one point is that Costa Rica is merely a small piece of the capitalist world system; capitalism can't be judged on the basis of CR alone, just like we can't understand NYC by examining the upper East Side.
On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 11:53 AM, Sean Andrews <[email protected]> wrote: > Louis- > > Thanks for disabusing me of my naive, bourgeois presumptions--it is often a > byproduct of my being a tourist first in any locale. Maybe I'm just > remembering the 90F degree heat and pristine beaches too fondly from my > current perch amidst piles of sullied Chicago snow and impending 0F degree > weekend temps, but it would seem like, on relative scale, there is something > different about the way Costa Rica developed as opposed to other Latin > American (or even capitalist) countries. While I think it is important to > remain critical, it seems obfuscatory to not admit this in some regard. As > for your last comment, the fact that a civil war led to the abolition of the > military hardly makes its dissolution any less significant: most other > countries have met the escalation of violence that civil conflict brings > with a proportional escalation in the means of military repression. > Likewise, plenty of other capitalist countries have had a similar kind of > alliance between political parties at the expense of the rights of workers. > In most cases, however, the role of military spending and violent repression > (either at home or abroad) has expanded rather than contracted. If we can't > admit there is something unique about this situation--even if it remains > insufficient as a utopia--then it seems we have little to offer in the way > of concrete analysis for people looking for the relative change that can > help us imagine the absolute differences. No? > > s > > On Fri, Jan 8, 2010 at 11:19, Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Costa Rica >> http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/state_and_revolution/costa_rica.htm >> >> It is useful to examine exceptions to the rule in order to rid oneself of >> cliched thinking. By studying Japan, we study a nation that avoided the same >> fate as colonized China or India. What were the class relations that made >> this possible? Marxism is stretched to the limit when it looks at such >> exceptions since preconceived notions have to go out the window. >> >> Costa Rica, another such exception, has the reputation of being the >> Switzerland of Central America, a nation that is democratic, egalitarian and >> pacifist. In other words, it is the polar opposite of every other country >> there. Why? While this is the image promoted heavily by Costa Rican >> bourgeois historians doesn't take into account the brutal commonalities that >> exist between banana republic Costa Rica and banana republic Honduras, there >> is still some truth to it. >> >> Over the next few weeks, I will be posting some observations drawn from >> the excellent "Costa Rica Reader" edited by Mark Edelman and Joanne Kenen. >> This book is a model for Marxist scholarship. Every country in the world >> should have such a reader. It combines analysis by bourgeois and Marxist >> scholars and revolutionaries in a very readable format. I would love to see >> something like this for India, China and Japan. >> >> Colonial Costa Rica was poor in resources and underpopulated with >> indigenous peoples and Europeans. It was also remote from the colonial >> capital in Guatemala. This created a "modest and rustic life" according to >> bourgeois historian Carlos Monge Alfaro. The yeoman farmer who flourished in >> Costa Rica became a pillar of bourgeois democracy, so the argument goes. >> >> This view is quasi-mythical according to Marxist historians. There was >> much more income discrepancy than formerly known and there was extensive >> military rule. Yet the bourgeois version of Costa Rican history exists as an >> actuality in dialectical tension with the Marxist critique. For example, one >> of the military dictators, Tomas Guardia, who ruled in the 19th century, >> promoted public education and abolished capital punishment. >> >> Costa Rica did have a smaller Indian population than the other Central >> American countries. This meant that colonial rule was less reliant on an >> extensive military apparatus to control the natives who the impudence to >> resist slave labor. A smaller military, therefore, is rooted in the >> peculiarities of Costa Rican history. >> >> Costa Rica received its independence peacefully from Spain in 1821. It had >> to make a decision whether or not to join the Mexican empire. Costa Rican >> conservatives favored this, while bourgeois republicans resisted it. Costa >> Rica did finally join with Mexico, but its relationship was much looser than >> one that was desired by the conservatives. >> >> The conflict between the gentry and the democrats was not resolved however >> and broke out in open violence in 1821, when the democrats took power after >> a brief struggle. They instituted structural reforms such as a sound >> judicial system. Most importantly, they resisted the temptation to build a >> standing army. They instead created a citizen's militia which had "honest >> citizens, peaceful laborers, artisans and workers who devote themselves to >> honestly and constantly to their private tasks...and who have no aspiration >> beyond fulfilling their domestic duties and defending the State when the law >> calls them." >> >> The most important factor in the evolution of Costa Rican society, >> however, was the cultivation of coffee. Costa Rica spearheaded the >> production of this agricultural commodity. What was important about coffee >> cultivation is that required *free* rather than *servile* labor, as well as >> a market for land. Its introduction in Central American in the 1870s to >> 1890s was associated with liberal reforms that broke the back of the church >> and the landed gentry. >> >> Coffee growing is highly capital and labor-intensive. The conditions of >> production are inimical to the semi-feudal relationships that existed in >> colonial Central America. "Free" labor and "free" soil were required in >> exactly the same way as the north required them prior to the American Civil >> War. >> >> A good description of pre-coffee Central America can be found in Robert G. >> William's "States and Social Evolution: Coffee and the Rise of National >> Governments in Central America". Williams is also the author of "Export >> Agriculture and the Crisis in Central America", the book I cited in my post >> on the contradictions of cattle-ranching in Central America. His work is a >> model for Marxist political economists. He says: >> >> "After independence, the Central American landscape was divided into large >> landholdings held by private individuals and by the church, communal lands >> held by Indian communities, municipal lands held by townships, and 'tierras >> baldias', unoccupied lands that were under the official jurisdiction of >> higher-order state institutions. None of these forms, even large >> landholdings in which vast areas were left idle, were naturally conducive to >> a rapid conversion to coffee, and in many places people held strongly to >> their traditional practices regarding land rights. As coffee became more >> profitable, a struggle over land rights began, and public institutions at >> various levels, from the township to the department and, finally, to the >> national state, became involved. The way that state institutions at these >> various levels intervened in the land question differed from time to time >> and place to place, greatly influencing the coffee boom, the turbulence of >> the transition, and the ultimate structures of landholding with coffee." >> >> While Williams focuses on the question of land usage, it is not to hard to >> deduce the other side of the equation. The "liberalizing" coffee bourgeoisie >> needed a proletariat to work its farms. Labor was in short supply since much >> of it was attached to tradtional land holdings. Overthrow traditional >> relationships in the countryside and not only do you "liberate" labor, you >> also free up land for capitalist exploitation. This, of course, was the sort >> of thing that occurred in Scotland and Ireland around the same time. >> Ideologists like John Locke embraced these changes as did liberal ideologues >> in Central America. It is useful to keep in mind that liberalism >> historically doesn't mean Roosevelt's New Deal. It means thoroughgoing and >> consistent support of capitalist property relations in town and countryside. >> Republican values-- democracy, separation of church and state--were >> important, but only as a way of maintaining the free flow of labor and land. >> >> While Coffee agriculture led to upheavals in the rest of Central America, >> in Costa Rica--with its weak colonial institutions and small indigenous >> population--it did not lead to an immediate proletarianization of the >> peasantry or violent reaction from the conservative forces. >> >> Most importantly, since most of the good coffee land in the central part >> of the country was held by small farmers, the income distribution was more >> equalized. The capitalist classs in Costa Rica, unlike the rest of Central >> America, derived its wealth from processing and marketing coffee rather than >> through farming. >> >> These were the underlying class realities that gave Costa Rica its >> exceptional character. In my next post, I will take a look at Costa Rica in >> the age of imperialism. >> >> A Social Democrat by the name of Paul Berman used to write viciously >> anti-FSLN pieces during the 1980s in the Village Voice, a liberal newsweekly >> in NYC. He always used to hold up Costa Rica as a positive alternative to >> Nicaragua as if it was up to the Sandinistas to model themselves on a state >> whose peculiar social and economic realities had evolved over a hundred year >> period. I always meant to examine Costa Rica in more depth but hadn't gotten >> around to it until the "man called Wei Lin" brought it up. >> >> Last time I described how Costa Rica's coffee bourgeoisie adopted a >> liberal political program that was in line with the needs of free land and >> labor in the 19th century. Early on they decided to attack the semifeudal >> privileges of the Catholic Church. The state they created was modernizing >> and secular. This was easier to achieve in Costa Rica than in the rest of >> Central America because the population was sparser and this allowed the >> formation of small propriertor coffee farming. As long as land in the >> interior was plentiful, a substantial rural petty- bourgeoisie could >> develop. >> >> Another important element of the particularism of the modern Costa Rican >> state and society was the events surrounding the Presidency of Rafael >> Calderon in the 1940s. Calderon was a Roosevelt-styled reformer who won the >> election in 1942 and proceeded to institute a number of progressive social >> measures including Social Security, a first for Central American. Like >> Roosevelt, he instituted many of these measures from the top down and had no >> intention of allowing the working-class or peasantry to go beyond the >> boundaries this caudillo had set. >> >> He had two powerful allies in this enterprise: the Catholic Church and the >> Communist Party of Costa Rica. The CP had a substantial base among banana >> plantation workers and under the influence of the popular front threw its >> full support behind Calderon in the same way its sister party supported FDR. >> >> Calderon's development model was based on export agriculture and for the >> most part had goal to underme the power of the traditional oligarchies. >> While Costa Rica's bourgeoisie was not as vicious as El Salvador's, it still >> had no intention of allowing full-scale agrarian reform. >> >> Calderon's paternalism and his development model alienated much of the >> country's emerging urban petty-bourgeoisie. They preferred a more modern >> capitalism that was diversified and less oriented to export agriculture . >> Furthermore, Calderon, like many of Central America's traditional caudillos, >> was corrupt. The corruption was not as blatant as Somoza's but it was just >> enough to anger the urban petty-bourgeoisie. >> >> This most politically advanced members of this modernizing middle- class >> started a think tank called the "Center for the Study of National Problems" >> in 1948. This think tank was sharply anti-imperialist and thought that >> Calderon's export-oriented model ceded too much to the United Fruit Company >> and other foreign companies. They produced studies that fed into popular >> discontent against Calderon.. >> >> They could be properly called "petty-bourgeois nationalists", the >> formulation a list member used to falsely categorize the Sandinistas. They >> believed that Costa Rica's main problem was domination by foreign and >> domestic capital, however they did not accept Marxist theory at all. >> >> This group became allied with a grouping within the powerful bourgeois >> Democratic Party called Democratic Action. Its main leader was one Jose >> Figueres who was also a petty-bourgeois nationalist.Figureres's group joined >> with the the urban middle-class professionals in the Center for the Study of >> National Problems and created Costa Rica's Social Democratic Party in 1948. >> This party also attracted the support of many of Costa Rica's oligarchs who >> were nervous about Calderon's populism and his Communist Party support. >> >> When the anti-Calderon forces lost the elections in 1948, they launched a >> civil war that targeted many CP members. Martial law was declared and the >> junta threw its support to the Social Democratic rebellion. The civil war, >> while bloody, was inconclusive. The two factions eventually made peace and >> formed a coalition government. Neither of the contending class forces in the >> civil war were capable of achieving victory and the contradictions between >> them remained unresolved for the next several decades. >> >> In order to mediate between themselves, they made a decision to suspend >> warfare and co-exist within parliamentary forms. They also decided to >> dissolve the army since they calculated that it could be counted on as a >> reliable ally to either faction. This act was unprecedented in Central >> American history. The irony, not at all understood by superficial Social >> Democrats like Village Voice writer Paul Berman, was that it required a >> bloody civil war to result in the abolition of the armed forces of Costa >> Rica. >> >> Costa Rica managed to avoid the deep-going conflicts that marked the rest >> of Central America in the post WWII era largely because Calderon's welfare >> state model was eventually accepted by both factions. This model allowed the >> bourgeoisie to coopt popular struggles. It has remained a successful >> counter-revolutionary strategy for some decades, but could break down in the >> 1990s as export agriculture-based economies continue their downward slide. >> Just as Sweden has begun to attack the welfare state measures that defined >> it, so has Costa Rica. What the political consequences of all this will be >> is difficult to say, but one thing is clear: Costa Rica's exceptionalism is >> not permanent. >> _______________________________________________ >> pen-l mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > -- 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
