Waiting for Amlo

Because of bad weather, a famous German writer once remarked, German revolution took place in music. Mexico was not as lucky. It had lots of sun-and even has a sol azteca-but still had a revolution, albeit one of which little remains but documents, films, corridas, museum pieces, names, monuments, and what is generally referred to as myth. Even famous ejido system is on brink of going out. Privatization of electricity and oil are to follow if everything goes according to magicians of Foxipanismo. That government at times still makes concessions against its will is due to fear that local and foreign press will attack a nondemocracy that is trying desperately to sell its image of a transition to democracy. This has been well demonstrated by debacle surrounding a potential new airport near Atenco (see account in these pages by John Stolle-McAllister). Giving in to ejido pressures and not building new airport was obviously meant to be understood by population at large as a sign from so-called transition government that country really had arrived at democracy. The new government continually tries to sell democracy, transition, and transparency, but with its 80,000 multimillionaires (obviously in U.S. dollars and not in pesos!) and 50 million impoverished country is embarking on a dangerous neoliberal course that at times even smells of a rebirth of Porfiriato. Mexico remains a country that exports its poor to North to receive payment from them via infamous remittances (together with oil and tourism certainly its largest revenue source). At same time it sells more and more of its once nationalized raw materials to multinational companies. This process even started long before neoliberal orientations of present government. Despite Cardenista nationalization of oil in 1938, other resources were not nationalized until quite late in past century, as Ratil Delgado Wise and Rub6n del Pozo Mendoza argue in their article on mining. But, given Chinese pressure, one may well wonder when this is going to change. Competing with China for lower and lower wages, maquiladora system has been moved to South (see article by Marie France Labrecque). In short, as StolleMcAllister writes, the fundamental structures of inequality and vertical control remain untouched, making a viable democracy unlikely

Business · Political science · International Relations in Latin America

• Asĺ No (Not Like This)

  Open Access•Ben A Gerlofs•International Journal of Urban…•2018

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