Costa Rica's Libertarian movement is drawing
international attention! WAY TO GO!


http://www.bestsyndication.com/2005/A-H/DAVIS-Mike/090205-costa-rico-libertarians.htm

Controlling 1Libertarians becoming more Popular in
Costa Rica controlling 10% of Congress

September 2nd 2005

Libertarians becoming much more Popular in Costa Rica
Controlling 10% of Congress

Costa Rica

San Juan, Costa Rica—Imagine a US Congress with 10%
Libertarians. The latest news is how they’ve cut
taxes, stamped out incipient terrorism while squashing
proposals to military action, and are moving to fight
corruption in immigration that no one talked about for
years in the other parties. The country’s prestige is
at a new high. New Hampshire has announced it’s
studying legislation to enable governmentless
Libertarian communities because they’re good for
tourism. And even non-Libertarians say they’re doing a
good job, offering intriguing less-government
alternatives and keeping other parties on their toes.
Why, just like Costa Rica, people say.

Oh, and most of the Libertarian leaders are Black or
belong to other minorities.

Compare this to today, where the Libertarians in North
Carolina struggle to keep their party recognized under
that state’s draconian ballot laws. It’s easy to
speculate why the other parties are attempting to
marginalize them.


The major parties may not want another Costa Rica
Libertarian Movement, or Movimiento Libertario
(http://www.libertario.org/en/index.htm ). In that
country, Libertarians have 10% of the legislature, are
moving to more local positions, and are treated as
business as usual. But it may just be a matter of
time.

Libertarians advocate voluntary solutions and
individual rights, and support more tolerance, more
free enterprise and ever-diminishing government. Costa
Rica certainly has a few less government attitudes
that would seem like hopeless idealism to many people
in the US.. It has no military hence no military coups
or budget to worry about, yet plays a strong role in
international affairs through active diplomacy. People
can get many drugs without a prescription after
consultation with their pharmacist. Immigrants are
welcomed with open arms with a system encouraging
economic self-sufficiency that is a marvel of
simplicity compared to US regulations. It has
proportional voting and few ballot requirements,
making it far more democratic in engaging different
political than the US.

While Libertarians in the US wage what looks like a
complex chess game rolling back election laws often
specifically designed to keep them out, Libertarianism
has taken off in the tolerant “Central American
Switzerland” like El Cid riding to the rescue.
Libertarians there control 10 % of the Congress,
occupy influential positions, and over 70% of the
country thinks they’re doing a good job according to
newspaper surveys. When a Libertarian international
group met there some years back, the country’s
President made the welcome speech.

Any political party could probably learn from the
Costa Rican Libertarians, who admit they started off
by learning from the US Libertarian’s mistakes and
less well known but impressive successes.


CLASSICAL ANARCHISTS WITH GANNT CHARTS

Libertarianism, which says people would benefit with
an array of alternatives ranging from devolution to
local government and classical anarchist communities,
is looked at as something of a tough sell in politics.
It has no ready-made constituency except everyone’s
interest in their own individual rights, and in many
ways is more a political technology. So the growth is
all the more fascinating as until a few years ago,
there was only a small Libertarian study group in the
country. Local Libertarians contacted Libertarian
groups such as the International Society for
Individual Liberty and the Libertarian International
Organization (LIO) to get ideas. “We had just finished
a best practices study and basically gave them two
lists,” said Ralph Swanson, and LIO Board member. “We
said do simple boring cheap stuff on list A and don’t
do the tempting glitzy expensive stuff on list B. We
basically had found that US Libertarian groups that
focused on education on uncompromising application of
Libertarian principle and door-to-door legwork and
coalition activism did well, while those that
attempted to dilute their message and imitate the
campaign styles of the Republicans and Democrats shot
themselves in the foot. Next thing we knew they were
doing great, and when we checked up they said, ‘Well,
we followed list A.’ ”

Otto Guevara Guth, a former Costa Rican Congressman
who leads the Costa Rican group, put it more bluntly.
”When I first heard about Libertarianism, I said what
in the world is this? Are these people nuts? Like most
people I assumed that if government wasn’t making
people do it, then it wasn’t being done, and so you
had to accept a lot of regulation. Then here are
Libertarians saying government is actually the
problem, and we should just handle everything by
private groups with just one rule: respect individual
rights. As I saw the possibilities and saw that this
stuff worked, I realized we had a chance for a
movement able to think long term but have plenty of
immediate projects to get public support.”

List A had some unusual conclusions, reflected in the
Movimiento’s approach. It suggested things such as
dividing adherents into speaker, political and other
personality types; developing a radical no-government
message with detailed transition items; and outreach
through personal networks. Training was emphasized,
and a good part of the Costa Rican site deals in
philosophy. Yet as they crusade to dismantle the
government and replace its programs with voluntary
groups and alternatives, they also put a GANNT style
progress chart and emphasize baby-step approaches, and
trumpet the slightest success. They even set a
standard for news stories, patiently following up so
soon they were news resources, then the news, all
instead of ‘reacting to the news’ said Guevara Guth in
a talk with to US Libertarians.

“We expect a new story per 1 million population daily,
and if we’re not being treated fairly we get on the
phone,” he said.” However, by now we’re constant news.
Journalists say, ‘I wonder what the Libertarians are
doing now?’ Because that’s what their readers are
wondering.”


To judge by GOOGLE search results, the Movimiento is
certainly doing media wonders. Enter US Libertarian
Party and you only get 3340 results—somewhat
misleading, as Democrats get 18,000 and the LP is
basically local in the US so dynamic affiliates, such
as Pinellas, Florida, get about 10,000. Yet the
Movimiento turns in over 11.000—astonishing interest
in comparison to even the major US parties. Indeed
there’s such an array of articles, discussions, policy
papers, and fan sites, one might wonder if it’s a
party or a national tourist attraction.

Yet some of the press is wary. The Economist magazine
attracted derision when it did an article touching on
the Movimiento’s effect while failing to mention it
was Libertarian.

OPPOSITION

All of this reflects the aggressive, and ‘integrative’
Costa Rican attitude and a ‘Libertarian management’
approach. While US Libertarians hand out a ten point
political quiz, Costa Ricans have a 40 point one they
use to qualify people and immediately address issues
of agreement and training. They made branding
decisions in an afternoon, with attractive red polo
shirts for adherents and a seagull motif so as ‘not to
be confused with’ anyone. All projects are self-run
and self-funding, and they rely heavily on ‘bottom-up’
action, with supporters constantly handing out
literature to taxi drivers, waiters, and other casual
contacts.

They also made a decision to treat any defeat as an
opportunity and make lemon of lemonade, encouraged by
pep-talks and lengthy e-mails from their international
mentors. As the government realized they were
expanding under Costa Rica’s proportional
representation system, it imposed requirements that
political parties have 5 adherents in almost every
neighborhood, a burden seemingly well beyond a
struggling new group, and at first they thought the
end had come.

In due course, however, they agreed with their mentors
that they were being forced to do what they should do
anyway: get out and organize non-Libertarians around
local issues. At the same time, they were aided by a
government regulation that threatened to put small
lottery sellers out of business, which they exploited
immediately since in Costa Rica, many people sell a
few lottery tickets.


They didn’t look back, and are known for relentlessly
looking at world events from the point of vew of how
people can benefit from their Libertarian ideas. ‘They
simply refuse to react or have a position on other
people’s issues. They promptly turn it all around so
it’s their issue with a specific action proposal in a
very short period of time,” said a local observer.
When 9-11 came and other US State Libertarian parties
agonized over how to best express Libertarian
solutions on foreign policy, the Costa Ricans turned
it into a tax-cut issue, and successfully demanded
the government take no ‘hysterical actions’ that would
damage tourism or raise spending. They also have come
out in favor of the Central American free trade
treaty, unlike their US counterpart, but with far more
detailed line by line criticism—they feel it has
hidden and unfair regulations—so that they’re
controlling discussion and, observers say, are forcing
other parties to react to them.

CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

The Costa Ricans have also used local cultural
differences, or sometimes a difference of perspective,
to address issues that tax their US counterparts.
While the US has had a national goal of abolishing its
military for years under a little known law, Costa
Rica simply did it long ago, and so Libertarians
warning against military adventures have a ready
audience there.

There was actually an experiment in the 1800’s in
Libertarian communes in Limon province, so when
Libertarians there proposed eventual creation of a
Libertarian non-governmental community on classical
anarchist lines as one option, people hailed it as
restoring lost roots and a potential revenue-building
attraction.

They also used different terminology. They call
privatizations democratizations to better include the
idea of co-operatives. They decided to call their
party a movement—Movimiento Libertario—to express that
they didn’t see their main mission as merely getting
elected but creating a new ‘cultural group’ dedicated
to freedom and rights.


They’ve also found that, as US Libertarians are
discovering, little details argue philosophy. It’s all
very well to call for limited government and
responsive public services, but when Guevara Guth was
elected to Congress and announced he was carrying a
cell phone and would provide quick answers to
constituent’s questions, he created a sensation,
especially in the laid back Latin culture. Opponents
became apoplectic at the Libertarian reputation for
quick service to constituents, and as donations poured
in hinted darkly that the Movimiento was getting money
from the Mafia in New York, or worse, Sweden.

Perhaps their biggest management difference from most
of the US LP is a structure of welcoming general
supporters as members while having a certification
process to develop ‘militant’ Libertarian leaders.
While the US national party technically has the same
policy, under the influence of former Republicans it
tended in the last ten years to emphasize membership
and short-term politics while having no educational or
training program in place, though it has been moving
to change. However, some states parties, such as
Florida and New Hampshire, have farm team methods that
have served them well, being more like Costa Rica,
with both a more radical Libertarian message and more
Libertarians in government positions or as opinion
leaders.

Yet again and again the cultural differences are
intriguing. In the US Libertarianism polls more
favorably with African-Americans and Hispanics than
other cultural groups, but while they’ve done a good
job engaging Hispanics, and Blacks make a large number
of Libertarian registrations—more proportionally than
Greens or Democrats in many areas—bringing them into
the leadership has been haphazard. The Costa Ricans
have no such problems, pointing to international
economist Dr. Rigoberto Stewart, a Black and one of
their founders.

And in the US, while it’s a plus to emphasize a woman
in gender neutral activities, it’s rarely so with men.
Indeed, in some states a man might be investigated for
domestic abuse for arguing with his wife over domestic
affairs or ‘taking too great an interest’ in his
children by, for example, challenging doctor’s
decisions during childbirth. Sometimes taking their
cue from academics who maintain fathers are
irrelevant, US Courts in custody cases have only
recently begun to challenge professionals and accept
that fathers are more than financial contributors to
their children’s welfare. In much of Latin America,
by contrast, a father is expected to take such intense
interest in his children as might, to many in the US
from a Germanic background, seem at best exotic. When
he ran for election, Guevara Guth made a point of
letting people know he was directly involved in his
children’s daily routine, with the implication of
being the ideal Latin father who would examine
government affairs with equal zeal.


ECONOMY COUNTS

All this is important for a small party that can’t
waste effort—and the US Libertarian party is quietly
recognized as far better organized than its opponents,
getting widening influence despite it’s small formal
numbers--Costa Rica has focused on these issues from
the beginning. This has created two startling
statistics: many Costa Ricans vote Libertarian, and if
the US were doing like the Costa Rican Movimiento,
the US party would have proportionally almost 500,000
members—politically impressive when one realizes these
are not passive registered members but active
supporters. ”Economy counts, “ said Guevara Guth in an
earlier interview.

Nonetheless, Costa Rican Libertarians say they have
plenty to learn still, like good Libertarians, and are
always trolling for new ideas. “You have to be careful
generalizing about the American Libertarians, or for
that matter, Americans. Mnay of our people think they
get too self-critical, and simply don’t blow their own
horn enough,” said Mario Vedova, a Movimiento leader,
while on tour in the US. “Yet it’s really a vast
laboratory of 50 parties, and there’s no doubt from
abroad that US Libertarians are making a difference,
and you learn a lot from them. In fact, our co-founder
was once the chair of the Florida LP.”

What’s next? After some debate the Movimiento is
experimenting with running ‘less than 100% Libertarian
candidates’ as long as they advocate and carry out
Libertarian solutions, hoping to ‘bring them along.’
While some worry this may lead to the Movimiento being
seized by conservatives and ‘do-nothing pragmatists’
given to being overly impressed with political
consultants, they point to a tab on ‘philosophy’ at
their website and the division of labor of having
separate non-partisan think tank and activism-outreach
groups there.

The work of the non-political groups is in some ways
even more impressive. Libertarian think tank INLAP
(http://www.inlap.org/) , which proposed the
think-piece Libertarian province proposal now carried
on by a separate group, CELIDE
(http://www.celide.org/), has several initiatives,
and the new outreach Instituto Libertario
(http://www.institutolibertario.org/index.html ) has
in the last few months done seminars at major colleges
and schools across the country, with students checking
out it’s ‘cool website graphics,’ they say, and
links. There’s even a Libertarian consumer union
(http://www.consumidoreslibres.org ) fighting
government utility monopolies they feel raise prices.

Meanwhile, even as members discuss expanding and
cloning Movimiento Libertario parties up and down
Central America, they caution that effective politics
is a matter of repetition. The website shows they
focus on yeoman work: a radio station is up, an
attractive GIF has yet another attack on tax policies,
and an invitation to join the Libertarian youth group
is prominent. They boast of hard-fought legislation
that has cut campaign financing, and urge viewers to
join a new less taxes initiative.

“The biggest mistake the Costa Rican Libertarians can
make is what many businesses and political groups
do—get cocky and change what’s working, “ said
Swanson. “People are listening because they’ve been
listening as well. Real change takes time, and it’s
very encouraging their getting give- and-take from
young people. It’s a matter of consistent effort, a
matter of time. That’s politics.”

By Mike Davis and S. S. Palacheck
International Researchers and Journalists



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