[Marxism] Fred Rosen pontificates on the Mexican elections

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(This guy Fred Rosen used to be the executive director of NACLA, the Latin 
American research group that had its roots in the 60s radical movement. 
Sometime in the early 90s, they decided to break with their radical past 
and began writing boneheaded attacks on the FARC, Cuba and any other 
leftist manifestation that did not fit into their 'civil society' 
framework. Some people have told me that the transition smacked of a CIA 
intervention, but I tend to doubt that. I think it was simply the same old 
story of people getting tired of swimming against the stream. I have read 
Rosen's article a couple of times and am still not sure what point he is 
trying to make. It is written on such a high level of abstraction that it 
might serve as an inkblot test. Referring to a NY Times editorial, Rosen 
writes: "Earlier this week, for example, the globally influential New York 
Times, short of endorsing any of the candidates for Mexico?s presidency, 
pronounced the ongoing process to be democratic. This, according to the 
Times, is because neither of the leading contenders challenged Mexico?s 
basic economic relations, nor, more importantly, did they challenge the 
global institutional arrangements into which Mexico is tied." This suggests 
that the US ruling class is standing back and paring its fingernails, 
totally indifferent to the outcome of the Mexican elections. Is Rosen 
living on the same planet as us? This fucking newspaper ran a virulent 
attack on López Obrador by Enrique Krauze on its op-ed pages just this 
week. That signals the paper's true attitude, as well as that of the big 
bourgeoisie. It is too bad that people like Rosen lost track of the concept 
of a bourgeoisie since it is far more useful than terms like "political 
elites".)

http://www2.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/noticia.html?id_nota=32532&tabla=articulos
Democracy and Polyarchy in Mexico
BY FRED ROSEN/The Herald Mexico
El Universal
Domingo 25 de junio del 2006

What difference will it make if Mexico?s next president is named Calderón, 
López Obrador or even Madrazo? Some of the most articulate and influential 
pro-democracy voices have argued that it will ? and should ? make very 
little difference at all.

For many who are closely watching, both from inside and outside the 
country, Mexico?s election is part of the ?transition to democracy? of the 
past three decades. Like Spain in the 1970s, Chile in the 1980s or the 
ex-USSR in the 1990s, what?s at stake is not the triumph of any particular 
set of political elites, but the strengthening of a set of institutions we 
recognize as constituting political democracy.

These institutions have very little to do with the economic and social 
relations that determine who effectively ?rules? a country or a social 
order, but rather, as political scientist Michael Coppedge has written, 
?ensure that effective political decision-makers are chosen in free and 
fair elections, under conditions in which citizens have access to diverse 
sources of independent information, can express their political opinions 
freely, and can organize and join parties and other organizations without 
fear of government retaliation.? Coppedge was a student of the influential 
political scientist Robert Dahl, and is describing what Dahl called 
?polyarchy,? rule by many.

Dahl, in turn, was influenced by the German-born sociologist Joseph 
Schumpeter, who argued that democracy ?means only that the people have the 
opportunity of accepting or refusing the men who are to rule them.? Real 
decision-making, from this perspective, should take place away from the 
institutionalized electoral process. Free and fair elections should make 
the political process legitimate and prevent groups like the old 
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which lack or have lost popular 
support, from seizing or maintaining control.

This perspective, basically a centrist, conservative one, has been given a 
critical interpretation by contemporary sociologist William Robinson.

?When U.S. policymakers and transnational elites talk about democracy 
promotion,? writes Robinson, ?what they really mean is the promotion of 
polyarchy, and this refers ? to a system in which a small group actually 
rules and mass participation and decision-making is confined to choosing 
leaders in elections that are carefully managed by competing elites.?

Now competing elites can differ in important ways, and a choice between, 
say, free-market elites and regulated-market elites, or corrupt elites and 
non-corrupt (or less corrupt) elites can be a significant one.

Nonetheless, argues Robinson, the key matters of the distribution of local 
(and especially global) wealth and power, and citizen participation in 
social and economic decision-making, have been entirely removed from the 
discourse of polyarchy.

Paradoxically, from this understanding of democracy ? be it the supportive 
interpretation of Dahl and Schumpeter or the critical one of Robinson ? the 
less at stake in any election, the more ?democratic? it can be.

Earlier this week, for example, the globally influential New York Times, 
short of endorsing any of the candidates for Mexico?s presidency, 
pronounced the ongoing process to be democratic. This, according to the 
Times, is because neither of the leading contenders challenged Mexico?s 
basic economic relations, nor, more importantly, did they challenge the 
global institutional arrangements into which Mexico is tied.

Here is a part of what the paper?s editorial had to say about the two 
leading candidates:

Felipe Calderón ?is a respectable model of the Latin American colorless, 
Harvard-educated, pro-business candidate. He wants to modernize Mexico and 
make it more globally competitive, thereby creating more jobs. Mr. Calderón 
advocates opening Mexico?s poorly run and underfinanced energy sector to 
foreign investment. It is an unpopular idea, but sorely needed.?

Andrés Manuel López Obrador ?is a leftist, but he is no threat to the 
United States, nor to Mexico. He has no ambitions to foment revolution and 
stresses the importance of good relations with Washington. He accepts a 
market economy, but would attempt to make it fairer to Mexico?s poor. Mr. 
López Obrador has said that he would like to use government spending to 
create jobs and raise the minimum wage ? now $4.50 a day.?

?Americans should want a Mexican president who can maintain stability and 
produce jobs that can keep potential emigrants at home. ? Mr. Calderón and 
Mr. López Obrador propose very different, completely legitimate, approaches 
to this task.?

The editorial represents the conventional wisdom that holds democracy to be 
equivalent to polyarchy. Neither candidate falls outside the accepted 
confines of polyarchic competition and so either is acceptable. The closer 
their positions to one another, the more acceptable they would be.

Perhaps this is why the election has been fought on such trivial and 
distorted grounds as uncomfortable brothers-in-law and dangerous 
personalities. Perhaps the candidates are simply guarding their democratic 
credentials by refusing to discuss anything substantive.

frosen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 


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