The Mexican state's drive toward industrialization during World War II and the post-war years required the cooperation of organized labor. Central to this policy was the role played by American trade unions, which cooperated with US government agencies in providing financial and logistical support for Mexican trade unionists who complied with state development policy. The interests of American labor leaders, US policymakers and Mexican modernizing elites converged in an attempt to eradicate radical unionism and promote US hegemony in the western hemisphere. This study builds upon works that treat the earlier activities of US labor in Mexico.

/pdf/mexican-state-development-policy-and-labor-internationalism-zf16drj8em.pdf

Mexico: Class Formation, Capital Accumulation, and the State

Mexican State Development Policy and Labor Internationalism, 1945–1958

Preamble In this article we show how the twentieth-century appearance of a Chicano minority population in the United States originated from the subordination of the nation of Mexico to U.S. economic and political interests. We argue that, far from being marginal to the course of modern U.S. history, the Chicano minority, an immigrant people, stands at the center both of that history and of a process of imperial expansionism that originated in the last three decades of the nineteenth century and that continues today.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/phr.2002.71.1.19

Empire and the Origins of Twentieth-Century Migration from Mexico to the United States

OF DISSERTATION BINATIONAL FARMING FAMILIES OF SOUTHERN APPALACHIA AND THE MEXICAN BAJIO Over the last four decades, farming families throughout North America experienced significant transitions due, in part, to the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. This multi-sited dissertation investigates the ways in which a network of binational (Mexican-American) families organize their smallto mid-scale farming enterprises, engage in global networks as food producers, and contribute to rural economies in the southeastern U.S. and the Mexican Bajío. To mitigate difficult transitions that came with the globalizing of agri-food markets, members of this extended family group created collaborative, kin-based arrangements to produce, distribute, and market fresh-market fruits and vegetables in the foothills of southern Appalachia and basic grains in the foothills of the Mexican Bajío. Members of extended binational families regularly negotiate social, economic, and political borders within and across regions, genders, and generations. This study shows how these binational kin use cooperative practices to navigate two distinct, yet interrelated, contemporary agricultural political economic environments in North America. The study counter-constructs stereotypes of Latinx and their roles in southeastern U.S. agriculture by focusing on a vertically integrated, kin group of allied, migrant farming families and theorizing them as binational collective strategists. Their stories and strategies provide insight into the importance of temporalities and practices of kin relatedness to agri-food enterprises and suggest possibilities for alternative distributions of surplus value within the globalized agri-food system.

/pdf/binational-farming-families-of-southern-appalachia-and-the-ze9n6omkrf.pdf

Binational farming families of southern appalachia and the mexican bajio

Mexico holds the potential for a disastrous confrontation or a constructive breakthrough regarding sustainable development. The world's wealthy countries have been largely able to insulate themselves from the costs of the social and ecological deterioration that characterizes the world's poor countries. The Mexico-United States case is a critical one because the 2,000-mile border makes cost-sharing inescapable. Given its revolutionary nationalist history, the Mexican case is also a globally significant test of the capacity of a poor country to negotiate its integration into the world economy. In a now-familiar but still dramatic display of Mexico's commitment to its new international role as the "model debtor," recent administrations have sharply renounced economic nationalism in favor of the lean, export-led economy promulgated by northern governments and financial institutions.1 Mexico's deepening integration into the world economy is thus proceeding precisely along the lines dictated by the managers of neoliberalism, and Mexican officials have been willing to sacrifice autonomy in negotiating the terms and conditions of economic apertura. Structural adjustment, austerity, and, increasingly, repression are the prices Mexicans pay for their leaders' commitments to meeting international obligations, obtaining financial concessions, and attracting new investment capital. This is a path inimical to sustainable development. It heralds heightened exploitation not only of rural and urban labor but also of an already severely degraded natural-resource base. Precisely when environmental (and social) protection is needed most, neoliberal priorities demand a reduction of taxes, regulations, and labor organizations, sharp cuts in social expenditures, and a dismantling of strategic state institutions. In contrast, sustainable develop-

Sustainable Development in Mexico?: The International Politics of Crisis or Opportunity

In recent years, both mainstream and neo-Marxist scholarship has emphasized the importance of the state in leading political and economic change (Almond, 1988: 900-901). Much of the literature on the Latin American state has been inspired by the neo-Marxist structuralist perspective: Although the limitations imposed on public policy by capitalist structures, both domestic and foreign, are recognized, the state is also seen as playing a central role in the political and economic restructuring necessary for the continuation of economic growth (for surveys of the literature, see Fortin, 1985; Fitzgerald, Floto, and Lehmen, 1976). Whereas the structuralist argument concerning the constraints imposed on policy by the capitalist context, particularly by international economic pressures, is convincing, any presumption about the purpose and long-term implications of state action remains problematic. State policy may well aggravate social and political tensions and therefore be counterproductive to continued capitalist growth. Indeed, as a consequence of the constraints imposed by the operation of the world economy, state managers may be compelled to pursue policies not of their own choosing, and such policies may have unforeseen and undesired results over which they have little or no control. This scenario characterized the economic restructuring program initiated and implemented by the administration of President Miguel de la Madrid between 1983 and 1988. Although, as suggested by structuralist theory, international capitalist pressure forced increased economic liberalization, the state's attempt to exercise relative autonomy in controlling the consequent political fallout produced results neither intended nor foreseen and ultimately spawned increased state repression. The argument presented here is that the

Mexico: Class Formation, Capital Accumulation, and the State

Citations

Mexican State Development Policy and Labor Internationalism, 1945–1958

Empire and the Origins of Twentieth-Century Migration from Mexico to the United States

Binational farming families of southern appalachia and the mexican bajio

Sustainable Development in Mexico?: The International Politics of Crisis or Opportunity

The Mexican State and the Political Implications of Economic Restructuring

Related Papers (5)

Capitalist development and democracy

The agrarian question and reformism in Latin America

Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century

Zapata and the Mexican Revolution

Bringing the State Back in