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Old 02-13-2004, 19:42   #91
NousDefionsDoc
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First of all, that is an obvious over simplification.

Second, I'll be waiting, novato.
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Old 02-13-2004, 22:43   #92
Sacamuelas
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Okay, after reviewing Colombia specifically, I see that it does not fit my classic LATAM generalizations nearly as well as some of the other countries. It happens to have a fairly strong history of two party politics (liberal + conservative) and of course the interesting side bar years of the National Front.

After closer evaluation, it still shows the remnants of a society that has strong underlying bias towards the two class society I talked about earlier. Your comments about absentee landowners and the compesinos losing their faith in the landowners shows just how structured and biased their culture has remained towards the old spanish authoritarian ideals.

This landowner to worker dynamic you describe was the typical expectation that formed the ideology during the 1800's hacienda structured period. The self contained (social,economic, political, and religious) units based on a feudal type, two level hierarchy of the wealthy landowner and the worker class(slave/indian peasants). Even in that system, there was still an economic middle class of soldier/clergy/skilled that aligned with and supported the wealthy. However, to gain this higher position of standing, the middle class never blossomed into a separate and politically independent force. It was either assimilate or be repressed by the powers that be. Therefore, the rich and middle class supported each other exclusively and exploited the large mass of workers as a single entity. The poor compesinos eaked out a living (accepted it as if it was God's intention-which was told to them by the clergy) and in return expected to be minimally "provided for" by the elites/wealthy. Isn’t this the very attitude you described when you talked about the compesinos not really caring if they would have just been looked after by the absentee landowners?

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. What would help to begin to solve the problem?

Of course, it is far more complex than this one small issue. I realize that. Just trying to focus in small portions or the topics get to broad to discuss efficiently.
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Old 02-13-2004, 23:18   #93
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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.
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.
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He knows only The Cause.

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Old 02-13-2004, 23:47   #94
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Speaking of the growing middle class... I came across this in my reading.

Many people writing about LATAM used to assume that there was a kind of progressive spirit inherent in the individual members of the middle class and that this spirit could be defined in terms of a desire for economic development and political democracy. This assumption was based on an idealized version of what the middle class had done in the United States and Western Europe. The evidence now suggests that in some cases, certainly not all, the growth of the middle class movements in LATAM might retard economic development and impede liberal democracy, encouraging military rule instead.

Until recently it could be safely concluded that the growth of the middle sectors did not necessarily lead to democracy. Jose Nun, writing in the 60's, pointed out the middle sectors fear of "premature democratization", that is, a democratic procedure that the middle sectors could not control. In some cases,- certainly in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay- this fear led the civilian middle sector members to call on the military for a coup to keep the lower income sectors out of power. But by the late 1980's the military rulers had been replaced by civilian governments, in part because of the growth and frustration of the middle sectors. Only time will tell if the middle sectors will act differently because of the years of bureaucratic authoritarianism: whether the middle sectors will serve as a new invigorated social base for democracy or whether they will continue to ape and imitate the upper class and thus perpetuate an essentially two-class and polarized social structure.

This was one of the many passages that got me thinking on this issue. I see this as a drastic difference in their beliefs and what we base our fundamental understandings of the causes of radical behavior.

To Americans, its is almost instinctive to think of the middle class as being the pragmatic/controlled/majority voting power section of society. In the LATAM culture, the middle class actually serves as the minority/potentially radical instigator due to its delicate lack of social stability caused by being pulled towards supporting the aristocrats in power verses maintaining control/appeasement over the majority of the population in the worker/labor class. Agree/disagree/or inconsequential to the politics of Colombia?
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Old 02-14-2004, 00:03   #95
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I agree and will add that the problem is almost insurmountable because the middle sector is the bureaucracy. They have no place in either a kingdom or a truly democratic government and they know it.
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Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimal food or water, in austere conditions, training day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon and he made his web gear. He doesn't worry about what workout to do - his ruck weighs what it weighs, his runs end when the enemy stops chasing him. This True Believer is not concerned about 'how hard it is;' he knows either he wins or dies. He doesn't go home at 17:00, he is home.
He knows only The Cause.

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