Bordering on Chaos: Guerrillas,
Stockbrokers, Politicians and
Mexico’s Road to Prosperity
by Andres Oppenheimer, Little Brown,
1996, 367 pp., $25.45 (cloth).
The Mexican Shock:
Its Meaning for the U.S.
by Jorge G. Castahieda, The New Press,
1995, 254 pp., $23 (cloth).
The Mexican Peso Crisis:
International Perspectives
edited by Riordan Roett, Lynne
Rienner Publications, 1996, 130 pp.,
$13.95 (paper).
Neoliberalism Revisited:
Economic Restructuring and
Mexico’s Political Future edited by Gerardo Otero, Westview Press, 1996, 278 pp., $19.95 (paper).
Most of the books reviewed
here are based on privi-
leged access to informa-
tion which ought to give the reader
more insight into Mexico’s ongoing
crisis. With one exception, however,
instead of leaving us in a position to
understand current events and pre-
dict the direction in which Mexico
may evolve in the coming years,
what they give us is a better under-
standing of the authors themselves.
Oppenheimer’s book-length pam-
phlet, for example, is an unabashed
effort to convince the reader that the
writer’s privileged access to the
major actors and sources hidden
from the eyes of mere mortals gave
him special insight into the Mexican
character. With his press credential
and his highly visible column in The
Miami Herald, Oppenheimer was
easily able to interview notables
from every part of the political spec-
trum. He is accustomed to being
treated well-to the point that he
chastises Subcomandante Marcos
for keeping him waiting. In the end,
however, we gain more insight into
the reporter than his subject. His
central concern is to reassure his
U.S. readers that Mexicans do not in
fact dislike them, and are truly anx-
ious to make NAFTA work. He
offers up a country with only incon-
sequential problems and much to
contribute to the emerging continen-
tal alliance-a country most obser-
vant Mexicans would not recognize.
Access to elite sources also comes
easy to Castafieda, the scion of a
prominent Mexican family and one
of the better-known Mexican writers
in the United States. He is less cer-
tain than Oppenheimer, however,
that the present ruling class is up to
the task of government. It “disinte-
grates in the face of international
naivete and domestic indifference,”
he says. He criticizes the U.S. press
for leaving its public unprepared for
“the shock of discovering that for
whatever reasons, the Mexican
house of cards could come crum-
bling down once again.” Castafieda
sets out to provide just this prepara-
tion, but because his analysis
remains on the level of interactions
among elites, he fails to offer a guide
to the complexity of the transition in
which ordinary Mexicans are
engaged.
Roett, a well-connected financial
consultant, has assembled a group of
analysts to celebrate the ability of
neoliberal regimes in the rest of
Latin America to avoid the pitfalls of
Mexican naivete and inexperience.
This team of policy pundits suggests
that one major product of the “errors
of December”-as the 1994 devalu-
ation crisis has been baptized-is
the redirecting of U.S. interests fur-
ther south, placing greater emphasis
on the rewards of integration with
other Latin nations.
Like the analysts brought together
by Roett, Otero’s team also traces
the failures of neoliberalism in
Mexico. Otero has assembled ten
thematic essays to explain the deep-
ening political and economic crisis
in which the government is floun-
dering as it attempts to design an
effective set of management tools.
While the collection is somewhat
pessimistic about the possibilities
for a peaceful transition, some of the
contributors manage to go beyond
the standard elite analyses to iden-
tify some of the potential sources of
conflict and change that offer a
promise of something other than
palace coups or musical chairs
among caciques competing for the
reins of power.
In his own essay, Otero seeks to
identify a democratic basis for a sta-
ble political order to assure long-
term economic growth. Given the
economic transformations under-
way, however, he can only offer the
troubling prediction that the “dis-
mantling of social institutions
… must eventuate in a period of
social conflict” whose outcome is
indeterminate.
In contrast, the analyses of grass-
roots movements stimulate more
optimistic judgements. The sensitive
examination of the changing role of
peasants (Gates), workers (Carr) and
rebels (Stephen and Harvey) con-
trasts starkly with Oppenheimer’s
arrogant dismissal of these newly
mobilized actors. These thoughtful
essays stand out for their value in
helping North Americans under-
stand the daily reporting of local
conflicts and economic disarray that
will continue to plague Mexico in
the coming years.
In the end, the weakness of most
of this writing lies in the authors’
convictions of the importance of
their own ideas, their contacts and
their privileged information. Only
when the writers choose to allow
their protagonists to shine, as in
some of the Otero essays, does the
reader gain insight into the process
of grassroots struggle against the
elites who have done such a terrible
job in governing Mexico. Ulti-
mately, it is in these struggles that
the potential for change in Mexico
lies. U.S. readers would be ill
advised to rest complacently with
the notion that increased trade will
bring widespread prosperity to all
concerned, or that Mexico’s internal
problems need not affect their north-
ern neighbors.
-David Barkin