About Face
Barkin, David
MEXICO'S IMPENDING ENTRY INTO THE North American free trade area bodes ill for most of its people. In spite ofcheaperconsumer goods and more jobs in export industries, it will...
...Due to Mexico's abundant resource en- dowment...
...This strategy could not magically resolve all of Mex- ico's development problems at a single blow...
...by job-creation and the linkage effects of industrialization...
...and the disregard of health and safety measures forworkers...
...1 3 By the end of L6pez Portillo's term in 1982, international support was at an all-time low, government finances were in shambles, his economic and social programs were canceled, and the foreign debt reached nearly $100 billion, second only to Brazil's...
...His latest book is Distorted Develop- ment: Mexico in the World Economy (Wesrview...
...With 85 million people...
...sorghum production increased by more than 13% a year from 1960 to 1975, while domestic meat availability increased by more than 5% a year from 1960 to 1980.5 Sugarcane, fruits, vegetables and industrial crops like cotton also expanded, especially in the newly irrigated districts...
...But people do not normally accept their damnation passively...
...We are told that there is no altemative.Ih This approach is championed by the world's major financial powers and is being imple- mented throughout Latin America...
...export of non-traditional manufactures (automobiles...
...For a discussion of the politics of achieving food self-sufficiency, see David Barkin, "The end to food self-sufficiency," Latin American Perspectives, No...
...A newly assertive internationalized elite, supported by a coterie of neo-liberal "tfcnicos", took advantage of a precipitous decline in oil prices to reverse this exercise in presidential machismo...
...were pared down, as was support for basic grain produc tion...
...2, No...
...Industrialization supplies the bene- ficiaries of distorted development with the goods, but neither the producers nor the consumers have found a way toconfront effectively theecological horrorsit iscreating...
...In spite ofcheaperconsumer goods and more jobs in export industries, it will generategreaterinsecurity and poverty...
...Not only would such a strategy create more employment than any other program, but itseffectson incomedistribution would alsobe highly conducive to further sustainable growth...
...T HE FREE TRADE PACT SHOULD BE VIEWED as part and parcel-and a logical extension-of the development strategy adopted in the wake of the economic crisis which began in 1976 and swamped the country six years later...
...the intensive use of agrochemicals, industrial solvents andotherchemicals...
...Local consumer goods industries have also been hit hard by the decline in people's real incomes and the import of food...
...clothing and even household appliances and furniture...
...33E, 58020 Morelia, Michoacin...
...resources are no longer supposed to be diverted to protect inefficient domestic industries or small-scale rural producers...
...But by 1976, Mexico had reached a watershed...
...First, raising grain prices substantially would lead toadramatic increase in basic grain production by mobilizing reserves of under- and unused productive capacity presently avail- able in Mexico...
...a proces...
...The transformation of rural Mexico is a story of modernization with mass participation...
...The accelerated development of the Mexican economy set the stage for a new and more terrible social polarization of the country...
...The British "Victory Gardens" are generally cited as the stellar example of unplanned production in difficult circumstances...
...which proved ineffectual in obliging manufacturers to produce a truly "Mexican" car...
...Foreign investors spurred this growth, extending contract farming and raising demand for livestock, as well as building, packing and processing facilities.6 Industrialization was the main thrust of government policy during those heady years...
...Mexico's small-scale farmers continued to flee the countryside, while imported consumer goods poured into urban shops, financed by the carefree lending policies of the international private banking system...
...Labor's share of national income had risen from 25% to 36...
...Government programs assured a steady expansion in education and health care...
...Of course, the Mexican academic community was firmly against this type of development, reflecting the dominance of the dependency school and the demand for a more nationalistic development strategy...
...Resources are not available for corrective measures a even for the For the poor, development has brought only the mask of modernization: Will tree trade be more of the same...
...the loss of food self-sufficiency...
...The proposed free trade pact promises to make that marginalization permanent...
...All was not rosy...
...peasants would become acquiescent producers of the nation's food supply...
...and David Barkin and Billie DeWalt, "Sorghum and the Mexican food crisis," LatinAmerican Research Review, Vol...
...A conservative peasantry and an inefficient industrial structure were the result of paternalistic policies and corrupt politicians...
...See his The Dilemma ofMexico's Development, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963) for a defense of this strategy...
...Comisi6n Nacional sobre el Salario Minimo, internal working documents...
...9. Raymond Vernon was an early celebrant of the Mexican development strategy...
...it would be a real beginning...
...For more details, see David Barkin, "State control of the environment: Politics and degradation in Mexico," Capitalism Nature Socialism, Vol...
...such a mobilization is in- conceivable...
...organized industrial labor, professionals, and the state bureaucracy further stimulated the industrialization effort with their own demands for durable consumer goods, urban housing and automobiles...
...In one last exercise of power, he nationalized the banking system owned by the wealthy minority he blamed for the nation's woes: not only had it served as conduit for massive capital flight, but it controlled most of the nation's modern industrial structure.' 4 T HE CRISIS WHICH DESCENDED IN 1982 threw thousands out of work, drove wages down, and brought on drastic cuts in expenditures for social welfare...
...Peasants ceased producing food for the ur- ban markets when official price supports made such efforts unprofitable...
...Rising government budget deficits reflected the unwillingness of the wealthy elite to finance the program of state-led development or to sustain improvements in social services for the poor...
...Even as Mexico becomes a full and cele- brated member of the world capitalist marketplace, the transformation of Mexico's productive structure is ren- dering the country incapable of providing for the basic needs of its people, while depriving them of the ability to provide for themselves...
...The wealthy continued their assault against the peso by squirreling away billions in bank accounts abroad...
...Environmental costs will rise...
...appears to be one objective of the policy to fix prices low and import substantial quantities of food...
...The agreement for a NAFTA presages a substantial increase in foreign investment in Mexico and a conse- quent intensification of the export of manufactured and high-value agricultural products to the United States and David Barkin teaches at the UAM-Xochimilco in Mexico City...
...Between 1930 and 1976, Mexico was transformed from a stagnant and contentious rural society into a complex and dynamic urbandominated world...
...In this new world...
...these two propositions would cre- ate millions of newjobs and redistribute income to stimu- late the domestic market and induce a process of demanddriven growth...
...This is not inevitable: Mexico 2 NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS could continue to export labor-intensive agricultural and manufactured products while also providing for the basic needs of its people...
...labor-intensive maquila opera- tions employed only 460,000 people at their height (the U.S...
...1, Feb...
...And the govern- ment will be constrained from intervening10 protect those who get hurt by the unbridled pursuit of profit...
...regulatory structures required to assure that producers adhere to standards already established...
...Output grew at 6.6%, 7.1%, and 7.9% annually during each of the three decades from 1940 to 1970.7 There was ample margin for import substitution in non-durable consumer goods industries in the first stage (1945-1960...
...In spite of its dramatic growth in recent years...
...inefficient enterprises, bloated bureaucracies, and outmoded regulations were the cause of the nation's problems...
...While the urban labor force grew rapidly and the middle classes virtually exploded...
...the dismemberment of the powerful para-state sector followed...
...The accord promises to allow foreign investors to meld the two prongs of Mexico's development policy-- the rnaqltila and the export promotion program-to take advantage of Mexico's low wage rates and congenial regulatory atmosphere...
...Complementary investments in steel, cement and construction led to an economic boom and an important expansion of employment...
...Colombia, Indonesia, Madagascar and Zaire), is suffering an environmental crisis that extends far beyond the horrors of what is reputedly the most polluted city in the world...
...Rather than inducing efficiency, industrial policies offered generous bailouts to industry...
...To make Mexico competitive...
...Similarly, a rise in urban wages for the poorest paid workers could be counterbalanced by increasing productivity...
...More than a million young people will enter the labor market during each of the next twenty years...
...The argument stems from the recognition that presentdevelopment policies will be unable toincorporate the rural population into the productive fold...
...When the bubble burst...
...This would immediately revive the rural economy by increasing the incomes of small farmers and rural day laborers.''' Second...
...The Fajnzylber-Martinez book cited above as well as Fajnzylber's later book, La industrializacidn trunca en Amirica Latina, (Mexico: Nueva Imagen, 1982) reflect some of this thinking, with a technocratic bent...
...The whole panoply of light consumer goods demanded by a wealthy elite gradually came to be produced in Mexico by transnational firms in partnership with local business...
...and a significant 10% since the implementation of the pacts four years ago.'' The loss of food self-sufficiency...
...Underlying the new strategy is the same fundamentally flawed assump- tion that brought down the old one: that benefits will trickle down to the poor...
...A cornerstone of the new model is the string of socia "pacts" which have dictated the relationship betweer wages, profits, taxes and prices since November 1987 The pacts slashed real wages...
...of Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley, Feb...
...Third...
...Food grains are not an important part of the total expenditures for most families in Mexico, and thus, even a doubling of prices would only provoke aone-time increase of substantially less than 5% in costs...
...VOLUME XXIV...
...With increased competition and a drive for higher productivity, new production processes are further threatening the integrity of many ecosystems and workplaces with toxic discharges...
...They acknowledge that unemployment will grow.at least in the short run, because thejobs created in export industriescannot keep pace with the jobs eliminated by cheap imports...
...The purchasing power of the minimum wage was almost four times the level prevailing 30 years previous...
...much of the country's new productive structure was shaped...
...and the United States during World War II to produce food and whatever else in the face of shortages created by the German control of the seas...
...Grain farmers have been driven to desperation by low domestic prices and massive imports of animal feed and human food, which now account for almost one-half of total consumption...
...The struggle for rural Mexico (South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey, 1983...
...Adelman and Taylor, "Is structural adjustment...
...and is director of the Centro de Ecodesa- rrollo in Morelia...
...Of the market economies, Mexico is one with the most unequal distribution of income...
...1. Although space does not permit adequate treatment here, the FTA will probably bring a further assault against the environment...
...At the same time, food imports were absorbing the profits generated by export agriculture...
...Such an approach would provide a means tocorrect the root causes of the country's present economic difficulties, by inviting the Mexican population to participate...
...In 1962 the automobile was selected to become the backbone for future development, expected to spur many supplying industries (steel, glass, rubber) and infrastructure while promoting new technologies...
...2) to suspend negotiations for Mexico to join the GATT...
...During the course of the next five years, administrative barriers and tariffs were rapidly felled to facilitate production, stimulate exports, and create internal competition...
...There has been an outpouring of literature on the destructive effects of the crisis, but virtually none on alternative strategies...
...which further eroded the living standardsof worker...
...A new nationalism seemed to be the order of the day when the president announced a short-lived policy change in early 1980: 1) to set a ceiling on petroleum exports in spite of U.S...
...Such a course would require adopting measures parallel to the present approach, to rebuild the internal market and mobilize the latent productive potential of Mexico's traditional economy...
...is provoking the systematic marginalization of millions of peasant farmers and the erosion of their lands...
...The implementation of the agrarian reform during the Cirdenas years (1934-1940), combined with an ambitious program of irrigation, freed small farmers to raise food production...
...A 3.4% annual increase in irrigated area between 1940 and 1960 made the deserts and the best rain-fed lands bloom...
...As land distribution programs slowed in the 1970s, production of basic food crops declined...
...Under presidents de la Madrid (1982-1988) and Salinas (1988-present), the trade opening has advanced rapidly: tariffs have been dramatically and unilaterally lowered, import licensing and permits dismantled, the parastate sector privatized and foreign investment restrictions removed-the effects of which will be accelerated by a free trade accord...
...pressures to the contrary...
...especially at the lower enc of the scale, and strengthened the taxation system...
...Our work on hog raising offers a disturbing picture of the way in which factory production has impoverished small farmers and led to very high prices for pork...
...NUMBER 6 (MAY 1991) he rural economy Although the industrialization program created many new jobs, the informal sector burgeoned as the cities proved unable to absorb the migrants expelled from the countryside...
...8 Plants were built to supply intermediate products for consumer goods, such as chemicals, electrical and non-electrical machinery, synthetic fibers and mineral products...
...See Table 5.1 of my book, Distorted development: Mexico in the world economy...
...despite the onerous cost...
...3 (pp.30-59...
...In the period of rapid opening to the world economy, 1985-1989, they more than tripled in value...
...20, No...
...The uniqueness of the Mexican achievement of self-sufficiency is evident in the analysis of the experience of 23 other developing countries in Barkin, Batt and DeWalt, Food crops vs.feed crops: The global substitution ofgrains in production (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publications, 1990...
...President Jos6 L6pez Portillo embarked on a program to "administer prosperity," borrowing tens of millions of dollars for oil drilling, transport, and refining...
...Small farmers as a group are too important an actor in Mexico's history for politicians to simply write them off without NACLA REPORT ON THE AMERICAS considering their reactions and exploring alternatives...
...2. The single most comprehensive source on the role of transnational firms in the early industrialization of Mexico is Fernando Fajnzylber and Trinidad Martinez Tarrag6, Las empresas transnacionales, (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica, 1976...
...But because of its lack of competitiveness, industry was a growing drain on the country's foreign reserves, requiring evergreater quantities of costly imported raw materials, intermediate products and capital equipment...
...A flood of "petro-dollars" into the international banking system in the early 1970s helped the government secure loans to postpone the day of reckoning...
...But for a privileged group of financial and industrial capitalists and a new generation of policymakers, the crisis offered new opportunities to reorganize the Mexican economy...
...Powerful economic groups chose to license foreign tech- nology or invite foreign capital to Mexico as partners rather than develop their own organizations or techno- logical capacity...
...The new Mexico is firmly anchored in the half-truths that describe the ills of the old society...
...An enormous number of workers will be displaced from traditional agricultural activitiesand basic consumer goods industries.' The public sector will be less capable of insulating the majority from the impact of recession and price fluctuations abroad...
...the program also calls for a food distribution program targeted to the 22% of the population with dire nutritional deficiencies...
...but erroneous assumptions about the nature of the development process...
...For a revealing discussion of this conflict, see Rolando Cordera and Carlos Tello, M6xico: La disputa para la nacidn, (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1983...
...Especially disappointing was the automobile program...
...NACLA's many publications on Mexican and Latin American industrialization strategies reflect this approach, as do many writings in Latin American Perspectives...
...In today's world of international development pundits, we would make a great stride forward by recognizing that at least part of the solution must come from allowing the majority of those not actually incorporated into the modem world to eke out a living on their own terms rather than subjugating them to a system that finds even their oppression too expensive...
...We are told that government excesses brought the nation to its knees...
...4 But basic food crops were not the only seeds being planted...
...Even if the world economy were tocontinue to afford spectacu- lar rates of growth in both of these sectors, they cannot guarantee any place for displaced producers and their families...
...7, No...
...Second, policymakers assumed that, once given control of some land...
...Through 1977, the richest fifth of Mexican families con- trolled more than 559 of the nation's income.'' In spite of a nationalistic discourse...
...The real value of the minimum wage ha...
...New technologies and labor processes increased productivity and profits...
...I call this the "war economy," derived from the literature on the successful organization of civilians in the U.K...
...About Face This article is based on the analysis presented in my recent book Distorted Development: Mexico in the world economy, (Boulder: Westview, 1990...
...In conditions of progressive impoverishment...
...In fact, the crisis is the product of more than 35 years of successful capitalist development...
...After wresting peasants from their traditional forms of social organidon and production...
...2 The middle classes burgeoned...
...What it does not say is that with these policies, most Mexicans will become irrelevant...
...The leadershipclaims that without these policies...
...At best...
...with incentives...
...3. Secretarfa de Agricultura y Recursos HidrAulicos (SARH), Estadisticas Bdsicas 1960-1986 para la Planeacidn del Desarrollo Rural Integral, (Mexico: SARH, 1986...
...1989...
...The data is now commonly available in many different sources...
...Lack of credit has kept such small-scale producers from attempting to modernize in order to compete...
...By focusing on food self-sufficiency as the point of departure, the strategy identifies a sector where import substitution would be relativelv inexoensive...
...Many farmers now plant only enough for their own consumption...
...and peasants...
...4. An excellent summary in English of the transformation of Mexican agriculture is Gustavo Esteva (coord...
...in helping alleviate the crisis for their families and for the nation as a whole...
...The key is the reincorporation of large numbers of workers and peasants into productive life with adequate incomes to facilitate a collective attack on social problems...
...The in- creased incomes and higher employment levels generated by such a program would have a dramatic impact: one simulation estimated that absolute poverty would decline by 27% to 30 million people, a reduction of I I million of those now living below the poverty line...
...But by strengthening the internal market for locally-produced goods...
...The unpopular president was forced to devalue the peso and suspend payments on the debt...
...Canada...
...With minimum wages below those prevailing in the sweat shops of the four "Asian tigers" (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea), the maquila industry (in-bond assembly plants) took off and the big thret automobile giants decided that Mexico could become i major player...
...With the discovery of oil in 1978, Mexico once again was able to postpone the impending crisis...
...7. Secretaria de Programaci6n y Presupuesto (SPP), Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, Geograffae Informritica (INEGI), Estadisticas Historicas deMixico, 2 vols., (Mexico: SPP, INEGI, 1985...
...Wages for many organized workers in transnational corporations, and even in some parts of the maquila industry, might not be affected by this proposal since their workers already earn substantially more than twice the minimum wage...
...Rather than toss them off as flotsam, rejecting their humanity and destroy- ing them as the residue of industrial progress...
...center, upper and lower right: Oaxaca, Mexico A renewed emphasis on food self-sufficiency could revivc improved the living standard of farmers and their hired hands...
...A controversial decision to allow IBM to construct a whollyowned computer factory set the pattern for future developments...
...reduc ing some marginal rates and greatly broadening the ta...
...As a consequence, Mexico spent billions of dollars to import foodstuffs that could have been produced domestically...
...if not owned...
...46.7% above the observed 1986 level.20 The "Mexican miracle" that successfully brought millions into the modem era disintegrated intoamorass of debt-fueled crisis...
...instead they were obliged to congregate in the over- crowded slums or migrate to the United States...
...which had already begun with the sharp reduction o tariffs and other import barriers...
...then they must find some new way to survive...
...employs even fewer...
...Policy makers argue these changes are healthy because they will make a greater range of consumer goods available more economically...
...Government incentives stimulated fruit and vegetable output for export...
...existing policies condemn these sizable groups to marginality...
...The first of these is available on diskette from Centro de Ecodesarrollo, Apdo...
...foreign capital and transnational firms were accepted as essential ingredients in the development process...
...5. SARH, Estadisticas Bdsicas 1960-1986...
...Mexico will not be able to modernize its productive structure...
...an official decree to double the real minimum wage, restoring the purchasing power of 1980, would raise wages of many workers in the urban economy.'" Together...
...A different type of strategy could wrest Mexico from the throes of its deepening economic crisis without re- versing the move towards international integration...
...Mexico, one of seven countriesof "megabiodiversity" in the world (along with Australia, Brazil...
...at worst, to misery and extinction...
...these two policy packages do not require any significant modifications in the export-based agricultural and indusaial development and offshore assembly schemes that are the cornerstone package of present policy...
...The orthodox development schemes being contemplated offer bleak prospects for redressing decades of abuse and neglect...
...and ecological crisis.'" In spite of its successes, the economic strategy was based on several fundamental...
...Consumos Aparentes de Productos Agricolas, 1925-1982," in Econoticnica Agricola, Vol...
...6. Fora discussion of the development of commercial agriculture in Mexico and its relation to the international market see Steven Sanderson, The Transformation ofMexican Agriculture, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988...
...policy-makers blithely assumed that the many basic goods and services industries requiring large or risky investments-which the state itself undertook-would eventually become competitive in international markets...
...computers...
...M EXICO SEEMED TO HAVE BECOME A STELlar example of balanced capitalist development, with a partnership between national and foreign capital forging a modern nation capable of shedding its cloak of backwardness.' The rich prospered as never before, real wages for urban workers increased continually, and rising agricultural productivity and stable prices for basic foods REAL MINIMUM WAGE 1934-1990 20 15 10 5 10 0 o 0 0 0 1934 1940 1946 1952 1958 1964 1970 1976 1982 1988 Source: Comisi6n Nacional del Salrio mimom internal woridg documents VOLUME XXIV, NUMBER 6 (MAY 1991) ;-- i- i - : -i - - -I i"i: - i -- , Ii 31upper left: California...
...and 3) to undertake a massive program to regain food self-sufficiency...
...I suggest that they can survive, maybe even flourish, in a world organized by themselves in symbiosis with modernity...
...Rather than doing so, Mexico's integration into the world market is systematically closing off opportunities, excluding people, and polarizing society, while it offers opportunities for enrichment (licit and not) to a privileged few...
...The increase would have to be regularly revised to preserve the new, higher level...
...It will intensify specialized production in fragile ecosystems, as well as accelerate the deterioration of health and safety conditions in industrial settings...
...I disagree...
...Feed crops (sorghum and soya) to supply new factory-style production systems for poultry and hogs rapidly displaced staple food crops in some of the most productive regions...
...Negotiations with the GAIT secretaria were renewed, and in 1986 Mexico formally undertook i commitment to liberalize its trading system...
...1991, pp...
...recession has already been blamed for tens of thou- sands of layoffs...
...8. Rhys Jenkins provides a comprehensive evaluation of the automobile strategy for import substitution industrialization in Transnational Corporations and the Latin American Automobile industry, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1986...
...rather than rational small-scale farmers requiring capital and new technology...
...First, the new productive structure was oriented toward supplying those commodi- ties consumed by a small group of wealthy people at the time these policies were formulated...
...by transnational firms...
...lower left: Mexico City...
...Restrictions on foreign investment were relaxed...
...Income linkages within Mexico would spread benefits among all groups...
...Even the government would be better off: the budget deficit would be 10% less than in 1986 and the trade surplus would be substantially higher...
...income and wealth became extremely concentrated...
...it also offers a concrete strategy for reversing this trend (Blanca SuArez and David Barkin, Porcicultura, producci6n de traspatio-otra alternativa, (Mexico: Centro de Ecodesarrollo, 1990...
...more of Mexico's people still depend on agriculture than industry...
...The end to food self-sufficiency in the late 1960s was testimony to the emerging rural crisis and the polarization of agriculture, while balance of payments deficits evidenced the failure of the industrialization program to build a solid foundation for future growth...
...more than a monu- mental waste of foreign exchange on food imports...
...2 As in the past, government largess replaced serious attempts to attack the underlying problems of the development strategy...
...For more details about the impacts of the proposal see the last chapter of my book and the work by Irma Adelman and Edward Taylor, summarized in "Is structural adjustment with a human face possible...
...hut failed 10 provide employ- Free Trade ment for the large numbers of new entrants into the labor force...
...1983...
...Consumer goods imports increased 90% faster than all imports during the last 15 years...
...1991...
...This is not a plea to protect the "noble savage" or to recreate the cooperative indigenous farming village of yore...
...they could not be sent back home, nor could they continue to be supplied with public services...
...This is the single best source of historical statistics on Mexico...
...basic food production grew at almost 6% a year from 1940 to 1965.3 By the early 1960s, the president could boast that Mexico had become self-sufficient in basic food crops, supplying a rapidly growing, predominantly urban population with important improvements in nutritional levels...
...New technologies led to the salinization of lands, erosion, deforestation, degradation of the quality of underground water supplies, and the poisoning of workers and foods with insecticides...
...declined about 60% since 1976...
...M EXICO'S INTEGRATION INTO THE FREE trade area appears inevitable...
...the poorest 20% of the population only received 4% of total personal income, even after including the value of their own housing and the food they produced for themselves...
...The destruction of the peasantry, which still accounts for one-quarter of the labor force...
...If they cannot compete...
...Educational and medical services were incomparably greater...
...base...
...Mexico is much larger than the four Asian tigers combined...
...household appliances and other consumer durables became important during the next decade...
...They are sanguine, however, that in the long run the Mexican economy will be in a better position to pull the country out from under- development...
...This was a remarkable achievement, a testimony to the potential of peasant farmers...
...86-108...
...54 (1987...
...The case of Mexico," Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics Working Paper 500, Dept...
...The model's success depends on the continued dynamism of the economies of the advanced industrial countries and on a massive inflow of foreign investment to stimulate export production-none of which can be controlled by the Mexican government...
...Public investment and spending on social service...
...The new model of outward-looking economic devel- opment implanted during the past decade represents a significant shift in priorities...
...9 (Sept...
...The massive distribution of land thrust the country toward food self-sufficiency and enabled the rural economy to finance a lengthy process of industrialization via import substitution...
...see especially, World Bank, World Development Report for 1980...
...The program need not be as inflationary as it might appear at first...
...the former peasants were then thrust into the comers of Mexican society-marginalized, as Mexicans express it...
...the new society was unable to offer them productive jobs...
...Planners hoped that by the mid- 1970s more than three quarters of the value of new cars would be produced in the country...
...There have been efforts among unionized and non-union workers, peasants and different groups within the society to organize against the decline in real wages, the cutbacks in public services, and the privatization of basic industries...
...Finally...
...Imported technological models and lack of any serious regulation initiated a serious process of environmental deterioration...
Vol. 24 • May 1991 • No. 6
