Andrew wrote:
>The United States, India, Israel, Turkey, and Mexico were able to
>remain both open societies and independent. Each of these successful
>nations embraced capitalism, albeit to different extents. One
>additional item to add to Michael's list would be that the revolution
>is socialist in character. That makes the problem even tougher.
The US wasn't especially "open" for the slaves or the Indians (and indeed
for women or, for many years, those free white men without property).
Israel isn't especially "open" for the Palestinians. Turkey hasn't been
especially "open" for the Kurds and Armenians (though I don't know enough
to talk about Turkey at length). ("Open" seems an ambiguous word.)
India is independent partly because it hasn't tried socialism and partly
because it's too big of a nut to crack for either England (the old colonial
power) or the US (the new) to crack. India was also able to take advantage
of the competition between US and Soviet imperialisms. Even so, its
democracy seems mostly an elite matter.
Mexico has not maintained its independence consistently. In the 19th
century it was dominated by Spain, then France, and then increasingly the
US. It was only a popular revolution which ended the dictatorial-liberal
Porfiriato and moved the country a bit toward democracy. After the
revolution peaked, the PRI took over and settled down to run the country in
a dictatorial way for decades, with a lot of nationalist noises. Now
there's a democratic opening, due to continuous economic crisis, democratic
rebellion (the Zapatistas, the popularity of the PRD). But Fox seems to be
aiming at gutting the welfare-state benefits of the PRI while bringing in a
new kind of Porfiriato, subordinating Mexico to the multinationals.
I'm sorry if the above consists of blanket statements (somewhat empty
abstractions). But they are less so than Andrew's statements above.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
