El medio físico en el pensamiento agrario español: del arbitrismo al regeneracionismo

The aim of this article is to analyze the little attention paid to the physical environment in the economic reflections on Spanish agriculture, from the «arbitrism» of the 17th Century to the «regenerationism» at the end of the 19th Century and the early 20th Century. First, «arbitrism» was highly influenced by the tradition of the Laudes Hispaniae. Next, during the period of the Enlightenment, natural obstacles to agricultural development began to be considered, but almost in a purely nominal way compared to those related to law and agronomical malpractice. Finally, in the 19th Century economists focused exclusively on institutional aspects. Only from the mid century, and particularly with the arrival of the Regenerationism, some technicians (agronomists, forest engineers, geographers, and so on) began to take into account the important restrictions that Iberian nature imposed on agricultural activity.