Poor Mexico, So Far From Heaven, So Close to the USA.
September 2nd, 2010
Research into the Mexican Economy has led me to conclude that neo-liberalism has brought about major disruptions in the rural agricultural population of Mexico. The Mexican economy since the end of the protectionist Import Substitution Program in the 1980's and the advent of neo-liberal reforms, the Mexican economy has become increasingly linked to that of the United States. This has been particularly true since the NAFTA treaty was negotiated.
This is how the Mexican Economy breaks down.
From Wikipedia article on Economy of Mexico
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Mexico
"Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in purchasing power parity (PPP) in 2006 was estimated at US $1.134 trillion, and GDP per capita in PPP at US $10,600.[9] The service sector is the largest component of GDP at 70.5%, followed by the industrial sector at 25.7% (2006 est.). Agriculture represents only 3.9% of GDP (2006 est.). Mexican labor force is estimated at 38 million of which 18% is occupied in agriculture, 24% in the industry sector and 58% in the service sector (2003 est.)."
The interesting thing here is that 18% of the labor force is in agriculture while in developed nations such as the USA there is only 2-5% of the population in Agriculture.
Ibid
"In spite of being a staple in the Mexican diet, Mexico's comparative advantage in agriculture is not in corn, but in horticulture, tropical fruits, and vegetables. Negotiators of NAFTA expected that through liberalization and mechanization of agriculture two-thirds of Mexican corn producers would naturally shift from corn production to horticultural and other labor-intensive crops such as fruits, nuts, vegetables, coffee and sugar cane. While horticultural trade has drastically increased due to NAFTA, it has not absorbed displaced workers from corn production (estimated at around 600,000). Moreover, corn production has remained stable (at 20 million metric tons), arguably, as a result of income support to farmers, or a reluctance to abandon a millenarian tradition in Mexico: not only have peasants grown corn for millennia, corn originated in Mexico. Even today, Mexico is still the fourth largest corn producer in the world."
Corn is a staple in the native culture and among the poor people of Mexico it is part of their cultural identity.
Ibid
"After the Mexican Revolution Mexico began an agrarian reform, based on the 27th article of the Mexican Constitution than included transfer of land and/or free land distribution to peasants and small farmers under the concept of the ejido. This program was further extended during president Cárdenas administration during the 1930s and continued into the 1960s at varying rates. The cooperative agrarian reform, which guaranteed small farmers a means of subsistence livelihood, also caused land fragmentation and lack of capital investment, since commonly held land could not be used as collateral. In an effort to raise rural productivity and living standards, this constitutional article was amended in 1992 to allow for the transfer of property rights of the communal lands to farmers cultivating it. With the ability to rent or sell it, a way was open for the creation of larger farms and the advantages of economies of scale. Large mechanized farms are now operating in some northeastern states (mainly in Sinaloa). However, privatization of ejidos continues to be very slow in the central and southern states where the great majority of peasants produce only for subsistence."
This is part of the neo-liberal plan to divest the small farmers and peasantry of their land. By privatizing communal lands only the most aggressive agriculturalists will succeed driving more peasants off the land.
Ibid
"Up until the 1990s, the government encouraged the production of basic crops (mainly corn and beans) by maintaining support prices and controlling imports through the National Company for Popular Subsistence (CONASUPO). With trade liberalization, however, CONASUPO was to be gradually dismantled and two new mechanisms were implemented: Alianza and Procampo. Alianza provides income payments and incentives for mechanization and advanced irrigation systems. Procampo is an income transfer subsidy to farmers. This support program provides 3.5 million farmers who produce basic commodities (mostly corn), and which represent 64% of all farmers, with a fixed income transfer payment per unit of area of cropland. This subsidy increased substantially during president Fox's administration, mainly to white corn producers in order to reduce the amount of imports from the United States. This program has been successful, and in 2004, roughly only 15% of corn imports are white corn –the one used for human consumption and the type that is mostly grown in Mexico– as opposed to 85% of yellow and crashed corn –the one use for feeding livestock, and which is barely produced in Mexico."
There has been a concerted effort to separate the Mexican peasantry from the land since the early 1990's. This is done through land reform law change making it easier to privatize formerly collective land and through NAFTA driving farmers off the land and into the cities.
This is from a research paper on the Effect of American corn subsidies. From Prospect Magazine UCSD
http://prospectjournal.ucsd.edu/index.php/2010/04/nafta-and-u-s-corn-subsidies-explaining-the-displacement-of-mexicos-corn-farmers/comment-page-1/#comment-2496
"Nevertheless, it is evident that by lowering both the domestic price of corn and employment levels of corn farmers, federal subsidies for American corn are primarily responsible for the post-NAFTA rural to urban migration of Mexico's corn farmers."
This is from a website on Mexican Law
http://www.mexicolaw.com/LawInfo02.htm
"Dis-Incorporation of "Ejidos". The present day Agrarian Law (February 26, 1992) foresees, in its transitory article 8th (at the end of the law), the ability of the "ejido" to decide not to continue to be an "ejido" by choosing a dis-incorporation process.
Now days there exists the possibility of dis-incorporation of ejidos via a specialized process through the Federal Mexico Agrarian Attorney Generalship ("Procuraduría Federal de la Reforma Agraria"). The "ejido" as a communal group must approve it in an extraordinary assembly meeting of all of the "ejido" members and request the mentioned office of government to process the dis-incorporation. Once the dis-incorporation process is complete, the National Agrarian Registry is informed and its makes note that that land is no longer subject to the agrarian restricted "ejido" regime. As well, the completed dis-incorporated land has it's registry at the National Agrarian Registry closed/canceled and is then registered at the local Public Registry of Property corresponding to the location of the land. Even when the dis-incorporation is completed, there are still other issues to address, such as first right of refusal to the other members of the Ejido (and family members / possessors of the lot) prior to selling the resulting privately held land to third parties and to not sell the lot for less than the official state price."
The separation of peasantry from the land causes immigration to the cities for work. As noted above most of the Mexican economy is in the service sector and to a lesser extent in the manufacturing sector. There is a large population in the agricultural sector that is partially subsidized by the government. But these subsidies are not enough. Also they create a dependency upon the political process coming out of Mexico City and the local political boss.
The NAFTA argument is that the rural workers would be absorbed by the increased jobs in the Mexican manufacturing sector has only partially been borne out. With some 40 million workers in Mexico and with about an additional 11 million emigrating to the USA to find work that means close to one out of 5 Mexican workers is forced to seek employment in the USA due to a lack of opportunities in Mexico. Most of these immigrants are from the poor agricultural states.
With the downturn in the economy and with Mexico now an export dependent nation with some 80-90% of the exports going to the United States, that makes them extremely dependent on the American economy. When the US economy went into recession, that drove the Mexican economy down. That leads to a drop in demand for immigrants from the south to add to the American work force. See below.
This from the PEW Hispanic Center
"9.1.2010
U.S. Unauthorized Immigration Flows Are Down Sharply Since Mid-Decade
The annual inflow of unauthorized immigrants to the U.S. was nearly two-thirds smaller in the March 2007 to March 2009 period than it had been from March 2000 to March 2005, according to new estimates by the Pew Hispanic Center. This decline contributed to an overall 8% reduction in the unauthorized immigrant population, which fell to 11.1 million in 2009 from 12 million in 2007. By region of origin, the population of unauthorized immigrants from Latin American countries other than Mexico has declined most markedly. By U.S. region, the decrease in the unauthorized immigrant population has been especially notable along the nation's Southeast coast and in its Mountain West."
And this
"7.22.2009
Mexican Immigrants: How Many Come? How Many Leave?
By Jeffrey Passel and D'Vera Cohn
Report Materials
Updated July 22, 2009
The flow of immigrants from Mexico to the United States has declined sharply since mid-decade, but there is no evidence of an increase during this period in the number of Mexican-born migrants returning home from the U.S., according to a new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center of government data from both countries.
The Mexican-born population in the U.S., which had been growing earlier in the decade, was 11.5 million in early 2009. That figure is not significantly different from the 11.6 million Mexican immigrants in 2008 or the 11.2 million in 2007.
The current recession has had a harsh impact on employment of Latino immigrants, raising the question of whether an increased number of Mexican-born residents are choosing to return home. This new Hispanic Center analysis finds no support for that hypothesis in government data from the United States or Mexico.
Mexico is by far the leading country of origin for U.S. immigrants, accounting for a third (32%) of all foreign-born residents and two-thirds (66%) of Hispanic immigrants. The U.S. is the destination for nearly all people who leave Mexico, and about one-in-ten people born there currently lives in the U.S.
Data from population surveys taken in the U.S. and Mexico indicate that in recent years there has been a large flow of migrants back to Mexico, but the size of the annual return flow appears to be stable since 2006. Mexico's National Survey of Employment and Occupation estimates that 433,000 Mexican migrants returned home from February 2008 to February 2009. For the same period in 2007-2008, 440,000 did, compared with an estimated 479,000 from February 2006 to February 2007.
As for immigration to the U.S. from Mexico, data from several sources attest to recent substantial decreases in the number of new arrivals.
The inflow began to diminish in mid-decade, and has continued to do so through early 2009, according to an analysis of the latest available population surveys from both countries. This finding is reinforced by data from the U.S. Border Patrol showing that apprehensions of Mexicans attempting to cross illegally into the United States decreased by a third between 2006 and 2008."
That leaves us with the question where do all these unemployed Mexicans go? They are not needed in the USA, the borders are harder to cross and there is not enough manufacturing in Mexico for all the excess population. What is the result? Social unrest especially as we see it in the growth of the illicit drug trade and an increase in drug violence as more and more players enter and try to make a living off of the American demand for illicit drugs.
See Kansas City Star article
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/08/30/2188270/mexicos-drug-problems-are-ours.html
For a more in depth report see Council of Foreign Relations on Mexican Drug Wars
http://www.cfr.org/publication/13689/mexicos_drug_war.html
President Calderon touting drug war success.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/09/02/mexico.calderon.speech/#fbid=4TQBDgMPmTq&wom=false
There is also an uptick in radical activity. The well known Zapatista revolt in Chiapas was timed to coincide with the initiation of NAFTA in 1994. It was seen as a direct assault on the livelihoods of the poor peasantry of Chiapas.
See Zapatista site
http://www.zapatistarevolution.com/
The Oaxaca rebellion of 2006 initially started as a teachers strike for better conditions evolved into a people's take over of the capital of the province.
From Libcom
http://libcom.org/history/looking-back-oaxaca-rebellion
From Anarkismo
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/8457
More info from Workers World about resistance to NAFTA
http://www.workers.org/2008/world/mexico_0214/
This from an article at Indigenous Portal on the effects of the recession on Mexicans.
http://www.indigenousportal.com/Politics/As-Mexico%E2%80%99s-Problems-Mount-The-Impact-of-the-Economic-Recession-on-Migration-Patterns-from-Mexico.html
" According to London's Latin News Daily, "Mexico would be unable to cope with a mass return of migrant workers. For one, unemployment figures would rise at a much faster pace and any further social unrest on the back of this could destabilise the government.""
Mexico is a pressure cooker and with its economy so linked with the USA the old saying is more true than ever before. For those of us who are hoping for a social revolution perhaps we can look to the south of the border for hope. Certainly many social movements are gathering steam in Latin America.
As the saying goes…
"Poor Mexico, so far from heaven, and so close the the United States."
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