TICO BULL – Mediocrity at its best. Our minister of Finance, Helio Fallas, talking about the country’s production recently said that although ours is growing less, it is still better than in other countries in Latin America.
This type of thinking by the country’s leaders shows the fallacy of comparing us to a region that is extremely behind and which we are the leaders?
Why not compare Costa Rica to European or Asian countries?
Comments like these prove over and over that the leadership of this county thinks Ticos (Costa Ricans) are dumb, don’t understand anything.
This is clearly a question of popularism deceiving the masses. If it sounds good, it must be.
The minister’s last name (Fallas) honours his many “faults”.
Use the comments section below to express your opinion.
The Minister of Finances’ comments are totally consistent with what a previous presidential candidate used as his campaign theme: “The best of the worst”.
Like Rico, I came to Costa Rica many years ago wishing to become a Tico and to contribute. My first act was to apply for citizenship, but when my cedula came years later, it displayed that I am not a citizen—but an EXTRANJERO. Costa Rica is fortunate in that its Immigrants are not Jihadists or discarded “mierda”—but educated people who want to contribute to their new country. I live in Guanacaste, but the San Jose government does not seem to recognize its second-largest Province as being a part of Costa Rica. Instead of welcoming us and accepting the skills we willingly offer, Government spends its time figuring out how to tax the Hell out of us without burdening the REAL costa Ricans—and they asume that every Costa Rican maid makes cmillion/week as Government maids do. Hopefully after Government takes 20 years to study the pay inequity that has already been published in every newspaper, Costa Ricans (extranjeros included) can live as well as the people whose salaries we pay. If Ticos spoke English, they would be miles ahead and we would not have had three hangings in a 24-hour period because these suicidal young people were unable to make a living. Contrary to what Government says—you are NOT bilingual if you can name the colors and count to ten in English.
Oh, I think you’re on a bit of a fishing expedition to criticize this.
Actually, all of Latin America isn’t doing poorly, so a favorable comparison with other Latin American countries isn’t automatically a cave in to mediocrity.
More importantly, from what I’ve read, economists generally recognize that the economies of neighboring countries have a large impact on the economies of any given country, especially when the country itself is small. Perhaps you can cite an example of a prosperous country in a poor region, but I can’t think of one. The Asian Tigers pretty much developed as a unit, most African countries remain poor as a unit, and so on.
Mind, I too like to think of Costa Rica in comparison with Taiwan (which just happens to be the comparison country I like to use). Not many years ago, the two countries were equally poor. Now Costa Rica remains relatively poor while Taiwan is a powerhouse. I like to think that the difference is that Taiwan didn’t sit around waiting for FDI to build call centers or roll out the welcome mat for tourists but instead got busy designing, manufacturing, and exporting high tech stuff that the rest of the world wants to buy.
While I think there’s merit in a comparison like this, I wonder how fair it is. Taiwan had the advantage of similarly ambitious developing countries nearby, which helped with the cross-fertilization of ideas and talent, as well as helped by providing nearby trading partners. Even more, Taiwan was assisted by direct and indirect US actions. The US not only poured a bunch of development money into Japan after WW II, which stimulated development in Japan and then the entire region, but it also stationed a lot of troops in the area. These troops needed supplies, which were costly to ship from the US, so the Asians quickly discovered that they could make a buck by selling stuff to the US military that was there to protect them.
To continue with the Asian analogy, sometimes I wonder if Costa Rica and other Latin American countries would be wise to make stuff that the US Southern Command needs and sell it to them. Alas, though, the distances aren’t as great, so saving the transportation costs isn’t that much of a competitive advantage, and I don’t think there are as many troops needing to be equipped in the Southern Command as there were in Asia at when the Asian Tigers took off.
In all, I just think that the comparisons involve a lot of complexities that make them difficult to sustain, and in the end it’s better to appreciate that countries typically share the economic fates of their neighbors.
Which, BTW, is a reason I think one of the stupidest things Costa Rica does economically is to be singularly unhelpful to Nicaragua’s economic development initiatives. What the Ticos aren’t appreciating is that economic development in Nicaragua helps Ticos too. It’s all kind of a rising tide lifting all boats thing.
I don’t believe that Taiwan is a valid comparison with Costa Rica when it comes to productivity. Taiwanese have a strong, socialized work ethic directly related to production. In Costa Rica, there is no similar work ethic, with the predominant emphasis being on cheating and stealing your way to the top, with little, or no reference to production.
Yes, this is definitely one way to look at it, and at least on the surface is plainly true. The Taiwanese, and Asian more generally, not only work very hard but also set very high standards for themselves. Neither do they tolerate slackness. For all practical purposes, for example, Taiwan doesn’t have a homeless problem. Those kinds of people barely exist in the society. And, while I’m sure there is some corruption, especially at the top (there always is), in the main Asians simply don’t cheat or steal.
However, explanations along these lines ultimately raise the same questions about culture that were raised in a previous exchange between us about essentially the culture of poverty. You seemingly took the position that the poor can’t be helped very much because they’re immersed in a subculture of values, habits, and so forth that prevents them from benefiting from assistance. Now you are taking a similar position with respect to Asian culture, although this culture is believed to produce almost opposite outcomes.
A question is what is this stuff we call culture and where does it come from? Clearly it involves values and habits, but where do these come from? Some would say religion, and this was Max Weber’s famous argument when he coined the phrase “work ethic.” He thought it was uniquely Protestant, in particular Calvinist, and for what it’s worth didn’t think Catholics had much of a work ethic. (This alone could explain Costa Rica.) However, the Taiwanese aren’t especially religious (lots of atheists), and I myself have never found much in the general heritage of Confucianism that can account for the cultural differences in question. Others say family structure and childrearing practices explain the cultural differences, but if they do the explanations are multiple. Certainly the Taiwanese don’t think of their families as following the Western nuclear family form, but more along generational lines (with obligations to parents more important than obligations to a spouse or children). Since these families are very different from those of the Calvinists, it is a real stretch to trace the cultural differences in question to family structure. But what else is left? My own hunch is that Asian cultural differences are mostly a consequence of Asia’s political heritage as collectivist societies ruled by authoritarian leaders, but I’m only guessing.
Regardless of the source of the cultural differences, the more important questions are how causal and permanent they are. Weber’s original argument about the work ethic as an explanation for the rise of capitalism remains both debatable and frankly weird. So some guys were worried enough about getting into heaven that they made money in order to feel that God was blessing them in this life and would therefore take them to heaven in the next? Maybe, but it’s weird. More importantly, even Weber didn’t believe that the work ethic existed anymore (over a century ago) but rather believed that it had been replaced by the “iron cage” of the capitalist world order that basically forced everyone to work even though there was no longer any reason for this. In short, even Weber’s causal cultural argument applied only to a brief and geographically small instance of economic history. After it, Weber saw structural factors as the causal forces of economic history.
In any event, the risk of explaining differences like those between Taiwan and Costa Rica in terms of culture is both that the explanation is quite vague (What exactly are these differences and how are they created and maintained?) and that it’s unlikely that a cultural explanation is causal anyway. Generally differences between economies are more parsimoniously accounted for by economic and political factors than cultural ones.
And ironically, if you are right and culture is an important factor, the thesis of this article is wrong. Since Costa Rica is part of Latin culture, it can’t fairly be asked to compare itself with Asian or European countries.
My own views are more mixed. It’s obvious that cultural differences currently explain a lot, but far from clear what these differences are, how they arise, how permanent they are, or how causal they are.
My comment was to incite discussion about the mediocricy of Ticos in general,expecting more from leaders, something that we foreigners have to live with regularly.
Unfortunately, the public education system in Costa Rica only supports mediocrity in the Costa Rican population at large.
Minister Fallas lives in a “dream world” like most of his political colleagues in this current PAC Government. I admit that the economic problems that the current Government is faced with solving, were inherited from past Governments, primarily that of Oscar Arias, two Government’s previous, as far as the payment of outrageous Public Service wages and benefits is concerned. The troubling question is whether the current Government, including the President, has “the right stuff”, to solve these inherited problems. Raising taxes by way of an VAT tax, increasing personal income taxes, and tightening-up on tax collection practices, will not, in my opinion, solve the problem. The Legislators who will have to vote on these measures and are personally negatively affected by them, will only provide “lip-service” during the political process, but in the end, will never support them in a vote. Increased production and the resulting increased employment opportunities for Costa Ricans will, in my opinion, solve the problem through increased spending by the employed and the pay-roll deductions for tax, etc. paid into general revenue by them. This increased production and employment opportunities should be stimulated by reduced taxation and associated business costs to attract foreign investment into Free Trade Zones and otherwise. Reduced Government spending in the Public Sector for employee wages and benefits is the other component which is necessary. Greece is doing it and Costa Rica can do it too. The proposed years of lag-time by Minister Fallas required to address this issue is nonsense. Yes, some people will be hurt by such an adjustment, having been lured into an unsupportable life-style, based on false hope and false economic premises instilled by previous Governments. Pura Vida.