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The State and Capital Accumulation in Mexico*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

E. V.K. Fitzgerald
E. V.K. Fitzgerald
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The State and Capital Accumulation in Mexico
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Extract

The economic activities of the state have rightly been regarded as a crucial factor in the remarkably rapid process of capitalist expansion experienced by Mexico in the two decades after the Second World War, and must also be seen as such in the imbalance that has emerged over the last ten years –an imbalance that itself led to an accelerated growth of the public sector. State intervention in the process of capital accumulation during the period of dependent import-substituting industrialization is common to the experience of Latin America as a whole, but in Mexico the scale and scope of this intervention appear to have been greater than elsewhere, generating an important debate over the size of the Mexican public sector in the 1960s, and now providing a significant case to be examined in the light of current discussions as to the relative autonomy of the state in capitalist economies.

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Articles
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Journal of Latin American Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , November 1978 , pp. 263 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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References

1 See Fitzgerald, E. V. K., ‘Some Aspects of the Political Economy of the Latinamerican State’, Development and Change Vol. 7, No. 2 (1976).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Pérez, E., ‘The National Product of Mexico: 1895 to 1964’ in Davis, T. (ed.), Mexico's Recent Economic Growth (Austin, 1967).Google Scholar

3 Hansen, R. D., The Politics of Mexican Development (Baltimore, 1971)Google Scholar argues that the new state was dominated by a new industrial elite, Leal, J. F., La Burguesia y el Estado Méxicano (Mexico, 1974)Google Scholar argues that the new elite had a financial basis — but in any case the alliance between the elite and the bureaucracy was effectively co-ordinated (and the petty capitalist and proletarian elements subordinated through a populist movement) by the cardenista state as is pointed out in Córdova, A., La Politica de Masas del Cardenismo (Mexico, 1974).Google Scholar

4 See FitzGerald, E. V. K., ‘The Fiscal Crisis of the Latinamerican State’ in Toye, J. F. J., Taxation and Development (London, 1978).Google Scholar

5 Bennet, F. L., The Financial Sector and Economic Development: The Mexican Case (Baltimore, 1965);Google ScholarGoldsmith, R. W.The Financial Development of Mexico (Paris, 1966);Google Scholar Hansen, op. cit. and Reynolds, C. W., The Mexican Econosny: Twentieth Century Structure and Growth (New Haven, 1970) are leading examples of a large literature.Google Scholar

6 The writers in Davis, T. (ed.), Mexico's Recent Economic Growth (Austin, 1967)Google Scholar and Solis, L. (ed.), La Realidad Económica Méxicana (Mexico, 1970)Google Scholar are good examples, as is the magisterial Solis, L., La Economia Méxicana (Mexico, 1973) although here serious ‘structuralist’ doubts are clearly present.Google Scholar See also the survey in Solis, L., ‘Mexican Economic Policy in the Post-War Period: the Views of Mexican Economists’, American Economic Review Vol. LXI, No. 3 (1971).Google Scholar

7 Vernon, R., The Dilemma of Mexico's Development (Cambridge, Mass., 1965).Google Scholar

8 See Reynolds, op. cit.

9 Sepúlveda, B. and Chumacero, A., La Inversión Extranjera en México (Mexico, 1973);Google ScholarFajnzylber, F. and Martínez, T., Las Empresas Transoacionales: Expansión a Niuel Mundial y Proyección en la Industria Mexicana (Mexico, 1976);Google ScholarCeceña, J. L., México en la Orbita Imperial (Mexico, 1975).Google Scholar

10 Sub-committee on Multinational Corporations of the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, Multinational Corporations in Brazil and Mexico: Structural Sources of Economic and Non-economic Power (Washington, 1975).Google Scholar

11 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development Size Distribution of Income: Compilation of Data (Washington, 1975);Google ScholarSinger, M., Growth, Inequality and the Mexican Experience (Austin, 1969).Google Scholar

12 Eckhaus, R. S., ‘The Structure and Performance of the Mexican Financieras’ Working Papers No. 142 (M.I.T., Department of Economics, 1974),Google ScholarGómez, N., ‘Estructura Financiera, Rentabilidad y Crecimiento Económico en Mexico’, Comercio Exterior Vol. xxv, No. 6, (1976).Google Scholar

13 Some of these studies were published later, of course, but they rightly belong to this period in intellectual history, particularly since the signs of economic breakdown were not immediately discernible from a temporary fluctuation until the end of the decade.

14 Among other things, deteriorating food supplies (a central element in the real wage) and the relative response to inflation of prolts and wages (particularly in the non-unionised sector) would point to this.

15 Pinto, A., ‘El Modelo de Desarrollo. Reciente de América Latina’, El Trimestre Económico No. 150 (1971).Google Scholar

16 See the discussion of Poulantzas' concept in the Latin American context in Fitzgerald, E. V. K., ‘On State Accumulation in Latin America’ in Fitzgerald, E., Floto, E. and Lehmann, D. (eds.), Proceedings of the Cambridge Conference on the Slate and Economic Development in Latin America (Cambridge, 1977).Google Scholar

17 The topic is only given a dozen pages in Solis's La Economía Méxicana, for example, and there has been no updating of Himes, J. R., ‘La Formación de Capital en México’, El Trimestre Económico, No. 125 (1965),Google Scholar which only goes as far as 1940. The only known published study of the topic as such is insubstantial, La Cascia, J. S., Capital Formation and Mexican Economic Development (New York, 1969), which does little more than list widely available statistics, without reconciling or analysing them.Google Scholar In Fitzgerald, E. V. K., ‘Patterns of Savings and Investment in Mexico, 1939–76’, Centre of Latin American Studies Working Papers No. 30 (Cambridge, 1978), we attempt to make a first step towards filling this lacuna.Google Scholar

18 de México, Banco, Estadísticas …Google Scholar

19 de México, Banco, Cuentas Nacionales …Google Scholar

20 Solis, La Economía Mexicana, op. cit.

21 That is the capitalist sector of medium and large corporations, which accounts for the greater part of production, accumulation and profits in Mexico — as opposed to the ‘traditional’ or ‘informal’ sector of peasant farmers, petty urban commerce and so on, which absorbs most of the under-employed labour force.

22 El Problema Ocupacional en Mexico: Magniyúd y Recomendaciones Secretaria de Ia Presidencia, Mexico, 1973).Google Scholar

23 Such as Scpiilveda and Chumacero, op. cit.

24 Fajnzylber and Martínez, op. cit.

25 We shall return to this point presently.

26 Although this proportion declines as import-substitution proceeds, of course, and the Mexican Government now regards the acceleration of this process as a priority objective. See Financiera, Nacional, Una Estrategia para Desarrollar la Industria de Bienes de Capital (Mexico, 1977).Google Scholar

27 Of the order of so and 30 per cent, respectively.

28 See Reynolds, C. W. and Corredor, J. I., ‘The Effects of the Financial System on the Distribution of Income and Wealth in Mexico’, Food Research Studies, Vol. xv, No. 1 (1976). The lack of aggregate data on corporate accounts may be understandable, but it is nevertheless a serious barrier to an understanding of the economics of the private sector and thus to effective policymaking as well.Google Scholar

29 In the well-known sense used by ECLA.

30 See note 5.

31 See Fernández, E., Cincuenta Años de Banca Central: Ensayos Conmemorativos, 1925–75 (Mexico, 1976);Google ScholarHamilton, N. L., ‘Class Formation during the Cárdenas Period: the Emergence of Economic Groups’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Wisconsin University, 1976);Google ScholarCampos, A., Las Sociedades Financieras Privadas en México (Mexico, 1963),Google Scholar and Eckhaus, op. cit.

32 Caso, J.. El Mercado de Acciones en México (Mexico, 1971).Google Scholar

33 See Table IV below.

34 Fitzgerald, The Fiscal Crisis of the Latin American State.

35 Including these additional revenue sources, the total current revenue was 13 per cent of GDP in 1965 and 19 per cent in 1976, compared to (say) 27 per cent in Brazil in 1970.

36 A fascinating account of the attempts at tax reform in 1972 and the political consequences is given in Solis, L., ‘A Monetary Will-o-the-Wisp: Pursuit of Equity through Deficit Spending’, Discussion Paper No. 77 (Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton,, 1977).Google Scholar

37 Bueno, op. cit. p. 86.

38 As Vernon (op. cit., p. 55) points out: ‘The programs and policies of the Mexican government since 1940 have been designed to stimulate private-sector efforts in the development process. … [but] … developments in Mexican monetary and fiscal policy represent a second-best solution to the problem posed by public-sector deficit financing of infrastructure investment.’

39 That is, ‘local borrowing’ (Table IV) as a proportion of 'financial intermediation, (Table III).

40 Caballero, R. M. and Moreno, M., ‘El Endeudamiento Externo de Mexico’, El Trimestre Económico, Vol. XLIII, No. 3 (1976).Google Scholar

41 According to the Banco de México, the average rate of interest on the official external debt in 1964 was about 6 per cent, rising to nearly 10 per cent in 1976; while in these years two years the dollar import price index for Mexico (the relevant deflator) was rising at 2 per cent and 12 per cent respectively. In consequence, the real rates of interest were +4 per cent in 1964 and –2 per cent in 1976.

42 In fact, both the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Planning resigned in November 1977 as the result of a major split in the López Portillo cabinet over this issue.

43 The imminent advent of massive oil revenues towards the end of the present sexenio may well ameliorate the immediate balance of payments and tax problems, but possibly not resolve the underlying contradictions which we have examined in this paper. On the contrary, the delay in their resolution may well make them all the more intractable in the long run.