In Oaxaca these days, AMLO declared that Mexico's ills of insecurity are a product of "the rotten fruit of a 27-year policy of predatory and speculative capitalism." Why 1983 was chosen as a cut-off year is not clear. Yes, that's when the first major neoliberal reforms under Miguel de Madrid started kicking in, but clearly Mexico's capitalist system had some deep structural flaws before then. Does AMLO really want to return to the era of extremely corrupt, overprotected, and bloated companies - whether they were private monopolies, as many of them were, or parastatal companies - of the preceding era? Is this what we might expect for economic program, should he win in 2012? State or private, Mexican industry was heavily overprotected through tariffs and import barriers yet consumers paid the cost, and corrupt and PRI unions delivered much of the votes to the governing party, in return for fat handouts to the privileged with a PRI-approved union card. This is not forward looking, but extremely backward looking and hence, conservative.
Hard to resist touching upon a minor yet noteworthy tidbit: AMLO's new book has seemingly gotten a reading from none else than Fidel Castro, who praised it and its author: "[AMLO] will be the person with most political and moral authority in Mexico when the system collapses, and with it the Empire." Castro deemed the book "a valiant and irrefutable denunciation."
This is hardly the endorsement AMLO needs if he is to break away from his hardcore base.
No comments:
Post a Comment