Gerardo Otero

Mexico's Second Agrarian Reform: Household and Community Responses

In 1990, Mexicos Ministry of Agriculture and CEPAL conducted an extensive nationwide survey of the ejido sector, giving a detailed picture of the household-level implications of the ancien regime of state controls, economic subsidies, and institutional support through specialized parastatal firms. To assess the impact of the 1990 rural reforms, Mexicos Ministry of Agrarian Reform and the University of California, Berkeley conducted a follow-up survey on a subset of the ejidos covered in 1990. This book provides a detailed quantitative characterization of the household and community responses to the reforms already in progress. De Janvry, Gordillo, and Sadoulet present and analyze data from two nationwide surveys of Mexican ejidos conducted in 1990 and 1994. Ninety-five tables and figures accompany the texts rich analytical descriptions of conditions in Mexican ejidal households in 1990, prior to the reform of Article 27, and in 1994, soon after the new agrarian codes went into effect. The authors examine a wide range of factors that affect the viability of ejido production activities in a context marked by state withdrawal and market liberalization.

Neoliberalism revisited : economic restructuring and Mexico's political future

* Neoliberal Reform and Politics in Mexico: An Overview Gerardo Otero * NAFTA and the Struggle for Neoliberalism: Mexicos Elusive Quest for First World Status Gustavo del Castillo V * The Debt Crisis and Economic Restructuring: Prospects for Mexican Agriculture Marilyn Gates * From Export-Oriented to Import-Oriented Industrialization: Changes in Mexicos Manufacturing Sector, 19881994 Enrique Dussel Peters * Mexicos Old and New Maquiladora Industries: Contrasting Approaches to North American Integration Gary Gereffi * The Mexican Political Pretransition in Comparative Perspective Iln Semo * The Private Sector and Political Regime Change in Mexico Francisco Valds Ugalde * Economic Restructuring, State-Labor Relations, and the Transformation of Mexican Corporatism Judith Teichman * Democracy for Whom? Womens Grassroots Political Activism in the 1990s, Mexico City and Chiapas Lynn Stephen * Rural Reforms and the Zapatista Rebellion: Chiapas, 19881995 Neil Harvey * Crossing Borders: Labor Internationalism in the Era of NAFTA Barry Carr * Mexicos Economic and Political Futures Gerardo Otero

Global Economy, Local Politics: Indigenous Struggles, Civil Society and Democracy

In this article I critically assess the globalist position which claims that the forces of globalization have fundamentally debilitated nation–states, and that the fate of progressive politics and social movements now depends on the degree and extent of international solidarity and the shaping of a transnational civil society (for example, Beck, 2000; Bronner, 1999; Brysk, 2000; Strange, 1996). Against this globalist, internationalist or cosmopolitan position, I argue that the nation–state continues to be a critical sphere for the imposition of ruling capitalist interests. Likewise, any substantial modification in the economic, political and cultural conditions of subordinate groups, communities and classes will have to be fought and won at this level. While international solidarity will always be welcome, the internationalization of politics, by itself, will not have a substantial impact on the domestic balance of forces. In fact, the main locus of politics should remain local if significant changes in the life chances of subordinate groups, communities and classes are the goal. These subordinate groups will be able to affect domestic state interventions in their favour only to the extent that they constitute themselves politically at the local level. In order to do so, their main challenge may be posited as follows: How can they extract concessions from the state without at the same time being co–opted? Facing this challenge successfully continues to require the construction of democratic organizations for struggle, an accountable leadership and grassroots participation in decision–making.

Neoliberal Globalization, NAFTA, and Migration: Mexico's Loss of Food and Labor Sovereignty

This article explores the way in which Mexicos countryside was affected by the countrys economic integration to its northern neighbors since the start of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Mexicos political technocracy placed its bet for economic growth on the comparative advantage of cheap labor, a losing bet: Mexicos asymmetrical integration into the North American economy, combined with neoliberalism, had a detrimental impact on its food self-sufficiency, its labor sovereignty, and substantially increased its out-migration rates. The article explores the relationship between food self-sufficiency and labor sovereignty in this process. The main thesis is that food self-sufficiency is a condition for a country to enjoy “labor sovereignty”—the ability of each nation to provide with living wages for a vast majority of the population. Of the three NAFTA nations, Mexico is the least self-sufficient, and hence the one that expels the largest rate of migrants.

THE "INDIAN QUESTION" IN LA T IN AMERICA: Class, State, and Ethnic Identity Construction

Edited by Aracely BurgeteCal y Mayor. (Copenhagen: International Work Group for IndigenousAffairs, 2000. Pp. 291.)The purpose of this essay is to assess a group of recent books aboutthe “Indian question” in Latin America. We have witnessed widespreadand vigorous mobilization by indigenous peasantries throughout the

Agrarian crisis and social differentiation in Mexico

This article explores the double crisis of Mexican agriculture: one relating to the capitalist sector, the other to the peasant economy. An analysis of cash crops in contrast with subsistence crops is provided, using production and prices data for the 940–83 period. Then, based on the 1970 census, we present a spectrum of social differentiation of agrarian producers in Mexico which reflects the extent to which the peasant economy had been eroded by that year. By contrasting these data with those of 1960, we illustrate how the middle peasantry tends to disappear.

Food for the Few: The Biotechnology Revolution in Latin America

ABSTRACT This article introduces the main issues raised in biotechnology in Latin American agriculture in the era of neoliberal globalism. We begin by discussing the theoretical concerns regarding biotechnologys “revolutionary” potential, and identifi where empirical work could respond to these concerns. A historical overview of modern agriculture in the United States provides a means to highlight a number of problems that have arisen as a result of this technological paradigm and its transfer to the developing world. These theoretical and historical concerns are then empirically assessed with the help of we studies drawn from the forthcoming book Food for the Few. Most of these cases provide support that the technology is becoming revolutionary in its detrimental social and environmental impacts.

The Coming Revolution of Biotechnology: A Critique of Buttel

Frederick Buttel was one of the pioneers in studying the social impacts of biotechnology, claiming originally that it will involve profound changes in social structure. Recently Buttel turned around his argument proposing that, rather than revolutionary, biotechnology is more a “substitutionist” technological form to be applied to declining sectors of the economy than an “epoch-making” technology. This paper provides both external and internal critiques of Buttels new position based on the concept of the “third technological revolution,” looking at the impact of new technologies as a global and interrelated phenomenon, and not on an individual case-by-case basis. The concluding section suggests the necessity of bringing into the analysis those living in the Third World: 60% of this population lives from agriculture and will be affected by the deployment of agricultural biotechnologies, whether through “substitutionism” or through totally new products.

Is Biotechnology the Answer? The Evidence From NAFTA

S ince genetically modified food crops were first commercialized in the mid1990s, they have been touted as a miracle technology that, if only given the chance, will make deserts bloom and put an end to world poverty. The intensity of these claims is not tempered by the fact that most transgenic crops are unintended for direct human consumption. Grown in large industrial monocultures, transgenic soybeans (which account for two thirds of global biotech food production), corn (one quarter of production), cotton, and canola are sold in volatile global markets as the raw material for cattle feed, agro-fuel, cooking oil, and sweeteners, among other products. Five agrochemical companies—Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, Dow AgroSciences, and the Monsanto Company—dominate the development and production of these products, while their customers are mostly well-capitalized, mediumto large-size farmers looking to mass-produce cash crops. Even though such a crop system is ill-suited to feeding people, last year’s spike in global food prices nonetheless spurred a return to the hopeful industry rhetoric among policy makers and commentators who strongly endorsed transgenic food as a necessary solution to the crisis. World hunger, in this view, can only be eradicated with larger, cheaper, and more efficient crop yields in poor countries, and transgenic crops are said to hold this promise. As one particularly adamant commentator put it recently: “it would be criminal to disregard the hope that biotechnology offers to the world’s most malnourished people.” But to fully answer the question of whether agricultural biotechnology can help solve the food crisis, we must consider its political economy and the differing power relations that rich and poor countries have with it, especially within the context of trade liberalization, privatization, and what we call “neoregulation” (more on this below). The biotechnology revolution of the 1990s was superimposed on the reforms brought about under neoliberal globalism, and in the years since, transgenic crops have inundated both the countryside and supermarkets. They are the flagship technology of agricultural neoliberalism, going hand in glove with free trade agreements. For this reason, the three countries of North America, economically integrated since 1994 under NAFTA, provide a good opportunity to analyze the differential impact that transgenic products have had in nations with varying levels of capitalist development. The contrasts are predictably stark, given that one of these countries, the United States, is the top global biotech farmer, home to more than half the world’s farmland devoted to growing transgenic crops. Three-quarters of publicly traded biotechnology companies are U.S.-based, and U.S. spending on biotechnology research and development, both private and public, is vastly greater than that of any other country. The most prominent U.S.based producer, the Monsanto Company, sold 88% of transgenic seeds in 2004. Clearly, the U.S. biotechnology sector has a significant stake in disseminating transgenic agriculture while maintaining its dominant position in both research and development and in patenting new organisms. Canada, in contrast, invests 1.5% of what the United States does in development and has a much smaller land area dedicated to producing transgenic crops. But as the fourth-highest 27 Is Biotechnology the Answer? The Evidence From NAFTA

Contesting Neoliberal Globalism and NAFTA in Rural Mexico: From State Corporatism to the Political-Cultural Formation of the Peasantry?

Throughout most of the twentieth century, Mexico’s political system was variously described as an authoritarian, one-party-dominant, or semi-democratic regime. Three features of this system stood out and accounted for Mexico’s legendary political stability and solid domination by the ruling party. First, this party had dominated Mexican politics since its foundation in 1929, even though it changed its name twice: from the Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR — National Revolutionary Party), to the Partido de la Revolution Mexicana (PRM — Party of the Mexican Revolution) in 1936, and then to the current name of Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI — Institutionalized Revolutionary Party) in 1946. The PRI finally lost the presidency in 2000, but continues to be a major force in Congress and holds most state governorships. Second, the corporatist nature of the state had been under construction since the Mexican Revolution, which lasted for almost a decade, from 1910 to 1920, and in which one million people died in combat. State corporatism meant that subordinate groups and classes became organized, but their organizations had to be acknowledged and legitimized by the state, a feature that continues after 2000. In fact, the formation of organizations was often initiated and encouraged by the state, as was the case with the Confederation Nacional Campesina (CNC — National Peasant Confederation), the major peasant organization.