The values of the Liberal cafetalero elite were so predominant at this time as to become firmly entrenched as a ‘national ideology’; an expansion of Theodore Creedman’s aforementioned ‘leyenda blanca;’ in which Costa Rica is portrayed as ‘an idyllic democracy without violence or poverty,’ 16 ‘an egalitarian, agrarian nation where harmony and peace reign supreme,’ 17 a rural ‘arcadia’ – an ideology described as ‘one of the most attractive and widely disseminated of any Latin American country’. 18
This unifying myth was essential to Costa Rica’s national identity and self-perception throughout the coffee boom period, providing a justification and program for the political and economic structures that strengthened and supported the coffee export order.
The small-holder grower vs. capitalist processor/exporter production relations of the coffee industry can be seen as the ‘substructure’ from which this ideology or leyenda blanca arises. This ‘interdependent’ relation imparting a sense of value, inclusion and fair distribution, and combining with the colonial image of the ‘yeoman farmer working the land,’ to ensure that the ideologies of both aristocrats and peasants alike converged and coincided.
The deep-seated economic, social and political relations, described by historian Gloria Rodríguez as the ‘coffee pact’, consolidated under Guardia’s rule, were finally enshrined in law in 1933, when Law 121, regulating relations between producers and processor/exporters and establishing a National Coffee Institute that would oversee all transactions, was drawn up and passed.
This legislation was subsequently expanded with Law 2762 in 1961, and came to be seen as the guarantor of social peace in Costa Rica, leaving no room for any perception of exploitation or injustice within the industry.
To the oligarchic cafetaleros then, their product and its ‘equitable’ relations, as the foundation of Costa Rica’s society and economy, was responsible for the consistency of its order; the spirit of peace, community and collaboration; the love of freedom and independence that would eventually lead to democracy; and for the image of equality, harmony and tranquility that persists today – to the particular advantage of the new ‘ecotourism’ economy.
However, despite containing some elements of truth – coffee wealth and power were indeed shared, but never equally! - and propagating an image of ‘inclusion’, this ‘national ideology’ was always exclusive; refusing representation to poor, landless ‘unfree’, ‘alienated’ wage-laborers, suppressing the voices of the marginalized, displaced indigenous and immigrant populations, promoting a notion of ‘classlessness’ that presupposed any development of organized class-struggle or class-consciousness.
As sociologist Jeremy Paige suggests, the leyenda blanca was simply an ‘idealized reflection of the elite’s experience of actually exhibiting relations of production in coffee’ 19 another privileged, white version of historical and social development.
It was this suppression, together with the desire to expand their industry and increase its efficiency, that led the cafetaleros not only to pave the way for a competitive economic challenge to their control of the export market, but also to create the conditions for a political challenge to their dominant ideology.
The small-holder grower vs. capitalist processor/exporter production relations of the coffee industry can be seen as the ‘substructure’ from which this ideology or leyenda blanca arises. This ‘interdependent’ relation imparting a sense of value, inclusion and fair distribution, and combining with the colonial image of the ‘yeoman farmer working the land,’ to ensure that the ideologies of both aristocrats and peasants alike converged and coincided.
The deep-seated economic, social and political relations, described by historian Gloria Rodríguez as the ‘coffee pact’, consolidated under Guardia’s rule, were finally enshrined in law in 1933, when Law 121, regulating relations between producers and processor/exporters and establishing a National Coffee Institute that would oversee all transactions, was drawn up and passed.
This legislation was subsequently expanded with Law 2762 in 1961, and came to be seen as the guarantor of social peace in Costa Rica, leaving no room for any perception of exploitation or injustice within the industry.
To the oligarchic cafetaleros then, their product and its ‘equitable’ relations, as the foundation of Costa Rica’s society and economy, was responsible for the consistency of its order; the spirit of peace, community and collaboration; the love of freedom and independence that would eventually lead to democracy; and for the image of equality, harmony and tranquility that persists today – to the particular advantage of the new ‘ecotourism’ economy.
However, despite containing some elements of truth – coffee wealth and power were indeed shared, but never equally! - and propagating an image of ‘inclusion’, this ‘national ideology’ was always exclusive; refusing representation to poor, landless ‘unfree’, ‘alienated’ wage-laborers, suppressing the voices of the marginalized, displaced indigenous and immigrant populations, promoting a notion of ‘classlessness’ that presupposed any development of organized class-struggle or class-consciousness.
As sociologist Jeremy Paige suggests, the leyenda blanca was simply an ‘idealized reflection of the elite’s experience of actually exhibiting relations of production in coffee’ 19 another privileged, white version of historical and social development.
It was this suppression, together with the desire to expand their industry and increase its efficiency, that led the cafetaleros not only to pave the way for a competitive economic challenge to their control of the export market, but also to create the conditions for a political challenge to their dominant ideology.
