xix Introduction  |
reveals yet another reinforcement of the broader value and importance of Mexico to
the world. There are a variety of features of Mexico’s economic reality that draw one’s
attention. On the one hand, Mexico is a resource-rich country. Spain valued Mexico as
a colony for its rich mineral and agricultural resources, and the coffers of the Spanish
empire were to a sizable extent filled with Mexico’s natural wealth. Its contributions to
the global food economy have transformed global cuisine. Chocolate, tomatoes, chili
peppers, corn, tequila, and other food and beverage staples have made Mexico central
to the contemporary cultures of countries all across the world. And Mexican oil literally
fuels economies across the world. These are just some particular examples among many
others that can be mentioned of the centrality of Mexico to the global economy.
Added to these natural resources, we should also mention the role of Mexico’s peo-
ple in the international labor market as a stimulus to the economic growth not only of
Mexico itself, but also to the economy of the United States. Clearly, then, Mexico’s econ-
omy is critical to the health and well-being of the world’s economy. In fact, we wit-
nessed this directly first in the 1980s when Mexico’s default on its debt threatened the
stability of the entire global economy and financial markets, and later in 1994 when the
Mexican peso underwent a rapid and profound devaluation. In fact, the term “tequila
effect” was coined by analysts of the global economy to explain the residual and pivotal
negative impacts of the 1994 Mexican peso crisis on other national economies. So,
clearly, Mexico’s economy is much more central to the health and well-being of the
global economy than many suspect or are aware of.
As a last comment with regard to the economic reasons for understanding Mexico,
it should be pointed out that Mexico offers a unique case study of the intersection be-
tween developing and developed economies. Mexico has always manifested character-
istics of traditional export-oriented, monocultural boom-bust cycles typical of
developing economies. It has struggled mightily with currency stability and crushing
debt, along with other symptoms of economic distress common among countries of the
underdeveloped world. But at the same time, it is one of the Western Hemisphere’s
most industrialized economies, with a booming manufacturing export sector on its
northern border, a sophisticated stock market, and a complex financial services sector
typical of modern, developed economies. Thus, Mexico again offers unique lessons for
the rest of the world in terms of grappling with the nagging concerns of underdevel-
oped economies while manifesting the tendencies and patterns of economic life typical
of highly developed, industrialized economies.
In the political realm, the Mexican story is also one with important lessons and crea-
tive innovations for the rest of the world. The Mexican Revolution of 1910 is perhaps
the first successful modern revolution in a major country to embrace socialist princi-
ples and to craft a successful secular experiment in government around such principles.
What many people fail to appreciate is that the Mexican Revolution not only predated
the Russian and the Chinese revolutions, but it served as an example to the Bolshevik
Russians and the Maoist Chinese of what socialist revolution might look like and how
both the urban proletarian class, as well as the rural peasantry, could be organized and
mobilized against entrenched aristocracies and autocratic dictatorships. This is not to
say that the Mexican Revolution was a full-on experiment in Marxism, for it surely was
Previous Page Next Page