Vicente Alberto Mónico Masferrer (24 July 1868 – 15 May 1949) was a Salvadoran essayist, philosopher, politician, and journalist best known for the development of the philosophy of 'Vital Minimum' or 'Vitalismo' in Spanish.

Masferrer was well respected throughout his life, having earned the praise of such major Salvadoran figures as Arturo Ambrogi, Miguel Ángel Espino, Claudia Lars, and Salarrué.

Vicente Alberto Mónico Masferrer was born on 24 July 1868 in Tecapa (now Alegría), a municipality in the Usulután Department of El Salvador.

There, he openly criticized the usage of corporal punishment by his teachers, stating that the methods were "outdated" and part of a "Eurocentric curriculum" which, according to him, were far removed from life in El Salvador.

Following his departure from the school, Masferrer spent the rest of his teenage years travelling through Honduras and Nicaragua, and later Guatemala and Costa Rica.

Alberto Masferrer began working as Director of the School for Boys in San Rafael del Sur in the Nicaraguan department of Rivas.

Noting the poverty of the area in which he found himself in, in addition to the economic situation at the time, he began to raise pigs in order to feed the poor and frequently gave away his own earnings to any unfortunate person who crossed his path.

[5] Alberto Masferrer taught throughout Latin America in countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Chile and Argentina, having been named "teacher and director of Crowds" by Salvadoran poet Claudia Lars.

Under the basic premise of the peaceful struggle for the rights of each individual, Masferrer became the ideologue and political campaign manager for the future president, the engineer Arturo Araujo in 1930.

This philosophy espouses the idea that all individuals, regardless of sex, race or class have the right to a basic standard of life, through equal access to education, employment, food, and shelter.