ABSTRACT
The transformation of the country’s economy in the past quarter century from penury to prosperity and from agriculture to industry was nothing short of phenomenal, and the Spanish “miracle” joined the Italian and German “miracles” as some of the major Western European economic events of the post—World War II era. During the short-lived Second Republic, little was done to change the basic structure of the Spanish economy. The Civil War devastated Spain, and the economy was still in tatters twenty years later when the Stabilization Plan was inaugurated in 1959. In the place of a free market economy, the Opus Dei technocrats borrowed rowed a scheme that had worked successfully in France and adapted it to Spain: indicative planning, a cooperative effort between the state and private enterprise. The 800,000 new jobs promised during the election campaign would emerge, in the long run, from a strengthened and growing economy.
