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Insurgent Labor, Economic Change, and Social Development: Costa Rica, 1900–1948
Author(s) -
Hytrek Gary
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of historical sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-6443
pISSN - 0952-1909
DOI - 10.1111/1467-6443.00079
Subject(s) - ideology , state (computer science) , power (physics) , social change , legislation , political economy , distribution (mathematics) , political science , politics , sociology , development economics , economics , law , mathematical analysis , physics , mathematics , algorithm , quantum mechanics , computer science
Costa Rica in the 1930s had a level of social development typical of a peripheral society, yet today Costa Ricans enjoy a level equivalent to the wealthier US and Italy. This paper examines the contribution of labor to state formation and social development. Beginning around the First World War, labor gradually forced the adoption of social legislation that altered the distribution of social power and reshaped the ideological and institutional character of the state. Reactions to the increasing power of labor and the state culminated in the 1948 social pact among labor, the middle strata and the dominant class that institutionalized the existing ideological and strategic trends responsible for the present level of social development.