Translation By: femme/900/13 August 2005
The analysis of the impact that the imposition of the neoliberal model has had on the loss of our
national sovereignty in the economic, political, and social spheres and on the social movements'
response in the face of such a situation is crucial so that we may be able to take action in the present and build for our country's future.
This process of the weakening of our national sovereignty was initiated with the imposition of the neoliberal model,charecterized by the Mexican state's subordination to the imperialist states and international agencies' dictates concerning monetary, fiscal, financial, energy, natural resources, and agricultural policies, and also those directed towards women, education, religion, health, and citizens' organizations.
Under the protection of free trade and the lesser state, a series of political decisions have been made throughout the course of recent years that respond more to the requirements of the process of the accumulation of capital in the cental regions than to
national economic and social needs. And for that very reason, they affect all the social relations problems in our country. In this way, the power of transnational capital was imposed at the expense of national development and the welfare of the Mexican people.
The aforementioned political decisions basically adopted three modalities. One of them consisted of changing the legal context through the counterreform of the political constitution of
the united Mexican states and various compulso laws. Another was based on the violation of constitutional precept (as in the case of the multiple services contracts in the petroleum industry). And the third had to do with the sale of strategic semi-public companies at giveaway prices, with easy terms of payment, and the granting of diverse prerogatives, mainly as relates to taxes, which will remain in the hands of foreign capitalists.
Among the political decisions that have particularly undermined the defeated national sovereignty, one has to mention, a)the signing of international treaties that place Mexico in an unfavorable position before countries with whom they ratified, b)the counterreforms in religious matters of Articles III, V, XXIV, XXVII, and CXXX in the Constitution that opened the doors to the Catholic leaders so that they would have input in public matters, c)the indigenous counterreform, d)the counterreforms to the Mexican Institute's Social Security Law, and recently, to the IMSS (Spanish language acronym) Retirement and Pension Laws, e)the bank recovery with the Bank Fund for Savings Protection (Fobaproa)-Institute for Savings Account Protection (IPAB, Spanish language acronym), f)the drastic reduction of benefits, technical assistance and loan money to the district, the unrestricted opening up of the northern border to subsidized agricultural and livestock products, and recently, the passage of the law concerning genetically modified foods.
In this way, the national economy spilled over to the outside, favoring transnational capital to the detriment of the nation's endogenous economic and social development, and consequently, its benefits for all Mexican citizens. Presently, the financial system, the communications industry, natural resources (water, gas, land, beaches,and others), energy companies, pension funds, and the insurance companies belong, to a great extent, to foreign capitalists.
The introduction of foreign capital into the banking sector and the transmission of fiscal resources in enormous quantities to banks through Fobaproa-IPAB Ssrdinates economic as much as social policy to the interests of international financial capital and places our country in a context of heightened and everlasting vulnerability.
The counterreform to labor legislation by the Insitute for State Workers' Safety and Social Services (ISSSTE, Spanish language acronyn) and of the energy companies has, nevertheless, remained unwritten thanks tion from several sectors. Because of the "structural reforms" carried out along these lines, driven on by the government of Fox and his followers in Parliament and in the private sector, national sovrereignty, which is presently weakened, will become even more damaged.
The effects of the loss of our national sovereignty, although they are expressed in short rphraseology, are profoundly brutal. 60% of the population survives in conditons of poverty and thousands of people are continually swelling the migratory flows to foreign countries in search of work. There is an increase of alarming proportions of the mass of male and female laborers who survive in the informal economy without workers' rights. There are repeated violations of the workers' rights among those who have a formal job. There is marked interference by the Catholic Church in public matters. There are deterioration and commercialization of public and private education. There is plundering of energy resources through their disguised priivatization. There is food dependency derived from the structural crisis to which the agricultural sector has been subjected. There is the slump of the gross profit formation of fixed capital and in the purchasing power of salaries. The above are all part of a long list of misfortunes that are presently being suffered through.
In order to change this situation and improve the working and living conditions of the Mexican people, it is necessary then to defend and reclaim our national sovereignty-as the State's independence and autonomy and as an effective authority of the people-in front of the predatory onslaught of contemporary imperialist globalization.
And consequently, whatever national project that aspires to set itself up as such and that looks to making Mexico a worthy, just, egalitarian, democratic, and independent nation should, among its priorities, look towards the recovery of our damaged national sovereignty.