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Operation Bootstrap ( es, Operación Manos a la Obra) is the name given to a series of projects which transformed the economy of Puerto Rico into an industrial and developed one. The
federal government of the United States The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a fede ...
together with what is known today as the
Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company The Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company (PRIDCO) — es, Compañía de Fomento Industrial de Puerto Rico (or simply ''Fomento'')— is a government-owned corporation of Puerto Rico authorized and empowered to induce private capital ...
set forth a series of ambitious economical projects that evolved Puerto Rico into an industrial high-income territory. Bootstrap is still considered the economic model of Puerto Rico as the island has still not been able to evolve into a
knowledge economy The knowledge economy (or the knowledge-based economy) is an economic system in which the production of goods and services is based principally on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to advancement in technical and scientific inn ...
.


History

The island's traditional economy was based around sugarcane plantations; of the 516,730 jobs on the island in 1940, almost half of them were agriculture-based, with 124,076 of these based on sugar-cane farms.U.S. Bureau of the Census. ''Sixteenth census of the United States taken in the year 1940.'' Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1941-1943. However, Esteban Bird described in detail the misgivings of the sugarcane industry and the monoculture economy in general. By the middle of the twentieth century it remained one of the poorest in the Caribbean. After possession of the island was transferred to the United States in 1898 after the Spanish-American War, it remained mostly neglected. Conditions in Puerto Rico worsened during the world wars, after years of neglect. Pressure grew in the U.S. to address the worsening situation, influenced by journalists like John Gunther who described the island in 1941 as such: "I saw, in short, misery, disease, squalor, filth. It would be lamentable enough to see this anywhere...to see it on American territory...is a paralyzing jolt to anyone who believes in American standards of progress and civilization." In May 1947, the Puerto Rican legislature passed the Industrial Incentives Act eliminating all corporate taxes, to encourage U.S. investment in industry. The initiative granted private and foreign investment a ten year period of exemption from taxes on many of the expenses for businesses involved in the industrial economy. These exemptions included: * "license fees, excises, or other municipal taxes levied by any ordinance of any municipality," * "property devoted to industrial development, * "income tax on income from industrial development," and more. This was proposed by Senator
Luis Muñoz Marín José Luis Alberto Muñoz Marín (February 18, 1898April 30, 1980) was a Puerto Rican journalist, politician, statesman and was the first elected governor of Puerto Rico, regarded as the "Architect of the Puerto Rico Commonwealth." In 1948 he ...
of the Popular Democratic Party, and became known as Operation Bootstrap. Based on 1930s
New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Con ...
economic relief reforms and infrastructure provided by the programs such as the
Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) was one of the alphabet agencies of the New Deal established by the administration of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Created on May 28, 1935, the PRRA's first directors included American ...
, Operation Bootstrap intended to move Puerto Rico away from its
agrarian system An agrarian system is the dynamic set of economic and technological factors that affect agricultural practices. It is premised on the idea that different systems have developed depending on the natural and social conditions specific to a particula ...
and into an industrial economy. The government's Administration of Economic Development — today known as the
Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company The Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company (PRIDCO) — es, Compañía de Fomento Industrial de Puerto Rico (or simply ''Fomento'')— is a government-owned corporation of Puerto Rico authorized and empowered to induce private capital ...
(PRIDCO) — encouraged the establishment of factories. Following the Elective Governor Act of 1947 (also known as the Crawford-Butler Act), Marín was elected the first governor of Puerto Rico while under U.S. control, paving the way for the full establishment of Operation Bootstrap across the island. According to Virginia Sanchez Korrol from the Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Operation Bootstrap was based on 3 essential elements: “1) industrialization by invitation: the inducement of American corporations to relocate in Puerto Rico in exchange for lucrative tax benefits; (2)  a cheap labor pool, educated in the English language and under a U.S. imposed curriculum; (3) proposed emigration of over a third of the island’s population, a security measure to insure the plan’s viability.” The US government in Puerto Rico enticed US companies by providing labor at costs below those on the mainland, access to US markets without import duties, and profits that could transfer to the mainland free from federal taxation. The Administration of Economic Development invited investment of external capital, importing the
raw materials A raw material, also known as a feedstock, unprocessed material, or primary commodity, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished goods, energy, or intermediate materials that are feedstock for future finished products. As feeds ...
, and exporting the finished products to the mainland. To entice participation, tax exemptions and differential rental rates were offered for industrial facilities. As a result, Puerto Rico's economy shifted labor from agriculture to manufacturing and
tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring (disambiguation), touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tour (disambiguation), tours. Th ...
. The manufacturing sector has shifted from the original labor-intensive industries, such as the manufacturing of food, tobacco, leather, and apparel products, to more capital-intensive industries, such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, machinery, and electronics. Through this project, a rural agricultural society was transformed into an industrial working class. Although initially touted as an economic miracle, by the 1960s, Operation Bootstrap was increasingly hampered by a growing
unemployment Unemployment, according to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), is people above a specified age (usually 15) not being in paid employment or self-employment but currently available for work during the refe ...
problem. As
living standards Standard of living is the level of income, comforts and services available, generally applied to a society or location, rather than to an individual. Standard of living is relevant because it is considered to contribute to an individual's quality ...
and wages in Puerto Rico rose, manpower-intensive industries faced competition from outside the United States. It also faced criticism from civil rights groups and the Catholic Church, who perceived the government promoting birth control, and engaging in non-consensual surgical sterilization. American industrialists influenced by eugenicists policies were concerned with "overpopulation" and a perceived lack of self-control on the part of the working class Puerto Ricans. As of 2005 the continental United States remains Puerto Rico's major trading partner, received 86% of Puerto Rico's exports and providing 69% of its imports.


Effects


Increased Living Standards

Those able to secure a stable job as a result of Operation Bootstrap received higher wages than before, in fact, " The average real weekly salary in manufacturing increased from $18 for men and $12 for women in 1953 to $44 and $37 respectively in 1963." The increase in industrialization and manufacturing saw positive effects in other places, as new electric grids were built, new roads were paved in major cities, and major housing development was underway. As a result, life expectancy in Puerto Rico jumped almost 23 years.


Shift in Job Market

Manufacturing jobs also led to a shift in the job market as it pertains to gender. in 1940, women represented half of the total population of Puerto Rico, but represented less than 25% of the labor force. Women in Operation Bootstrap were targeted as an important labor force, especially for the garment and apparel industry, which represented a share of the manufacturing market.


Education

At the time,
modernization theory Modernization theory is used to explain the process of modernization within societies. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and a partial reading of Max Weber, ...
was the driving force behind American program development in the
Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...
era. As a result, Operation Bootstrap focused on educational development to fuel economic development in Puerto Rico. In the 1950s, education was viewed as the cornerstone of Island development and was allocated more of the Islands budget than any other public sector. From 1932-1957 the number of students enrolled in
vocational education Vocational education is education that prepares people to work as a technician or to take up employment in a skilled craft or trade as a tradesperson or artisan. Vocational Education can also be seen as that type of education given to an i ...
went from 5,700 to 110,000. The rise in vocational education was designed to prepare Puerto Rican's for work in factories newly developed by the Bootstrap program.


Mass Migration

Mass emigration from Puerto Rico was a result of Operation Bootstrap. The growth of the industrial sector could not match the rapid decline of monocultural plantation jobs that characterized the economy of Puerto Rico Pre-World War II. Also, while U.S. businesses sought Puerto Ricans for labor, these businesses were still very willing to continue to seek new, and even cheaper forms of labor. High volatility in employment for those on the island was a direct result. This led to mass unemployment across the island, with the countryside seeing the largest effect. Residents were forced to either move to bigger cities like San Juan or immigrate to the United States for better financial opportunities and higher wages. In the 1950s (the peak of Puerto Rican emigration from the island), as ~470,000 Puerto Ricans emigrated from their country, they went to cities like New York City (where 85% of which people settled), Philadelphia, and others along the East Coast. Through the 60's and 70's, emigration from Puerto Rico declined dramatically.


Coerced Sterilization

Throughout the 1940s and to the 1960s, programs supported by the United States encouraged sterilization and birth control for the women on the island. These programs were birthed out of a perceived "overpopulation" problem on the island. Puerto Rican families averaged 5 to 6 people per family, and this was labeled as partly the reason for the unemployment and high poverty rates on the island. Luis Muños Marín was concerned that the perceived overpopulation problem could derail Operation Bootstrap, so his administration was in support. Across the island, the sterilization procedure was referred to as 'la operación." According to Antonia Darder, "By 1969, 35% of all Puerto Rican women of child-bearing age had undergone la operación."


See also

*
United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of comme ...
*
Commonwealth Oil Refining Company Commonwealth Oil Refining Company, Inc. (CORCO) was an oil refinery established in the towns of Peñuelas and Guayanilla in Puerto Rico in the second half of the 20th century. At one point, the company was ranked among the 500 largest in the Un ...
* Progress Island U.S.A. *
Puerto Rican Pottery Puerto Rican Pottery was one of two potteries (Iroquois/Sterling China's Caribe Pottery was the other) that established Mid Century Modern Pottery/Ceramics on the Island of Puerto Rico. The pottery operated from 1948–1966 in Santurce, Pue ...


Further reading

* ''Teodoro Moscoso and Puerto Rico's Operation Bootstrap'' by A.W. Maldonado. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997. * ''Las campañas de control de la natalidad contra las mujeres'', by Gloria Arimón en ''Servir al pueblo'', número 233, 1984. * ''Economic History of Puerto Rico: Institutional Change and Capitalist Development'', by James L. Dietz.
Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the nin ...
, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986. * ''The Disenchanted Island: Puerto Rico and the United States in the Twentieth Century'', by Ronald Fernández. 2ª ed. Westport CT: Praeger, 1996. * ''Factories and Food Stamps: The Puerto Rico Model of Development'', by Richard Weisskoff.
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985.


Notes


References

{{Reflist, 2


External links


Democracy at Work in Rural Puerto Rico (ca. 1940s)

A Puerto Rican resource

Young Lords in Lincoln Park
Economic history of Puerto Rico Economy of Puerto Rico Manufacturing in Puerto Rico