Abstract
From 1609 to 1767 the Jesuits governed a “socialist theocracy” in Paraguay. Never more than 200 Jesuits managed a Guaraní Indian population of up to 150,000 people in a network of over thirty-five “reductions” or missions dispersed over an area twice the size of France and encapsulated in the Spanish-Portuguese colonial system. In spite of external political adversity, war, and epidemics, the Jesuit state in Paraguay reached extraordinary levels of economic welfare, surpassing standards of living even of many European areas at the time.
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© 2009 Mario Ferrero and Ronald Wintrobe
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Nonneman, W. (2009). On the Economics of the Socialist Theocracy of the Jesuits in Paraguay (1609–1767). In: Ferrero, M., Wintrobe, R. (eds) The Political Economy of Theocracy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230620063_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230620063_6
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