----- Original Message ----- From: "Julio Huato" <juliohuato at gmail.com> To: "PEN-L Send" <PEN-L at sus.csuchico.edu>; "Lbo Talk Lbo Talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Friday, June 30, 2006 8:12 AM Subject: [lbo-talk] Reply to Krauze
> Enrique Krauze's op-ed in the New York Times ("Bringing Mexico Closer
> to God," June 28, 2006) about Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico's
> leftist presidential candidate, reveals more about Krauze's
> conservative outlook than about the true prospects of a López Obrador
> administration. Lacking substantive facts, Krauze mixes a few casual
> remarks with his own personal impressions to project the ghost of
> "messianic populism" onto López Obrador's future presidency.
>
> But the main threat to Mexico's fragile democracy is not a ghost. It
> is, instead, the brutal reality of the country's social inequality.
> Twelve years after NAFTA was implemented -- official sources attest --
> almost fifty percent of Mexicans still live in poverty. Measures of
> wealth dispersion are dismal, comparable to those in Brazil, Haiti,
> and sub-Saharan Africa. Many Mexicans are under the impression that
> Felipe Calderón, the candidate of the right, "has failed to convey
> real concern for Mexico's poor," as Krauze puts it, because he has no
> actual concern for Mexico's poor.
>
> There can be no political stability in Mexico and -- therefore --
> lasting growth without narrowing the gaping economic divide between
> the rich and poor. López Obrador's redistributive policies promise to
> be effective without disrupting private ownership and markets; not
> only compatible with the growth of the economy but actually growth
> inducing. Wall Street seems to have grasped this. Joydeep Mukherji,
> Standard & Poor's specialist in Latin America, recently told CNN en
> Español that foreign investors' real concern was Mexico's ability to
> grow in the long run, which depended on stable social conditions, and
> dismissed short-term turbulence should López Obrador win.
>
> López Obrador has been quite consistent in his economic policy stance,
> pledging to respect the autonomy of Mexico's central bank, rejecting
> fiscal and monetary policy gimmicks, and ruling out increased
> indebtedness. While fulfilling his vow to tackle inequality will
> require a substantial hike in tax revenues, López Obrador intends to
> accomplish it by eliminating tax privileges for the rich and well
> connected, limiting tax evasion, fighting corruption, and reducing the
> top bureaucracy's frivolous spending and outrageous salaries. Krauze
> dismisses it as demagoguery, but it is credible.
>
> As mayor of Mexico City, López Obrador proved to be a resourceful
> penny pincher. With a limited budget, subject to strict oversight by
> a federal congress dominated by rival parties, he began to rebuild the
> central areas of Mexico City devastated by the 1985 earthquake,
> improved public transportation by expanding old metro lines and
> building new ones, tackled traffic congestion (a large contributor to
> air pollution) by building surprisingly efficient elevated bypasses,
> and provided subsidies to single mothers, the elderly, and the
> disabled -- all on a shoestring. Private investment in Mexico's
> capital reached rates it had not had in decades. His mayoral
> experience convinced him that corruption and waste are a gigantic
> diversion of public resources. His fiscal plan is not inconsistent
> with his social agenda.
>
> The "free markets" credo and the "pull-yourself-by-the-bootstraps"
> moralising of the PAN lack popular appeal. Backed by the financial
> and political muscle of prominent businessmen with strong conservative
> leanings, to the poor, this discourse smacks of hypocrisy --
> doublespeak where helping the rich at public expense becomes a
> "stimulus to private investment" and helping the poor turns you into a
> "populist." Aware of this, Calderón's campaign strategy defaulted to
> fearmongering, saturating the airwaves with negative messages.
>
> A López Obrador victory, Calderón claims, will be a prelude to
> economic crises, foreign capital flight, authoritarian rule,
> expropriations, militarization, and violence. Intentionally or not,
> Krauze's article fits in this strategy. But, to judge by the massive
> attendance and enthusiasm in López Obrador's campaign meetings and
> rallies, the strategy has not worked. Popular instincts may prove
> prescient: In the long run, the real danger is inaction in the face of
> Mexico's monstrous inequities. A monarchical presidency under López
> Obrador, on the other hand, is in Krauze's imagination only.
>
> Julio Huato is an economist and researcher at the Howard Samuels
> Center of the City University of New York, Graduate Center. Born in
> Mexico, he lives in Brooklyn.
>
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