Class Segments: Agrarian Property and Political Leadership in the Capitalist Class of Chile

Abstract

This is an analysis of the relationship between large landownership and representative political activity as one expression of political hegemony in the capitalist of Chile in the mid-1960s. We conceptualize landed corporate executives and principal owners of capital and their non-landed counterparts in the largest corporations as distinct class segments; and we analyze their comparative officeholding in parliament and cabinet ministries and in the leadership of the political parties of the Right, as well as the officeholding of their fathers and others in their immediate families. The findings consistently show that the landed segment played a distinctive role in the political leadership of the capitalist class. The problem of the coalescence of agrarian property and corporate capital as a self-contradictory situation and its relevance for state policy is posed for further analysis.