pure places, allowed that a new social layer be created that came to gradually replace vassalage.
It must be understood that the Spanish were mostly young adventurers willing to give their lives for the wealth of Spanish America. Then the idea that they "got together" with the original race is convincing, shaping a new blood derived from the native and the Iberian. Later, with the new contingents arriving especially from the Basque region, the color lightened until it took on the one that currently owns the vast majority of our people.
The central zone of Chile, the haciendas that were conducive to developing strategies, which allowed the inclusion of the tenancy system, through which poor Mestizos and Spaniards settled in the lands far from the large cattle ranches in exchange for a reward that was paid annually in kind.
- The installation of tenants allowed ranchers to control the limits of their lands, while guaranteeing them labor for livestock operations such as rodeo and slaughter after the boom in wheat exports to Peru at the end of the century. XVII, these, the tenants, saw a progressive increase in the workloads that the ascederos care about, becoming the main labor force of the new wheat economy, not only as seasonal laborers but also as landowners' estate workers.
It can be affirmed that the descendants and successors in the productive class of
labor, Indians, slaves and vassals of the colony, were the tenants, dependent on the economic and social and family rules of the landowners or landowners, who had of them, their work, their wives and their children at their divine whim.
- The living conditions of the peasants were a constant subject of debate among the intellectuals, progressives. Institutions such as tenancy are strongly criticized and the absolute precariousness of tenants, who at any time could be expelled from the land they worked on. The very poor living conditions in which the landowners kept their tenants and the cultural backwardness experienced in the media were criticized.
5. Economic development
- The only purpose demonstrated in the first stage of the country's economic development, in the hands of a colonialist dependency, was to accumulate as many precious substances and metals as possible, especially gold and silver.With Bourbon reforms in the 18th century, the Spanish throne assumed a new dynasty of French origin, the Bourbons, who promoted a true reconquest of America creating an active state apparatus and modernizing both the administration and the economy.- The main imports and exports are generated from the sixteenth century with mining (gold), the seventeenth century agriculture and livestock (wheat, tallow, charqui), the eighteenth century agriculture (barley, wheat and corn). The main imports were saltpeter, tobacco, hat, rice, cloths and from Paraguay, mate grass.The main exports to Lima were Copper, Charqui, fruit, wine, leather, wheat, poncho, wood, blankets and it is Potosí, mules and charquis. Rural.
6. Independence
The first stage of this economy starts from a political and military event: the Conquest.
The second stage begins with Independence. However, nothing new is added to the process, since the Independence stage is structured by the dominance of colonialist ideas. Without giving a glimpse of change in the composition of social classes, the economy, education, religion or politics at the dawn of Chile's birth. However, at this stage there is a serious influence of the birth of more modern ideas that reverberate in France and then move to the emerging countries of America.
They are the ideas of the French revolution and the North American constitution found a favorable climate for its diffusion in South America, enthusing the progressive bourgeoisie and pressed for greater freedoms of commerce. Independence, under this aspect, is presented as a romantic company.
But, the drivers, the leaders, the ideologues of this revolution were not before or superior to the premises and economic reasons for this event.
It is known that colonial policy totally hindered and contradicted the economic development of the colonies by not allowing them to traffic with any other nation and reserve themselves as a metropolis, monopolizing the right of all commerce and companies in their domains, so these pressures should have frustrated ideas. of economic development of the nascent Creole bourgeoisie and ignite the spark destined to break the bond to link with the metropolis.
The natural impulse of the productive forces of the colonies made the break, irreparable, necessary for the creation of the economic development of the enriched bourgeoisie at this time, fundamentally of Basque origin. This is still observed in the attitude of their descendants, who observe not without some contempt for the Creoles whose ancestors came from Andalusia or from other provinces of Castilian Spain. The nascent economy of the embryonic national formations of America urgently needed, to achieve its development, to detach itself from the rigid authority and emancipate itself from the medieval mentality of the king of Spain.
It is observed that the pressure to break with the peninsula did not derive from the original men, but from the creoles themselves, this new race born from the union of the Spaniards of Valdivia and the Indians, renewed by the successive influxes and waves of peninsular invaders, and even the Spaniards themselves who ended up denying the vassalage policy from the crown.
Independence is not constituted by a romantic concession of the time, but by the economic needs of the owners of the land and of the incipient industry and commerce.
In England, the seat of liberalism and Protestantism, industry and the machine were preparing the future of capitalism, that is, of the material phenomenon of which those two phenomena, political one, religious the other, appear in history as spiritual and philosophical leaven.
The British mission is perfectly suited to the spread of capitalism in America, especially to countries in formation, rebels of poverty of projects of the Spanish Court.
Spain could not supply its colonies abundantly but with ecclesiastics, doctors and nobles. But its colonies wanted more practical goods that colonial Spain could not deliver since it itself suffered from an industrial development and an approach to new forms of production. Consequently, she had to look towards England, whose industrialists and whose bankers, colonizers of a new type, found new possibilities in these lands, fulfilling their role as agents of an empire that dazzled with a manufacturing and free-trade economy.
Among the countries that took best advantage of this situation are the countries located on the Atlantic. Argentina and Brazil, above all, attracted large numbers of European capitals and immigrants to their territory and at the same time ideas of greater freedom, at least in the area of the economy, acquiring a strong European influence in the cultural, political and economic fields.
7. Nationalism
Independence had created the need for an Americanist homeland and a feeling of a common enterprise that very soon became an individual competition between the various bourgeois descendants of Spain.
At this time, the large hacienda of the Central Valley and the Norte Chico was taking permanent contours, having as markets the supply of the army and a slowly growing export of smoked meats, hides, cordobanes, tallow, rigging, cereals, dried fruits and wines to the Peru and Upper Peru. Outside the army, the internal market was still almost nil. At that time there was a constant warlike climate in the 17th century Central Valley. The uprising of the year 1655 came to affect territories that were north of the Maule River. On the other hand, the labor, especially indigenous warrior, that was available in the south, was not suitable for farming, but they were good mounted laborers and cowboys. Some landowners who had Indian parcels around Santiago,they were transferred as artisanal growers and producers to the vast empty territories further south.
8. The latifundio
The latifundio thus had to face the great task that gave it unity and a certain uniformity in its relations of production; This was to get permanent labor. The actions to be taken were:
1) A movement of the working mass to the fiefs of the South or to the estates near Santiago.
2) The Arauco war allowed the sale as slaves of the defeated Araucanians.
3) the free population, made up of poor Spaniards, mestizos. Mulattos and all those dispossessed who were left out of the haciendas for not being an Indian, slave or subject.
Thus the tenant, the peasant, "the broken" was formed. As a consequence, a social discard that did not correspond to the feudal life of the landowner, then, was a free one, born from the mixture of Indian and peninsular, whose blood was "whitening" as new waves of Spaniards occupied the territory.
9. Large estates and labor
The latifundio depended on labor. But the Indians were exterminating themselves, as were the black slaves, who could not bear ill treatment, hunger and disease, despite the letters to the king from Father Bartolomé de las Casas and other priests who promoted a more humane treatment for Indians. and slaves.
The Labrador Indians were generally treated well, along with some form of participation in the productive sources, but they were the lowest stratum of the human group of the hacienda.
A stratum superior to them constituted the poor mestizos and Spaniards, established within the latifundio with the agreement of medierías or tenancy.
The ancient latifundia absorbed the entire rural population - doors inside - in the space of a century, giving the Kingdom a particular human landscape. All the testimonies of the time agree that until the 18th century, the country was, with the exception of a few cities, a wasteland that stretched from the northern desert to the border.
Dominance was not only exercised in a general demographic and economic sense, but also extended to the aspect of spatial distribution, social structure, and peasant psychology and values.
Families were located on the limits of the hacienda, in the watered and grazed areas, in the internal transhumance glens, next to the plantations or "pampas" of cereal crops.
The landowner's powers were all-powerful. He removed and placed people from each family, made and broke marriages, protected, expelled, sold, or "hammered" laborers on his land. At the beginning of the 18th century, the custom of not leaving single women was established, since these were an anchor for the men who constituted the labor force, and it was also easier to get women than men by purchase, abduction, "conchavos", orphan deposit, etc.
After each "plague" the corregidores and their lieutenants - who were landowners - and also the parish priests, dominated by the landowners, collected the orphans and distributed them in custody among the landowners of the region. The same was true of women whose way of life caused scandal and bad example. The custom, the greed of the landowners to control the population, was so great that the retention of orphans became an important reason for struggle and litigation among them.
10. The problem of large estates
The most important were:
1) The increase in the population protected by the hacienda;
2) wheat production beyond demand;
3) the greater importance of a mining economy in the central and northern Chico zone, and
4) the changes in the production and circulation infrastructure that the above phenomena meant.
The population grew moderately but steadily since the mid-seventeenth century, but the large estates, with very low profit margins and with increasing rationalization of the company, could not protect and permanently absorb the demographic balances that were growing more and more each year. The new wheat inclination of the latifundio was producing profound changes in the rural environment. Along with all this, and partly due to the same effects of the new modes of production and population growth, wandering and banditry quickly formed and grew.
For most of the 19th century, the Chilean economy is primarily agricultural. Almost 80% of the population lived in rural areas before 1880; even until 1930 the rural population exceeds the urban. In agriculture the hacienda or latifundio predominates, in which semi-medieval social relations prevail: there is a master-patron or latifundista and tenants or peasants7.
The large landowner provides his tenants with a hut and some land; Furthermore, it protects and cares for them when they are sick or old. For their part, the tenants obey and revere their employer, and live and die on the land8. Their standard of living is quite precarious, and they are isolated from urban, cultural, educational and political life; This situation lasts well into the 20th century.
The material and employment situation at the beginning of the 20th century is not much better for urban workers.
Until 1920, working conditions had the following characteristics:
a) There were: collective agreements; written contract; the contract was verbal verbal.
b) There was no social security for workers, no compensation for work accidents, or any other social security.
c) The daily working day ranged between 9 and 12 hours.
d) Sunday rest was not obligatory.
e) It was not prohibited to pay remuneration in kind.
f) Child labor was not regulated, and at the beginning of the 20th century, Chilean social classes could be classified as follows: the gentleman (from the aristocracy), the siutic (from the middle class) and the broken (from the people). Since then, thanks to the predominance and consolidation of the middle class, there has been a greater concern for marginalized social groups, which have increased their incorporation into it. As a result, by the end of the 20th century, the majority of the population considered themselves to be middle class, and political parties tried to position themselves at the center of the political spectrum to capture the votes of this class (Democratic Party; Radical Party).
11. The agrarian question
The social structure of Chile, from the times of the Conquest and the Colony, was established on agrarian bases: an aristocracy that owned the land, which maintained control of national life; another lower class, which formed the permanent tenancy of rural properties. The owners of the land ruled, and those who owned nothing had to obey.
The peasantry differs from other social classes, by the following characteristics:
1. Associated with the production of agricultural goods, own or others;
2. The unit of production is family, work and consumption.
3. It produces goods for its own consumption. Rarely sells except the remnant.
4. It is exploited by various sectors of capitalist society: the landowner; the manufacturer; merchant.
5. Exploitation is manifested in the sale of surpluses.
6. Although one of its fractions owns land and some work instruments it does not control, it does not have access to capital.
7. As part of the exploited and working class, it only manages to reproduce its work force.
12. Conclusion: Chilean psychology
There is no country with such badly simplistic inhabitants as ours. For Chile there is a permanent path between reality and myth; the objective and the fantasy. It seems that the mass is in an immutable psychological bipolarism. If you win a match this is the largest country in the world and Chileans are a superior race. If it is lost, the country is useless and Chileans are "race" baddies. It is common to hear the days after international events: "There is no going back, the race is bad."
The so-called Telethon has recently been held, an event designed to raise money for the disabled. But more than that, it is a kind of catharsis chilensis, in which the population massively claims its right to be in solidarity "once a year", buying the goods of the companies that have programmed a significant contribution according to the increase in the level of sales. Artists and hooligans come together at this festival of vanities in which everyone gets more than some personal benefit, from money to travel and television reflections that are recorded in the audience until next year's event, in which we will once again clean the dark soul of greed and disrespect for others, which will shine on us throughout this period.
In a sense, popular sayings are not without reason. How is it possible to establish psychological and psychic continuity and stability when we have inherited the love of death, the pain of adventure and Spanish masochism together with the geographical fantasy and magical realism of the natives, in addition to the genetic violence of the Araucanians, not yet tamed as a nation ?.
We must take care that the majority of our people derive from this explosive and bitter mixture. The Spaniards who arrived were no longer the best and those who progressed kept their blazons and privileges to this day.
Not in vain are the Larraines, Undurragas, Gurruchagas, Urrutias, Arrietas, Hirigoyenes and all other sorts of Basque surnames at the peak of power or the economy. But it is not a matter of surnames, it is a matter of culture.
Well, these same generations are descendants of those who had in their possession the right to hang and the knife. Those who formed families or undid them for the good of their land holdings. They are the ones who instilled in their servants, villains and tenants, workers of today, that the hand of God favored them and they still have the right to exceed the limits of the Law on their subordinates.
It is easy to understand that a country that just 50 years ago has opened up to the influence of the most advanced nations and has maintained a communal relationship with other civilizations, has formation scourges in which differences and lack of respect for the most Weak is manifested as a genetic and formative issue, product of the eternal power relations against hundreds of slaves first, tenants later and workers today, less gifted in educational training and with less psychomotor development as a result of generational practices ranging from prohibition of learning to read and write, maintained today in the decadent education, without stimulus and incentive, allow us to conclude that in the psychological aspect of our nation two types of people prevail: those who shout offend, humiliate and insult,Curiously, those who are directly or indirectly linked to the Power or portions of it, and the majority of workers who must endure, for reasons of economic necessity, workplace violence and its cruellest form, workplace harassment, people detached from media ownership. of production and their agents, and possessing only their intelligence, workforce or trade, as tools to earn the resources that satisfy the minimum needs of him and his family.and possessing only their intelligence, workforce or trade, as tools to earn the resources that satisfy the minimum needs of this and his family.and possessing only their intelligence, workforce or trade, as tools to earn the resources that satisfy the minimum needs of this and his family.
I have no doubt that this problem is South American and that on this continent moral harassment has its historical roots derived from the conquest and the colony and the production systems brought from the other side of the Pacific more than five hundred years ago.
From all of the above, it is sustainable to think that, to a large extent, the cause of moral harassment in our country is the psychological malformation of the group, since we have seen how, in the relationship between production and work, it is based on the subjugation of the superior to the subordinate, more than in the legitimate frameworks of the Human Resources management directorate, and of the own powers derived from the Chief or superior, unfortunately, from the true and notorious fact, at least in Chile, of the abuse of said powers and the acceptance of that abuse as a normal consequence of the hierarchy of the organization, or simply of the circumstance of the recognition that the owner of the means of production has powers over the person of the worker, matter,whose origin is found in the way the relations of production have been expressed throughout our history.
