Liberal Talk Radio

I could write for days about my trip to Peru, but I’ll try and keep it focused to the stuff that relates directly to this site.

Peru, is, of course, a fascinating country. In terms of countries with significant archeological sites, it has few rivals. The ruins of the great Inca culture are littered throughout the country. Sometimes just a clump of stones on the side of the road. There are also plenty of pre-Inca ruins. It’s amazing that the Incas really only lasted about 100 years before Pizarro landed and decimated the civilization (with only 100 men on horseback, no less!).

This also marked my first trip to South America. The colonization of South America versus North America could not have been more different. I know I’m not the first to remark on this, but it struck me almost immediately being down there. The British and Dutch who colonized the US and Canada basically annihilated the native peoples, whereas the Spanish integrated them. I think this explains a great deal about why the North today is more prosperous than the South. Not to say the Spanish were any less brutal, because they clearly weren’t.

I’d guess there were two main reasons for this difference. First, the Spanish came in smaller numbers, and had different purposes. So it made sense to play the tribes off of one another and not really drive them all to extinction. But mostly, I think (and this is just Bruno playing armchair anthropoligist), the difference is that the Spanish encountered an agricultural society in South America and the British encountered a nomadic hunter-gatherer society. It’s easier to push a nomadic population off its’ land, because those people don’t really have the attachment to the land that an agrarian society has. Agriculture is the root of empire. It ties a people to the land, makes them defend it, and gives them the free time to go off and conquer other people to take their land. So an agricultural society is harder to destroy.

All of this is to say Peru is a fascinating hybrid of Andean and Spanish culture. Often, the Spanish built their churches using the foundations and/or stones designed for Incan temples. The fusion is that explicit.

Also, on a side note, Peru reminded me that the US is probably the only country in the world where the poor DON’T resent the rich. In America, even as social mobility is on the decline, we believe more and more that we can all strike it rich some day. See, again, Matski’s post, Toward and Inclusive Elite, for how to be progressive and not hate the rich at the same time.

Now, Peruvians in outer provinces definitely don’t like the fact their tax money goes to Lima and they don’t see much of it, so that’s a big similarity. But to them, unlike in the US, there’s no difference between the business elite and political elite. That’s what makes democracy and capitalism so intertwined, really. Here in the US we can resent sending our money to Washington but at the same time not resent working at Wal-mart for an unlivable minimum wage while the Walton family rakes in big fortunes.

More on this as my jet-lag wears off.