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Re: NAFTA, Capitalism and Alternatives, VII
According to Harry M. Cleaver:
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> Wyeth: A number of things. First, can't we drop formalities in this
> all-so-informal-cyberspace and use first names?
Sorry, Harry. I'm only 21, so I've got that whole respect for elders thing
ingrained in me :)
[in the interests of space, I have deleted some of the socialist, state
capitialist, neoliberal debate]
I want to get away from the terms we've used here. Socialism, state capitalism,
and neoliberalism all belong to the Cold War Era, and there continued use here
is not only inaccurate, but they prompt some to cry foul and contend that these
lists are formula for tired leftist ideology.
Similarly, I don't want to try and extrapolate the Zapatistas into a worldwide
indictment of capitalism. This makes as much sense as trying to laud Salinas
as a model of third world development. I think the Mexican reality is too
complex and idiosyncratic for these kinds of generalizations to be made.
As a starting point for my argument, I would like to propose that the PRI
and the Zapatistas are locked in a struggle between "autocratic capitalism"
and "democratic capitalism."
> "Neoliberalism" is a
> particular strategy/ideology pursued by capitalist policy makers in this
> period, as in Mexico. It differs from past strategies/ideologies, such as
> import-substituting development, or Keynesianism, for example.
> Neoliberalism as a strategy looks to the market to discipline the working
> class, waged (industrial, services, agriculture) and unwaged (peasants,
> students, housewives), and as an ideology it justifies the strategy with
> appeals to so-called New Classical economic arguments (which are
> really recyled old classical theories) about free markets, the virtues of
> competition, the bankrupty of state planning, etc. So "neoliberalism" is
> indeed a "variation" on the theme of capitalism, in the sense that it is
> a strategy/justification for a certain kind of management of capitalism.
> I can not even imagine an advocate of "neoliberalism" who would deny that
> the system to be managed by neoliberal policies is capitalist. Fourth, I
> believe that when I spoke of tweedledee and tweedledum I was NOT refering
> to the choice between socialism and capitalism, but between political
> candidates in Peru! What I HAVE argued is that the concept of "socialism"
> which many have fought for in Latin America has never been extricated
> from capitalism, and thus its pursuit has been well-intentioned but
> missdirected. Elsewhere (in an essay on "Socialism" in Wolfgang Sach (ed)
> THE DEVELOPMENT DICTIONARY, London: Zed, 1992) I have argued at length as
> to why I think "socialism" should be abandoned as a conceptual point of
> departure for thinking about transcending capitalism, so I won't repeat
> those arguments here.
>
The socialist vs neoliberal debate can be boiled down into the following
question--
Who can best allocate resources in order to stimulate economic growth,
the state or the market?
The Mexican experience has proven that the state can NOT be trusted to
allocate resources, either to promote growth or ensure social justice.
The PRI's brand of "autocratic capitalism" imposed by an elite clique
in Mexico City is not true neoliberal reform. You don't privatize an
economy merely by selling parastatals to your friends. That only replaces
a public monopoly with a private one (although it did wonders for Salinas'
bank account, that is not true economic reform) Similarly, NAFTA is not
purely free trade because it is full of loopholes designed to benefit
Salinas' friends.
The answer is not to chuck the entire economic system and find something else
The answer is to take the political power out of the hands of the few, and
make the state accountable for its economic programs.
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> > Similarly, I think the Zapatistas' demands are more political than they are
> > economic. The Zapatistas are not merely demanding economic relief from the
> > government. If that were the case, then the Top-down Mexican state would
> > have been able to buy them off with some economic concessions. The PRI
> > has been able to buy off dissent for years with any number of tightly
> > controlled state-run ventures, PRONASOL was the most recent and most
> > extrvagant.
> >
> > What the Zapatistas want is for their voices to be included in the economic
> > decision making process. The Zapatistas and the Mexican people are fed up
> > with having their economic well-being dictated by a handful of technocrats
> > at SPP, PRONASOL, and Hacienda. I don't think the Zapatistas are arguing
> > that capitalism is evil, I think they are demanding a place at the table
> > that has been denied them during years of neoliberal reform that has been
> > controlled exclusively at the federal level.
> >
>
> Wyeth: As I think your argument shows, against itself, that it is a
> mistake to separate the economic from the political, and the Zapatistas
> haven't done that. They have been quite articulate in their denunciation
> of both the lack of democracy in Mexico AND the exploitation and
> suffering which the authoritarian regime has been managing for its own
> benefit. When you talk about the PRI buying off the opposition you are
> talking about not just politics but economics. About the managerial
> structure of the economy, from the Minister of Finance down to the
> caciques, from the Central Bank to the drug trade. As for whether the
> Zapatistas have a critique of capitalism, well, I would recommend that
> you read the piece that Marcos penned in 1992 called "Chiapas: The
> Southeast in Two Winds" as well as other writings with equally articulate
> critiques of the way capitalism has sucked the blood from the human and
> natural veins of Chiapas. And as I said in an earlier exchange (#IV of
> this thread), I have found no evidence that Marcos has either called for
> or envisioned somekind of "capitalism with a human face" that might be
> constructed by reforming its present organization. I also fail to see
> any evidence whatsoever to support your assertion that the Zapatistas want
> "a place at the table", i.e., to share power with the present ruling
> class. I think you must be confusing them with so-called opposition
> political parties like the PRD which definately wants a place at the
> table, just like the PAN. The Zapatistas have been absolutely clear that
> they want a completely new table, not a place at the current one. That
> is why they called for grassroots discussions aimed at rewriting the
> Mexican constitution and then organized the first CND at Aguacalientes
> --now destroyed by the Mexican government precisely because they could
> see in even its material bones, the shadow of a future "table" to which
> they would not be invited. One of the ways economics and politics are
> inseparable is that the PRI "buys" people off not only through money but
> through their incorporation into the structure of political power. The
> Zapatistas have refused both Faustian pacts.
>
Harry: I'm sorry if my argument has been unclear. I am not divorcing the
economic from the political. The co-optation practiced by the PRI has been
economic as well as political. I was wrong to say that the Zapatistas merely
want a voice in the process or a place at the table. The current crisis will
not be solved by the creation of a Bureau of Zapatista Affairs in Mexico City.
What I meant to say was that the Zapatistas want CONTROL over their economic
livelihood. In the past, those sectors of the Mexican economy hurt by reforms
have been given economic and political concession instituted from the top.
The neoliberal reforms begun with the 1982 debt crisis have further centralized
the Mexican economy. Now the Zapatistas are fed up with it. They want local
autonomy, local control over the economy.
The table that the Zapatistas are trying to overturn is not capitalism, it
is the autocratic rule the PRI has over the economy. This is why the PRI views
the Zapatistas as a mortal threat, and past attempts to co-opt them have failed.Decentralization of the economic and political hierarchy in Mexico will be
lethal to the PRI.
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> Wyeth: You know, there is, and there is not, class warfare in the
> Lacondon Jungle, as elsewhere in Mexico. I would say that the Mexican
> state is definately waging class war to coerce everyone who is currently
> in revolt and not behaving properly back into the subservient role of
> "worker". I think the Mexican government understands that very well. Just
> as outside advisors such as Riodan Roett (once of Chase Manhattan Bank)
> understand. In his infamous report calling for the "elimination" of the
> Zapatistas, Roett did not hesitate to speak of the "Mexican working
> class" and to raise the issue of how much they could be squeezed to solve
> the crisis of debt and credibility. On the other hand, those who are in
> revolt are, precisely because of their revolt and because of their
> attempts to construct alternative ways of being, more than "workers" or
> "campesinos". In their revolt they transfigure themselves. They
> transcend their status of "working class" to become many things, many
> self-defined things. As their subjectivity escapes the dynamics of the
> accumulation of capital, so do they escape "class", and their
> struggles become more than "class struggle". But to see this and then
> interpret this powerful and exciting movement as a mere demand for a
> "voice" in a tragic opera scripted and orchestrated by others, is to miss
> the real drama of what is at stake. The Zapatista revolt has reverberated
> around the globe because their actions (forceful resistance to repressive
> capitalist policies) and their words (giving voice to not only their
> rejection of current policies but also to their desires for radical
> alternatives) have expressed the needs and desires of people all over the
> world, not merely in Chiapas. They HAVE a "voice", Wyeth, and it is one
> that is being listened to and answered far beyond Mexico.
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>
My point is that this "transfiguration" you speak of is not mutually exclusive
with capitalism. And I am not advocating "capitalism with a human face either." PRONASOL was an example of capitalism with a human face, but it failed because
it was orchestrated by the federal government as an attempt to co-opt the
political opposition. (note the heavy spending in PRD areas of Michoacan and
Chiapas) Similarly, "socialism with a human face," a la Gorbachev, failed
because it too was imposed from the top down by a party that was more interested
in remaining in power than in genuine reform.
Only through a decentralization of both economic and political power can Mexico
successfully negotiate it current crisis.
--
A. Wyeth Ruthven
5 Rogers, Newcomb Hall Station
Charlottesville, VA 22904
awr2k@Virginia.edu
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