So there is little room for progressive economic projects and programs. Sewing co-ops face cheaper clothing imported from Asia. Even imported beans and corn sometimes sell for less than domestically-produced grains. In fact, most peasants were trapped in the classic cycle of increasing marginality, subsistence farming and super-exploitation as agricultural laborers, while the best farm lands were concentrated in export crops like coffee, cotton and beef, producing very little income for people at the grassroots. Under these conditions, labor union issues offer more to many workers than vaguer revolutionary politics.
Jobs are too scarce for workers to afford a rejectionist stance.
In this situation, with people literally scrambling to stay alive, the FMLN and all the left parties have lost prominence, and much of the popular support they enjoyed during the war. Meanwhile, as old ideologies become increasingly irrelevant for a Salvadoran left unable to produce a new alternative vision, old internal disputes have been maintained. It's not surprising that political leaders who have spent a quarter-century in clandestine activity and war would have problems adapting to a new reality in which internal debate is more important than discipline. Nor should we expect old resentments and unsettled scores to disappear. But these problems are serious obstacles to the development of a new way of thinking and organizing.