Supporters the presidential candidate of Costa Rica's governing Citizen Action Party (PAC) Carlos Alvarado

Comments 19

Hoe Costa Rica de goede kant op gaat

May 8, 2018 Joseph E. Stiglitz

SAN JOSE – Nu autoritaire regimes en proto-fascisme op zoveel plekken ter wereld in opkomst zijn is het bemoedigend om een land mee te maken waar burgers nog steeds zeer aan democratische principes geëngageerd zijn. En nu is dit volk hard bezig om hun politiek te proberen herdefiniëren voor de 21^e eeuw.

Door de jaren heen heeft Costa Rica, een land van minder dan vijf miljoen inwoners, door zijn progressieve leiderschap wereldwijd de aandacht getrokken. In 1948 schafte president José Figueres Ferrer na een korte burgeroorlog het leger af. Sindsdien heeft Costa Rica zichzelf tot een middelpunt van de studie naar conflictoplossing en -beheersing ontwikkeld en huisvest de University for Peace die onder mandaat van de VN staat. Met zijn rijke biodiversiteit heeft Costa Rica ook vooruitziend leiderschap op het gebied van milieu getoond door herbebossing te ondersteunen, een derde van het land tot beschermd natuurgebied te verklaren, en door vrijwel al zijn elektriciteit uit schone waterkracht te halen.

De Costa Ricanen vertonen nog geen tekenen dat ze afstand willen nemen van hun progressieve voorland. Bij de laatste presidentsverkiezingen bracht een grote opkomst Carlos Alvarado Quesada met meer dan 60% van de stemmen de overwinning tegen een tegenstander die een langdurig engagement aan de mensenrechten terug wilde draaien door het homohuwelijk te verbieden.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 19 in all 19 Comments on this article

Deodoro Roca Jun 4, 2018

I sincerely hope Costa Rica, a country I know pretty well, will be able to draw upon its unique social and political experience and its cooperative culture to solve the difficult political challenge ahead.
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Deodoro Roca Jun 4, 2018

And this is why landed oligarchies in the past, and land-based, commmodity-exporting financial groups today (with the related power lobbies and media conglomerates) are sweeping away governments which have imposed direct or indirect taxes on major agricultural or mining commodities or on extensive property instead of overtaxing lower or middle classes (examples Brazil, Argentina).
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Ian Maitland May 29, 2018

I don't find much to disagree with here, but I am afraid that praise from Joseph Stiglitz is a kiss of death (viz. Venezuela), and so I am expecting a run on Costa Rica's bonds.
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Tom W May 13, 2018

I would assume that Mr. Stiglizt is very much aware that an increasing number of his fellow partisans on the left in the U.S. reject Enlightenment values. They are postmodernists (whether they know it or not) and they actively and vocally rail against all aspects of the Enlightenment.
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Per Kurowski May 13, 2018

How is a landowner to pay for a land tax? Increasing the price of leases? Increasing the price of what it produces? Selling off some land? Selling off some other asset he might hold? Why is it so often assumed that landownership goes hand in hand with having a lot of purchase power in cash tucked away under the mattress?
- Derryl Hermanutz May 13, 2018
  
  The tax would not be charged on un-realized capital gains: an increase in the sellable price of property. The tax would be charged when the owner actually sold the land, and could pay the tax with the sale proceeds. Asset prices inflate and deflate. If land prices inflate but you don’t sell your land, you haven’t gained anything: you still own the same land. If asset prices deflate but you don’t sell your land, you haven’t lost anything. Unrealized gains are not taxed; and unrealized losses are not recognized as deductions against your other capital income. You have to actually sell the assets to realize the capital gains or capital losses.
  - Per Kurowski May 13, 2018
    
    Sorry, that is not solely the land taxes to which the economist Henry George Stiglitz refers to argued, Those capital gains taxes already exist... surely even in Costa Rica.
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santana.guillermo @gmail.com May 10, 2018

Perhaps an important consideration that escapes Dr. Stiglitz in this article is the staggering difference between Costa Rica and other countries in the Central American region. Unlike the Honduran case, no caravans of would-be-refugees from Costa Rica are on route for the US. This fact certainly indicates that small economies do have the option of bootstrapping themselves into fully functional states.
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eduardo_cordoba @unicomer.com May 10, 2018

Hello From Costa Rica, and thank you for this article. Yes we are small and a few costarricans only 5 millions, but we have this particular way of living, focus on generosity, happinnes, share with our families and respect for the nature that we have been taught from our parents; also big challenges for the comming years, like every country, our streets can get no more cars, our safety needs reingeneering, and our free social social security need resources, but its ok, we just neet to work more on this. Please come and visit us, enjoy of our mountains, volcanes, beaches and warm people. We are small, but full of passion and joy, Costa Rica... Pura Vida.
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AL AL May 9, 2018

RE: EVs, i thought about bring down my Nissan Leaf when we moved to CR, but quickly learned it would be a mistake. #1: Don’t have a vehicle no one knows how to service. #2 Parts are hard to come by. #3 CR has exceptionally high tariffs on imports which would likely make EVs unaffordable. #4 The roads, outside of the Central Valley/San Jose area, suck, making 4x4s a requirement.

On the flip side, at approximately $.185 per kWh, an EV would cost about $6/100 miles to operate: a fair bit less than fuel!
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Kerry Pechter May 9, 2018

Let's not get carried away. Costa Rica has its share of squalor. The wealthy live in well-fortified bubbles. Blacks are literally marginalized on the Caribbean coast. Nature is more endangered there than the slogan "Pura Vida" would suggest. But Don Pepe's 1948 decision to disband the armed forces was a gift that keeps on giving.
- Marc Laventurier May 10, 2018
  
  This is purely
  - Marc Laventurier May 10, 2018
    
    Perdóname for the interruption above. Just wanted to say that years ago I took trips to CR looking at real estate, and KPs observations ring true: the controversial but inevitable development of hydropower was at some ecological cost, the emphasis on green culture per se is probably imported but well entrenched, and not only has the cancer of militarism been excised, there isn't much police presence either, and in San Jose at night a sort of demimonde seems to emerge from shadows. But even in rural areas, Ticos living in modest homes seem genuinely happy (especially in contrast to the denizens of the alleys of Luknow), and enjoy a generally unspoiled environment and seem none the worse for wear as they emerge from the packed Blue Bird school-type public buses, having chatted with friends as they navigated the undulating and forested hills.
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Kien Choong May 9, 2018

No military? What a good idea!

Maybe a less radical (but hopefully feasible) idea is for all countries to collectively cap their military expenditure to (say) 1% of GDP.
- Murray Feldstein May 13, 2018
  
  This works very well until your enemy raises its cap to 2%. We asked a half dozen Costa Ricans (including a couple of ex-pats) how CR is able to do without a military they replied that they were confident the USA had it's back. This of course is not a scientific poll, and I do not believe its official policy, but it kind of rings true.
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Robert REYNOLDS May 9, 2018

Thanks for the positive and interesting article, Joseph.

I couln't help thinking while I was reading it, that on the social, political and economic fronts, most places these days would look pretty good when compared to America.
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Janos Nagy May 8, 2018

Well by mathematical models 10 percent of a hundred thousand dollars is 10 thousand dollars and that is 10 times more than 10 percent of 10 thousand dollars what is one thousand dollars.
So 10 times more taxes isn't progressive enough to pay for basically the same services that the government supposed to supply to it’s costumers the people.
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Hoe Costa Rica de goede kant op gaat

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