- To what extent are the elitist and hierarchical tendencies of Mexican politics found in liberal democracies?
- What bringing
- Mexican corporatism brings various social actors (e.g., labor, business professionals) into an officially sanctioned ruling coalition. While guaranteeing certain privileges for these groups (e.g., job security for unionized labor and subsides for businesses), it also limits such freedoms as choosing when to strike or how to allocate capital. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of such arrangements.
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Group Seven Discussion
Blog post due at 11:55pm on March 31 and comment due at 11:55pm on April 3.
Mexico
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As it relates to Mexican participation in NAFTA, the results are mixed. On one side we have seen the growth of many business small and large which ultimately benefit the people themselves and the overall economy. The other side of the equation has meant a rise in prices for basic goods and services; this in part is due to the standard of living and a wage hike. The jury is still out as far as NAFTA is concerned.
ReplyDeleteMarcus I agree because NAFTA's agreement was suppose to increase economic wealth. But since NAFTA, some of the Mexican population have made their way out and made journeys into the U.S. Mexican farmers had a hard time competing with larger U.S. businesses. The standard of living continues to get better for the wealthy.
DeleteI think that that NAFTA allowed for growth of large businesses but negatively effected the small businesses. Mexico has had a long history of land sharing which allowed for small scale family farmers to make a living in the agricultural industry. Due to policy changes land sharing was eliminated and public land was sold to private investors. Under NAFTA subsidies to small scale Mexican farmers were eliminated, while US agricultural production continued to be subsidized. This was a huge blow to small scale farmers, they could not afford to keep up with the large agricultural giants in the United States. When the small scale farmers lost their farms and jobs the wealthy private investors capitalized on this, wealthy drug traffickers bought up farms and grew poppies and marijuana. The wealthy drug traffickers have become billionaires while the once self-sufficient farmers either struggle with poverty or have joined the recession proof drug trade. There is such large economic gap between the wealthy and the poor. I think that NAFTA further widened this gap by allowing for the wealthy to profit off of the struggling poor.
DeleteWas bringing Mexico into a free-trade agreement with the United States and Canada a good idea or a bad idea for the three countries? Why?
ReplyDeleteCountries continue to move forward in the direction of a global society. Free trade offers economic growth and increases employment and productivity; while on the other hand free trade can also promote domestic instability and short-term unemployment enabling workers to look for jobs. International markets may offer lower priced goods, making it difficult for U.S. companies and manufactures to make a profit.
Thanks Melonia, I absolutely will agree with all that you presented. It is the the Global economy that shapes internal consequences; because the markets are directly influenced by what is going on globally. Mexican participation in NAFTA has presented it with many challenges as well as opportunities. When NAFTA created the jobs on the Mexican side it also increased inflation and hence created a gap between prices and wages.
DeleteOverall, bringing Mexico into the North American Free Trade Agreement has had an overall negative effect on the three countries involved.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the GDP in all three countries have grown modestly, the employment rates have dropped, income equality has grown, and the level of those living below the poverty line has increased.
In Mexico, the rate of poverty has shown a slight increase, up to 52.4% of the population as agricultural jobs have disappeared due to the influx of government subsidized food stuffs imported from the U.S. Furthermore, the influx of manufacturing jobs has not kept up with the pace of losses in agriculture as the world economy has been rocked by numerous recessions and the near depression of 2008. With such a high unemployment rate, there has been a downward pressure on wages as well, with personal incomes rising at the rate of only 1.2% a year, which lagged behind almost all other Latin American countries.
In the United States, manufacturing jobs have been lost to our neighbors, as many companies have moved their plants to capitalize on cheaper labor costs. One of the major selling points of NAFTA was that Mexico would close the wage gap between their labor force and those of the countries to the north. Unfortunately, it was not foreseen that the wages in the US and Canada would move downward instead of Mexico moving upwards. The U.S. also has reversed a major trend. Before NAFTA, the U.S. had a $1.7 billion trade surplus with Mexico, but 20 years after, it now stands as a $61.4 billion deficit.
Overall, Canada showed the best results from NAFTA, but according to the Council on Foreign Relations, it is difficult to quantify the gains since there were numerous trade agreements in place with the U.S. before NAFTA was enacted. There has been an overall increase in agricultural trade between the U.S. and Canada, but the labor productivity of our neighbors to the north has remained virtually unchanged.
In summation, although the three countries have all shown a modest gain in their GTPs the wealth has not filtered down to the citizens of the respective nations. Job losses in the U.S. and Mexico have not been absorbed by Canada, and the overall wages of all three countries have dipped for the average worker. Overall, NAFTA has been a boom for Wall Street and those in the executive suites, but for the average worker, it has been a hindrance on their economic survival.
http://www.cfr.org/trade/naftas-economic-impact/p15790 and
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/after_20_years_nafta_leaves_mexicos_economy_in_ruins_20140109
How much of the overall economic downturn do you think is attributable to NAFTA? Mexico seems to have a clear case of the "resource case," tying its economy heavily to oil, meaning that as the cost of oil fluctuates the economy does too, regardless of free trade. While the textbook did mention that the fact that Mexico was tied to the US economy so closely made the 2008 downturn worse in Mexico, do you think that it would have effected the economy anyway? I'm no fan of NAFTA, but I would hesitate to draw direct correlations between economic downturns and the trade agreement without considering other potential factors.
DeleteIn my opinion, the downturn was a world wide problem (Greece being a prime example), but since we are focusing on Mexico, the enacting of NAFTA has not been as advertised as far as the benefits that were expected. As I mentioned in the original post, the Mexican economy has lagged behind virtually all the other Latin American economies, including Venezuela and Peru, which also depend heavily on oil production, so it would be difficult to say that having an oil-centric economy is the basis for the near collapse of the economy. Furthermore, the agreement has had adverse effects on all three countries, with Mexico suffering the most from the increased agricultural imports from the U.S. It has however given rise to an increased level of narcotic trafficking and production, as well as markedly higher levels of damage to the environment in the form of pollution within Mexico's borders.
DeleteSo, that being said, I would agree that it would be difficult to attribute all the problems in the Mexican economy to NAFTA, but evidence suggests that the expected results were overstated. Economists will debate the merits of NAFTA for years, but in my humble opinion, the three involved countries have not reaped the benefits that the agreement promised, and in the case of the U .S., much more study will be needed before the Trans-Pacific Partnership is signed
Overall, bringing Mexico into the North American Free Trade Agreement has had an overall negative effect on the three countries involved.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the GDP in all three countries have grown modestly, the employment rates have dropped, income equality has grown, and the level of those living below the poverty line has increased.
In Mexico, the rate of poverty has shown a slight increase, up to 52.4% of the population as agricultural jobs have disappeared due to the influx of government subsidized food stuffs imported from the U.S. Furthermore, the influx of manufacturing jobs has not kept up with the pace of losses in agriculture as the world economy has been rocked by numerous recessions and the near depression of 2008. With such a high unemployment rate, there has been a downward pressure on wages as well, with personal incomes rising at the rate of only 1.2% a year, which lagged behind almost all other Latin American countries.
In the United States, manufacturing jobs have been lost to our neighbors, as many companies have moved their plants to capitalize on cheaper labor costs. One of the major selling points of NAFTA was that Mexico would close the wage gap between their labor force and those of the countries to the north. Unfortunately, it was not foreseen that the wages in the US and Canada would move downward instead of Mexico moving upwards. The U.S. also has reversed a major trend. Before NAFTA, the U.S. had a $1.7 billion trade surplus with Mexico, but 20 years after, it now stands as a $61.4 billion deficit.
Overall, Canada showed the best results from NAFTA, but according to the Council on Foreign Relations, it is difficult to quantify the gains since there were numerous trade agreements in place with the U.S. before NAFTA was enacted. There has been an overall increase in agricultural trade between the U.S. and Canada, but the labor productivity of our neighbors to the north has remained virtually unchanged.
In summation, although the three countries have all shown a modest gain in their GTPs the wealth has not filtered down to the citizens of the respective nations. Job losses in the U.S. and Mexico have not been absorbed by Canada, and the overall wages of all three countries have dipped for the average worker. Overall, NAFTA has been a boom for Wall Street and those in the executive suites, but for the average worker, it has been a hindrance on their economic survival.
http://www.cfr.org/trade/naftas-economic-impact/p15790 and
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/after_20_years_nafta_leaves_mexicos_economy_in_ruins_20140109
Was bringing Mexico into a free-trade agreement with the US and Canada a good idea or a bad idea for the three countries? Why?
ReplyDeleteThe NAFTA agreement signed by President Salinas in 1993 seems to have been a hard road to choose for Mexico. Multiple financial crises, wage freezes, tax hikes, inflation and a shrinking eonomy, not to mention the assasination of the PRIs Colosio in 1994, all of these were a heavy price to pay for globalization. To make matters worse, the steps towards globalization left Mexico to suffer in the 2008 financial crisis caused largely by the US. These difficult times are necessary, however, for Mexico to transform itself into a modern world power.
Why is this necessary? I find this a troubling statement. In this moment we are fast tracking the TPP which is a similar bill that in some ways goes even further than NAFTA and affects a whole host of new countries. This is not just or sustainable.
DeleteWhat bringing Mexico into a free-trade agreement with the United States and Canada a good idea or a bad idea for the three countries? Why?
ReplyDeleteOf course there are pros and cons to bringing Mexico into the free-trade agreement, however, my main opposition to it involves the "Investor Protection" rules; this incentified off-shore of US investments and jobs. A premise of NAFTA was a promise of 200,000 new jobs a year - based on having an improved trade deficit REDUCTION. Instead, we have a huge new trade deficit...causing job cuts. And one of the biggest effect of NAFTA is that it has transformed the composition of jobs available and wages for those who don't have college degrees because now many of those factory or manufacturing jobs are gone.
I think NAFTA has helped Mexico and Canada more than the United States. I happened to remember when Clinton proposed NAFTA in the early 90s and it was a big part of his presidential campaign. It was all the hype. I definitely do not think it has played out to Clinton's expectations. I believe it may have cost American jobs over the last 20 years. Our trade deficit data has not performed as other students have outlined. For Mexico, it has probably helped their developing economy more over the last 20 years. Overall, NAFTA has had a neutral to negative for the three countries.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Mexico and Canada have benifitted more than the US over the last 20 years ( with the exception of an increased advantage of subsidized American agriculture). American middle class jobs were lost in many sectors as we evolved into a "service" economy. I do believe that NAFTA was not in the best interest of US employment even if slight increases in the economy were realized, When large corporations gain profit margins at the expense of a nations middle class, I question what has been gained,
DeleteWhat bringing Mexico into a free-trade agreement with the United States and Canada a good idea or a bad idea for the three countries? Why?
ReplyDeleteI don't think bringing Mexico into NAFTA was a good idea. One of the biggest issues was that NAFTA eliminated subsidies for small scale farmers in Mexico as well as subsidized stores that sold food to the poor. It however did not eliminate subsidies for the US food producers causing many Mexican farmers to loose the ability to compete with large scale agricultural giants in the US. Mexico went from being self-sufficient in food production to importing over 40% of its food. Small scale Mexican farmers lost their jobs causing poverty and the lack of funding for food for the poor caused many people in Mexico to live in hunger. NAFTA also even further tied Mexico to the United States, Mexico exports around 80% of its goods to the United States. These strong ties to the United States causes the economy in Mexico to follow similar trends as the US with its highs and extreme lows. NAFTA also strengthened the transportation across boarders which has helped the drug trade. With more goods going across the boarder drugs are more easily flown under the radar when being smuggled into the United States. The lose of farms due to NAFTA caused many agricultural workers to join the drug trade as well which is a very big problem in Mexico.
I agree with you. It seems that before Mexico was involved with NAFTA, the country was self-sufficient and productive. Once they became involved the whole economic equilibrium between Mexico and the U.S was disturbed. Sometimes it seems more beneficial to keep boundaries between countries because both countries can somehow benefit from the barrier whether it be tariffs or subsidies, et cetera. Unemployment rose in Mexico after NAFTA took effect. After NAFTA was introduced there was also a surge of immigration into the U.S. I think that there were a lot more problems than positives that came from NAFTA and you provided good support as to why that is.
DeleteThere are definitely some elitist and hierarchal tendencies when it comes to liberal democracies as well as politics in general. I don't think that these characteristics are as extreme as in an environment like Mexico but I think that there are subtle counts of elitism and hierarchal tendencies in a liberal democracy. There are certain social and economic standards that are associated with politics, people in the political world of any party hold extreme biases and prejudice against opposing parties and groups of people in general. It is certainly not as obvious as the type of things that can be seen in Mexico in terms of political corruption but then again who knows what really goes on behind closed doors. Politics is a game of hierarchy and elitism, nobody is considered equal in practice.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree that Mexico has extreme elitist conditions, I also think hierarchy and elitism is very obvious in other liberal democracies. For instance, policies in the U.S. make it easy for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. Corporations are taking over our government and jobs, creating an elitist lifestyle for the CEO's and other coporate officials. When you have a certain number of people on top sharing wealth among themseleves, then there will always be a larger number of people at the bottom, looking up for daily living resources.
DeleteQuestion 1:
ReplyDeleteMexico, like a number of countries (particularly former colonial nations) have a long history of authoritarian rule and racial tensions. When they did change over to a democratic system, the PRI party used clientelism as "the cement that built loyalty to the PRI and the political system." (442) Therefore, there has been a long history of a powerful elite holding centralized political power, either through force or through almost a sort of pseudo-feudalism (money and favors for support from the peasants). Neither of these is unique to Mexico. The United States suffered from lengthy periods of single party control (in fact, that was the norm before the 20th century) and client politics. Rampant racism and discriminatory legal systems (against not only African Americans through slavery and Jim Crow, but also against Asian, Latino, and at times even Southern, eastern, and Celtic Europeans, although to widely varying degrees) has also historically enforced gaps in economic equality and allowed elites to live comfortably off the back of cheap labor. Furthermore, women and non-white men were barred from voting until well into the last century. In Britain, the House of Lords, while reduced in power, still has a privileged place in the political system, and universal suffrage was only instituted a quarter of the way into the 20th century. In short, while elitism is dangerous and, in many ways, antithetical to liberalism, there is no modern liberal democracy that does not have, or has not had, massive amounts of economic and political hierarchies.
It appears that capitalism is morphing into a necessary evil for the survival of democratic liberalism. Yes, welfare states are created by excessive taxation to support those below the poverty level, but who is actually benefitting from NAFTA the most? We would all like to believe that the American legislators are looking out for the best interest of the majority of its citizens, however, corporatism is centered on increasing the power or special interest groups and lobbyists....this means those gaining the most are the elite hierarchal powers of big corporations not the middle class worker.
DeleteWhat bringing Mexico into a free-trade agreement with the United States and Canada a good idea or a bad idea for the three countries? Why?
ReplyDeleteFor all countries it was a good decision but yet a bad decision. The economic reform tied Mexico to international economic conditions. That alone would he made me a bit leary. Mexico wasn't already struggling. Although at the time the market was good but did they ever consider if the market went bad could they afford to take a big hit in their economy and recover? This bond also reflected on what was happening in Mexico to the US and Canada. The drug cartels assassinations and everything else made mainly the US and Mexico look bad. Then the US economy began to suffer.
I am curious as to what exactly caused the U.S. economy to suffer within this field of thought? This seems to be arguing that the problem was tied closely to the assassinations which I think seems to be more of a flash in the pan vs. a long term trend that caused economic troubles.
DeleteIt seems that everyone is answering the question regarding the positive or negative affects of the inclusion of Mexico in a free-trade agreement with the United States and Canada. It seems that the country hurt most by this agreement is Mexico. The lack of subsidies for their farmers while American farmers continued being subsidized prevented them from being competitive on a large scale market. Additionally, the lack of stability within the Mexican economy definitely was not helped by the drop in jobs seen following their joining the agreement. When one nation began suffering within the agreement it started to affect the other nations as well and began pulling down the United States and Canada. This all being said, it is hard to imagine Mexico not being included within the trade agreement given their proximity to Canada and the United States and the push for free markets that would want more places to buy and sell goods.
ReplyDeleteThe NAFTA question is centered around who benefits and who suffers from the agreement. Mexican agriculture took a hit from American subsidized competition, while the American middle class lost jobs in the manufacturing sector AND MORE.! We have become a service based economy as export deficits rise. There is little doubt that the winners are the ELITE HIERARCHAL corporations....corporatism favors big business not the middle class worker. Capitalism that only improves the lot of the owners and CEO bonuses, reduces the opportunity of the working class.
DeleteWas bringing Mexico into a free-trade agreement with the United States and Canda a good idea or bad idea? Why?
ReplyDeleteBased on the readings, it seems like NAFTA was beneifical and harming to Mexico. Gobalization allowed Mexico to expand their economic markets, curtailed government secrecy, and formed a closer connection to the United States. However, this shared agreement also increased Mexico's instability. Historically anytime the United States has went through an economic crisis, Mexico is greatly effected. I think this is the worse part of the agreement; being linked to another country's fininacial affairs, when you have no say on their dealings and management.
On the other hand if it wasn't for the close connection with the U.S., Mexico would not have been able to pay off their international debt. When Mexico followed the U.S. in the 1994 economic crisis, the U.S. partnered with the European country and the IMF to extend $50 billion dollars to Mexico (Kesselman et. al., p.453). I am not sure if the U.S. would have been a partner in that effort if it was'nt for NAFTA.
as bringing Mexico into a free-trade agreement with the United States and Canada a good idea or bad idea? Why?
ReplyDeleteI think that bring Mexico into a free-trade agreement with US and Canada had the potential of being a good idea. NAFTA had some things that wasn't good for Mexico though. The fact that Mexico was economically tied to the US and Canada was bad because the economy of one state would effect the others. The farmers in Mexico were put in a bad position, and they had a lack of subsidies. But, the US farmers still had their subsidies, so it prevented Mexico from being competitive on a large scale. With all of these problems Mexico experience, it definitely raised the rate of drug transportation, which is also terrible.