[Sacamuelas]

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.