358 UNIT 3 MODERN MESOAMERICA
Wage Labor
Wage labor involves the payment to individuals of a wage in exchange for labor, so
as to transform or produce one or more goods. A common form of rural wage labor
in Mexico and Central America involves working on haciendas and plantations. Life
for those who opt to migrate seasonally to coastal areas such as the Pacific Coast in
Guatemala is very difficult. Relocating individuals or whole families for a few months
in a totally different environment has many negative consequences. For people ac-
customed to highland climates, the intense heat of the coastal zones often makes
them susceptible to diseases they do not encounter in their native areas. Unable to
cultivate land of their own and forced to purchase food and other goods that they
need for survival, they frequently suffer from malnutrition.
Plantations are often far from main towns and sources of goods. It is customary that
the plantation itself has its own store to provide migrants with all their needs. Because
the migrants are paid low wages and are forced to buy at the company store, they soon
find themselves in debt. They then are forced to remain working for the same em-
ployer or to return the following season, often without having received any cash pay-
ments for their labor. This system of supplying migrant workers is so pervasive in
Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and other countries in Central America that it has its
own term: “debt peonage.” Once in debt, the workers lose their freedom to leave; and
the longer they remain working, the more they owe the landowner. This difficult situ-
ation is combined with work that is extremely arduous, involving long hours, whether
harvesting cotton, coffee beans, cacao, or fruit; cutting sugar cane; or processing sugar.
(See Rigoberta Menchú’s description of plantation labor in Box 9.2.)
It is not surprising that highland peasants often are reluctant to go to work on
the plantations. They consider doing this a last resort. Contractors may drive through
highland towns encouraging people to get on a truck that will take them to the coast.
They sometimes depict misleading salaries and conditions. Contract labor is also
called enganche(“hook up”), a term that suggests the lack of incentives people have
to engage in this type of work owing to the poor labor conditions.Petty Commodity Production
Broadly defined, petty commodity production refers to the small-scale production of
agricultural or artisan goods oriented toward sale in the markets for a profit. It sug-
gests a shift from production for sustenance to production for the market, with the
corresponding intensification of labor. Petty commodity production uses occasional
wage labor, whereas capitalist or petty capitalist production makes use of a permanent
wage labor force from which a surplus can be extracted, thereby allowing capitalist
accumulation. Examples of petty capitalist production include the treadle loom weav-
ing industries of Teotitlán del Valle in the Oaxaca Valley, Mexico, and the garment
production center of San Francisco el Alto, Guatemala.
Petty commodity production often requires the incorporation of technological
changes and/or the enlargement of the labor force traditionally employed. For ex-
ample, the production of textiles (cloth, table cloths, shirts, bags) in Totonicapán,
Comalapa, and Chichicastenango in Guatemala, or Chamula and San Pedro
Chenalhó in Chiapas, Mexico, was originally oriented toward subsistence and sale in