While the nineteenth century was a time when most countries gained a higher level of civilization through liberalism, Latin America seemed to go backwards from civilization to barbarianism, through the system of Caudillos.  Caudillos appealed to the people’s sense of feeling and their short-term and easily-fixable problems, which spread their popularity.  This method was smart – it focused on gaining the support of the masses and understood how the governing body should interact with its supporters; however, its execution was poor because there were no morals upheld in this system, and it quickly deteriorated into madness and violence.  For instance, Caudillos put up fronts and appearances, and competition between them resulted in regional conflicts that involved far more people than just the rival Caudillos.

This is where liberalism comes in.  While liberalists in Latin America failed to appeal to the people (leading to the vast discontent toward liberal ideals), they had the right idea concerning how to govern in the long-term and produce long-term progress without nearly so much corruption as the Caudillo system.  In short, the Caudillo system is like a Band-Aid, whereas liberalism is more like a vaccine or cure.  Since hindsight is twenty-twenty, it is evident that of course liberalism would have been a better choice for Latin America than the Caudillo system, however back then, the people didn’t have the same think-to-the-future mentality that many people today have.  Caudillos would have seemed better, and it was certainly pitched to them in a much grander light than liberalism, so that is the system that gained power.

Furthermore, liberalism failed to grab hold of Latin America because the region was far from ready to adopt that level of civilization.  Latin America was still extremely young and unstable at this point, especially compared to the long-established civilizations in Europe, which had years to organize social and political structures.  Thus while Europe was ready for change, Latin America still had slavery, indigenous servitude and the casta system – all of which divided its people and contributed to the region being decidedly unready for liberalism.  While other areas of the world acted like the mature adult, looking to the future and keeping morals in mind, Latin America was still an immature child that delighted itself in relatively petty conflicts with no concept of morals.

Youth and instability cannot be the only reasons for Latin America’s lack of progression, though, for North American nations were also quite young and yet managed to organize themselves civilly and accept liberalism.  I am still struggling to understand why North America and Latin America developed so differently given their similar origins.  Even today, Latin America is behind in so many aspects (e.g. politically, socially, economically, and developmentally) and North American countries are leaders in some of these aspects.  How could things have gone so vastly differently in North America compared to Latin America?  Is Latin America’s ill fortune with progress and development rooted all the way back to its conception?  How could Latin America not ‘catch up’ to other countries (in regards to development) between its conception and now?  Why did North America never struggle with this, like Latin America did?  What other regions of the world have shared Latin America’s struggles, and can they somehow act as a guide to show Latin America how to get past their roadblocks to progress?