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tions about the impact of Spain on Latin America need to be qualified.
In the Latin American context, we must distinguish among the different
parts of the region. In its simplest manifestation, we know very well that
Mexico is not Uruguay, that Venezuela is not Chile, and that Nicaragua
is not Argentina. If we distinguish between the degrees to which the
Spanish presence penetrated the different parts of its vast New World
empire, we observe that the Mother Country was much more involved
in some regions than in others. Spain concentrated its efforts in those ar–
eas where there were large concentrations of Native Americans and of
mineral resources. These became the core of the Empire, while other re–
gions, lacking such attractions, in which Spain took less interest, became
the periphery. This helps us understand how it is that Mexico, a core re–
gion, can have an authoritarian polity that continues to operate, distinct
from the less authoritarian and more democratic politics that have oper–
ated historically in Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Chile, all part
of the periphery. Now we can more centraJly bring into the analysis Dr.
Arias's view that the lesser or greater degree of Spanish presence corre–
spondingly affected the greater or lesser degree to which alternative
forces, groups, individuals, economic and political forces that were not a
part of the Spanish center cou ld emerge. Such a perspective enables us to
better understand the dramatic differences within the Western
Hemisphere among the more open and more democratic political and
economic projects in countries like Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, Costa
Rica, and Venezuela on the one hand, and the more authoritarian
modalities operating in Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, and Bolivia, on the
other.
Peter Berger:
I think precisely by going to the periphery and compar–
ing it to the center one realizes how much the two have in common ..
. Let me use the Brechtian technique of
Veifremdung,
of going far
beyond the areas we have been talking about, to the Philippines. The
one time I was in the Philippines, I had to pinch myself to recall that I
was not in Latin America. Until now, the Philippines has been the one
country in capitalist South East Asia that is an economic disaster. Is that
a coincidence? How far is the reach of the Iberian influence that Claudio
was talking about?
Roger Scruton:
I just wanted to come back
to
a point Liah raised .
She, for very good reasons, thinks of culture as an independent factor
which influences economic development. I think it is stiJl very important
to
bring law into the foreground because people make the mistake of
