But see, that's the thing, there aren't the really huge farms like there were before. And in Colombia at least, the landowners aren't absent by choice, as a group. Yet the campesinos, who don't have it any better, refuse to see that the very people claiming to fight for them are the ones causing the problem.
Everybody says Agrarian reform! Give the land to those that work it! My question is what the hell will they do with it? Giving a farmer 5, 10 even 500 hectares of land isn't going to solve his problems. He's not going to lay railroad tracks, import machinery, bring in chemicals, buy ships, open new markets overseas. It takes corporations are at least rich dudes to do that. What good does 1,000 hectares of bananas do me without United Fruit? I can't eat bananas 3 meals a day, my kids can't read bananas.
You're right, the clergy and soldiers aren't middle class, they're more slaves than the campesinos.
Most LATAM countries have two parties, those in power and those about to be in power.
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That type of exploitive system is what leads to the revolutionary ideas from the educated and young disillusioned populace. I don't think the future for Colombia is to return the compesinos back to the large farms and out of the cities.
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What hope is there for them in the cities? They only chance they have is to go on welfare. Why do you think they keep electing populist Presidents? They promise them hand outs. The cities in most of these places are like NYC, they can only expand so far because of geography. Most of the capitals were chosen in the mountains to be defensible. And most of them don't really produce anything. Hell, Quito isn't even the largest city in Ecuador.
This will sound bad, but most Latino governments and in my experience individuals, don't think ahead too well. Maybe its ingrained because there's no use it in it when the President may be gone tomorrow morning. But planning for the long term is almost unknown. They don't foresee problems very well.
They need foreign investment and foreign markets, but they don't want the foreigners.