Jim Devine wrote:
>
[catching up on posts--SP]
> When I was in Mexico a few years ago (about 3 years ago), people were
> talking about the PRI agriculture minister's plan to liquidate the ejido
> sector, because of its alleged inefficiency (from the point of view of the
> PRI elite, I would guess), which would have encouraged a massive move of
> population to the cites and to the maquilas.
Yes, that was the PRI's rationale. There already was a massive movement
of rural folk into the cities mostly after the '82 crisis when it was
estimated that 8000 people a day were moving into Mexico D.F.
I haven't kept track, but I
> would guess that a more moderate version of this plan was implemented. Does
> anyone know what's happening with respect to that idea?
The plan do away with the ejidos was floated in 1991 and passed in 1992
which amended the Mexican constitution (article 27) abolishing all
communally held land as well ending the Mexican party-state's
constitutionally bound policy of redistributing land to landless
agricultural workers. Article 27 was a product of the Mexican revolution
and the populist-nationalist regime of Lazaro Cardenas. Amending article
27 was central to the PRI move from ISI to neo-liberalism. The idea was
turn the small and many ejidos into large commercial enterprises
producing for export by forcing small peasants into bankruptcy thus
indeed liquidating them as a class. The extent of the liquidation of the
small peasant in Mexico is controversial. I'm not sure how successful
the PRI's policies have been in concentrating ownership of the ejido
lands and proletarianizing the countryside.
Prior to 1992, some 2.7 million Mexicans lived on roughly 30,000
ejidos representing %60 of farmers working %43 of the cropland but
producing only %10 of agricultural goods.
>
> In any event, as I understand it, the ejidos were not extremely successful,
> because the Mexican government (unlike, say, the Taiwanese government after
> WW2) because they didn't provide agricultural credit and the like.
The ejidos were units of subsistence agriculture divorced from
the market--holders of ejidos were not able to sell or mortgage the land
or accept (badly needed) credit or capital investment from private
sources, they only had the right of usufruct. The 1992 reforms made it
possible to sell or mortgage the land. Prior to '92 cheap credit was
provided by the state, especially after 1972 when Mexico began its drive
to become self-sufficient in food. However, credit was tied to the PRI
machinery making it a huge patronage scheme where votes and support to
the PRI would result in credit. The 1992 reforms made it possible for
ejido holders to accept private investment and private credit. The
result was that many ejido holders became heavily indebted to private
banks in turn resulting in the Zapatista movement in Chiapas (where 2/3
of the people lived on ejidos) and the El Barzon debtor movement.
Holders of ejidos are divided amongst themselves into individual
vs. collective holders, Protestant vs. Catholic and PRI vs PRD. The
PRI-state exploited these differences--one of the reasons the MExican
left and union movement have made little inroads in rural areas (except
parts
of Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca-- the most impoverished states).
I think The analogy to Stalin's liquidation of Kulaks is accurate
except
that ejido holders are the poor peasants not the rich. Most ejidos are
under 5 acres. David Barkin's book is the best in English on all this
but his work is pre-Ezln and pre-El BArzon.
Sam Pawlett
