ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that industrialists' benefits depended additionally on the congruence between the objectives of government and what the industrialists had to offer. It focuses on the way in which the congruence was operationalized and shows how both structural factors and political actions constrained government policies. Public officials and industrialists were allied in their concern to protect and promote industry in behalf of the Ecuadorian people; they created an Ecuadorian version of the Venezuelan objective of "sowing petroleum." The industrialists' control over resources needed by the state and by society as a whole defines their influence on government. The industrialists' use of contacts and personal relationships to exert influence on government does not mean that there exists common background of friendship between them and public officials. Industrialists' control of necessary resources has had the additional effect of providing them with informal and formal access to decision makers and has afforded an opportunity for influence over wide range of decision making.
