Since the 1920s, Monterrey's captains of industry have been renowned for their systems of company paternalism. Be they hagiographic or critical, histories of these industrialists largely assume that paternalism produced disciplined, quiescent, and malleable labor forces. These studies largely define paternalism in terms of the nonwage incentives proffered to workers. But those welfare benefits underpinned a specific system of social relations between workers and their employers – workplace encounters punctuated by benevolence, patriarchy, and personalism. While other employers in Mexico offered nonwage benefits to their workers, none did so with greater enthusiasm, resources, and self-promotional panache than the pillars of regiomontano industry. Monterrey's largest companies offered the incentives for all the usual reasons: to retain workers, to foster deference and loyalty, and to prevent the intrusion of government and organized labor into their factories. They employed crafty lawyers and outright intimidation to combat unionism as well. And they publicized their benevolence to purchase political capital and enhance their civic prestige. But the industrialists also shared, judging by their words and deeds, a sincere and heartfelt concern for their workers' well-being. Moreover, decades later, the workers who retired from these companies continued to express their own reverential gratitude toward Monterrey's pioneers of paternalism.

The systems of paternalism practiced in Monterrey paralleled those introduced elsewhere in the industrial world. But the Monterrey elite devised their managerial strategies within a unique context – that of revolutionary Mexico.