ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the structural factors derived from surges and declines in the export sector and international lending; and structural factors derived from state policies. It explores the manner in which different social actors entered industrial activity as well as the type of industrial activity chosen in the different stages of development. Aside from the relation between cacao production and state policies, the beginning of industry in Ecuador also depended on the economic activity of the owners of capital and how they acted on the opportunities created mainly by the cacao boom. The chapter argues that the development of industry and of the industrial class structure is a result of changes in the macroenvironment and of the actions of certain social groups that, as decision makers, played an active role in shaping that development as well as their own characteristics.
