<HTML><HTML>In a message dated 5/29/05 12:38:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time, lbo-talk-request@lbo-talk.org writes: >From a Financial Times article sent by Marvin Gandall <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Finally, there is a sense in which even the private sector believes his ideology could help him. Mr Fox tried to raise taxes and privatise the energy network from the political right. But many in Mexico believe that a politician of the opposite stripe might be more successful, pointing to the progress made elsewhere in Latin America by left-leaning politicians. "The Lula effect will be here big time," says one businessman. "By that, I mean the belief that only someone from the left can carry out some of the reforms. Only Nixon could approach China." </BLOCKQUOTE> I don't understand how you can be friendly to social democracy while at the same time supplying a perfect example of how social democrats in power function. They trade on their leftist credentials to ease the introduction of neoliberal policies that traditional rightists would have a harder time implementing because they lack such credentials.</HTML>