Me: >> [but how could have Costa Rica have abolished its armed forces? I'd >> guess it happened because of (1) the weakness of class inequalities >> and antagonisms and (2) the strength of a social-democratic movement >> there.]
I should clarify my first point above. I'm talking about weak resistance from the capitalist class, since much of the population of CR has traditionally been "middle class" (small landowners). It's a little like what happened in the US, where universal white male suffrage (without property limitations) was introduced relatively easily because so many people were smallholders. (cf. Mike Davis, _Prisoners of the American Dream_.) Sean Andrews wrote: > ... Not sure about the history of the political situation there, but > after a long set of discussions about race on the LBO list, I was struck by > one other detail about its history, which is that the indigenous population > was basically wiped out--something like 99% of them being killed off in the > first few decades after contact in the 1500s. I'm sure at some point they > imported slaves, etc. but I can't help but speculate (and hope to do more > research) on what this did for the rise of social democracy there--i.e. hard > to do the whole divide and rule along class lines when you can't use race as > a division among the working classes. ... After clearing out the native population, I understand that CR never went down the export agriculture/slavery in a big way, so that the economy was dominated by small farms until urbanization hit. It's like other white settler colonies (the US, Australia, NZ, Israel, etc.) as opposed to plantation/slavery/extraction colonies (Haiti, etc., etc.) But I'm willing to stand corrected by anyone who knows more. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
