ABSTRACT
The increasing economic integration and interdependence of the nations' populations, both in product and labor markets, do not automatically lead to increased social coherence, harmony, or stability. The decade of the 1960s was marked by significant economic growth, export diversification, and armed struggle. The Guatemalan state, under military control in the 1960s and 1970s, actively promoted economic growth and export diversification through the provisions of the Central American Common Market as well as active credit and infrastructural investments within a generally interventionist stance toward the economy. Part of the explanation for the seeming paradox that the pattern of income distribution in Costa Rica was less equal than that of, say, El Salvador was, apart from the shakiness of the figures, the much higher per capita income in Costa Rica. The experience of Costa Rica is especially important because it demonstrates that the logic of modem capitalist growth does not necessarily require severe repression.
