Classical social science viewed economic elites as the primary drivers of rapid economic change in Western Europe. Studies of late industrialization, however, tend to argue that the state, rather than economic elites, acts as the principal agent of development; in many late-developing contexts, economic elites may constitute an obstacle to rather than a catalyst of development. These analyses yield two questions that have yet to be thoroughly answered in the existing literature: 1) under what conditions are states able to act as the necessary agents of late development? And 2) who actually controls the state under these circumstances? This article addresses these questions through a case study of Francoist Spain. It articulates a path to state-led development in which, following class conflicts that diminish the power of economic elites, an educated “cultural” bourgeoisie (Bildungsbürgertum) takes over the state and uses it as an agent of industrialization.
