NAFTA's Road to Ruin: The Decline of the Mexican Social Compact, Part II: Introduction

...socio-political program that has cut back on social pro- “People live defensively,” comments labor leader tections, removed barriers to the flows of transnational Benedicto Martínez in an interview with NACLA, capital, and, most importantly, denied the possibility of “trying to figure out how to earn enough to live on, a social compact in a world of individuals, all “freely” how to complement their wages...

...the h t compact” social “ of his Mexico’ is the s second of two re — ports a t o i n s, the unders decline - those farmers out of business...

...creasingly militarized, and the military itself has been For a majority of Mexicans, many who have left the strengthened...

...That’s what we have munications sector, and making labor markets more here as well...

...We have a situation now where these big compawill draw more foreign investment to the country by nies blackmail workers in various countries...

...Echoing Gómez Tapursuing their own self-interest...

...Part II focuses on neoliberalism, embodied in the a less favorable position to make decisions regarding North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), as a their resources...

...The official description of the SPP states that it preneurs and workers alike find themselves enmeshed is “based on the principle that our prosperity is depenin a web of global relationships that seem to be beyond dent on our security...

...flexible,” i.e., breaking what’s left of independent Ominously, in order to effectively defend the regime union power and doing away with as many labor pro- of investors’ rights, the Mexican state has become intections as possible...

...In market relationships, as we know, “NAFTA on steroids...

...11 11...

...They say privatizing as much of the energy sector as possible to workers in the United States, for example, if you (see cartoonist El Fisgón’s contribution to this Report), don’t accept the conditions we are offering you, we will breaking up the private near-monopoly of the telecom- simply move to another country...

...all of upshot the s what’ And tanding among citizens and the state that they happened...

...This, she argues, is because cisocial actors to place themselves above or outside the tizens “know that their governments are generally in law...

...And this is what has are bound by ties of mutual support and by networks tells us that the globalization of de facto power has led of social solidarity...

...Mexicans and other Latin Amesome economic actors are “more equal” than others, ricans, Carlsen says, have learned that adopting the and in the NAFTA relationship, as Sergio Zermeño U.S.-promoted neoliberal economic model—with its reminds us, “the very low subsidized prices of U.S...

...And so we get the fall in prices for staple goods produced [in Mexico] by whole package: Military policy enforces as free trade small- and medium-size farmers, and essentially drive policies exclude and divide...

...Its advocates in Mexico hope that it us...

...Its unofficial description might be their control...

...Part I examined the threat to the to a decline of “political citizenship” and the rise of a social compact posed by the persistence of impunity— political culture “characterized by widespread apathy the practice of Mexican politicians, elites, and other and disappointment...

...SEPTEMBER / OCTOBER 2008 report: mexico ii Introduction NAFTA’s Road to Ruin: The Decline of the Mexican Social Compact, Part II T agle T Gómez Silvia this...

...Laura Carlsen reports on the Security country in order to support their families and com- and Prosperity Partnership, negotiated by the premunities back home, the policy of free trade has been sidents of the United States, Mexico, and Canada in nothing short of ruinous...

...gle’s call for a more active civil society, he argues that Neoliberalism reflects a utopian belief in a single the situation can only be challenged from the grass world economy in which the most important actors roots, and that the grass roots must be transnational...

...I are sovereign private investors, unregulated by any think that’s the only alternative we really have,” he tells sovereign states...

...economic displacement and social cutbacks—comes agricultural output were meant only to influence the with a necessary degree of force...

...Increasingly, Mexican entre- 2005...