Abstract

Through the analysis of the Sociedad Nacional de Agricultura’s role in the debate on tariff reforms, this article examines economic policy as the result of the conflicts of interests between the state and entrepreneurial sectors in mid-nineteenth century Chile. This approach shows that in the oligarchic public sphere those sectors used economic doctrines –roteccionism and free trade–as legitimazing discourses for their demands. Such was the case with the agrarian interests, which, despite their adherence to the free trade paradigm, in this period employed protectionist arguments to substantiate their demand for a regime of tax exemption for agricultural machinery imports, and to request that economic policy be an instrument to foster national industry.