A-Infos (en) Mexico, FAM, Regeneration #13: Claudia Sheinbaum: strengthening the mixed capitalist economy (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The project of Claudia Sheinbaum and her Morena party is that of a 
country with a capitalist economy in which the free market is linked to 
a strengthened State that directs economic, social and political 
development. This purpose, as is known, was initially promoted by Andrés 
Manuel López Obrador (AMLO). In effect, the AMLO government promotes the 
rescue of the State and that it, consequently, stops being subordinated 
to the laws of the market and becomes a promoter of the socioeconomic 
development of the country. This policy is based, among other elements, 
on the so-called "Mexican humanism." Morena's presidential candidate, 
Claudia Sheinbaum, when explaining what "the president called Mexican 
humanism," states the following: "It is about the fact that under the 
free trade system the State continues to play a fundamental role in the 
life of the nation, that does not give up building a true welfare state 
that guarantees security, peace and prosperity. It is about promoting 
private investment without corruption, guaranteeing profits but also 
decent employment and wages" (Speech by Claudia Sheinbaum, November 19, 
2023).
In Morena's Nation Project 20242030, in the section "Mixed economy 
without abandoning the social responsibility of the State", it is noted 
that in the "first phase of national transformation" economic management 
sought to "harmonize the interests of all productive sectors ", maintain 
"strict discipline in public finances", create jobs and recover 
salaries, and support the countryside. The document continues: "Social 
programs and the execution of large regional development projects have 
strengthened the internal market and the population's consumption 
capacity and generated conditions of political stability and economic 
benefits for the business sector" (pp. 23- 24). In this sense, the 
following is proposed, among other initiatives: "Consolidate the role of 
the public sector as a central actor" in some economic sectors (energy, 
telecommunications and infrastructure); "Promote business activities"; 
"Maintain a policy of free trade and open economy." Claudia Sheinbaum, 
at the American Society 2024 Meeting, argued that both private and 
public investment must be facilitated in the energy transition. This 
transition will be made, "partly with the CFE and partly with the 
private sector, with clear rules." Likewise, one of the coordinators of 
the Dialogues for Transformation, named by Sheinbaum and a participant 
in the meeting, maintained that among the axes they work on is "a mixed 
economy, with stewardship of the State accompanied by a 'decided 
participation of the private sector adding value and zero corruption'." 
(La Jornada, January 15, 2024).
Sheinbaum and Morena's country project is very clear and sincere: they 
propose a market economy - a "free trade system", as the candidate calls 
it - in which private investment is promoted, although without 
corruption, and that guarantees profits for businessmen. It is, in 
effect, a capitalist economy that encourages business investment and 
generates economic benefits for the bourgeoisie. This, however, is not 
enough. The market economy must be governed by a strengthened State, 
which plays a "fundamental role in the life of the nation." In 
accordance with these purposes, Obrero humanism is a capitalist 
humanism, in which nothing human is alien to domination and exploitation.

The mixed capitalist economy, like all capitalism, is based on 
exploitation and dispossession. The theft of other people's work not 
paid to workers, the exploitation, and the looting of natural resources 
(water, sun, wind, minerals, oil, etc.) from communities, towns, and 
inhabitants of a territory, are the bases of the mixed economy. 
Exploitation is carried out by businessmen and also by the State through 
its public investments, when these generate profits and/or income. 
However, in most cases, public investments do not seek to produce 
profits directly but rather to create favorable conditions for the "free 
trade system" through infrastructure works (roads, trains, airports, 
ports, energy, etc.). ) and social policies that increase consumption in 
the domestic market, generate benefits for businessmen, as well as 
create "conditions of political stability."

Now, the dispossession of territories and natural resources is carried 
out through regional development megaprojects. These also destroy 
community ways of life by subjecting them to the market, the tourist 
industry or the industrial development poles.

During the AMLO government, the State has recovered, in a limited and 
moderate manner, some of its regulatory functions and its participation 
in some economic activities (energy, infrastructure, etc.), although it 
is still far from having the stewardship of economic development. In a 
path of continuity, Claudia Sheinbaum, presidential candidate of the 
Let's Keep Making History coalition, made up of Morena, the Labor Party 
(PT) and the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM), proposes, in the 
next six-year term, to carry out the project of a mixed capitalist 
economy at a second level, at "a second floor", according to his 
expression. A model, as we have noted, that seeks the "free trade 
system" and a strengthened State. This project, unlike what some claim, 
is not the mere repetition of the model of mixed economy and welfare 
state that Mexico experienced between 1940 and 1982, and the Western 
world in the golden age of capitalism (1945-1975). And it is not because 
the national and global contexts have changed substantially.
In contrast, the Mexican right and its candidate, Xóchilt Gálvez, 
propose a return to the neoliberal model, to the barbaric capitalism of 
privatizations, looting, rampant corruption, shameful submission to the 
United States, the abusive operation of market laws, dismantling of 
labor rights, the reduction of real wages, job insecurity, and the 
failed state or the narco-state.
Indeed, the Mexican electoral right and its pre-candidate propose a 
return to neoliberal capitalism, while the electoral left and its 
pre-candidate propose strengthening the mixed capitalist economy. Both 
the right and the left - using these terms of political geometry that 
say little about the political content that defines people and groups - 
are in favor of continuing with the capitalist system, although they 
differ in the model they champion. The right of capital (PAN, PRI, PRD) 
formulates a neoliberal model and the left of capital (Morena, PT, PVEM) 
is in favor of a mixed economy model. Both models share being based on 
exploitation and dispossession, although they differ in the scale, 
functions and type of State participation. The left of capital, its 
spokespersons and systemic intellectuals, present their proposal as the 
desirable, viable and possible path to confront neoliberalism. In his 
dichotomous vision, society has to choose between neoliberal capitalism 
or mixed economy capitalism. Faced with this dilemma, what is possible 
and desirable, according to them, is to continue in the capitalist 
system, in a "free trade system", with a strengthened State that deploys 
a welfare policy.
Fortunately, the Mexican people, in their long history of resistance and 
rebellion, have not allowed themselves to be trapped in choosing between 
different models of capitalism. The people and communities that for five 
hundred and thirty-two years have resisted and confronted capitalism, 
and that in some historical junctures have been on the verge of 
defeating it - as in the process of the taking of Mexico City and a good 
part of the country by the popular armies of Emiliano Zapata and 
Francisco Villa at the end of 1914 - have built alternatives to that 
system of barbarism and death. They have responded to capitalist private 
property, dispossession, exploitation and statism by building 
alternatives to communal, ejidal, collective, common goods, and through 
their forms of self-organization and self-government, their community 
assemblies, the care of Mother Earth. , the defense of their rights and 
cultures, have created other forms of life, free and autonomous. 
Alternatives to capitalism exist, here and now, in Mexico, and are being 
lovingly and imaginatively cultivated by indigenous communities and peoples.

Ruben Trejo

https://mega.nz/folder/UdJyTa5S#CEdWSpaL3ptC74r6ENLPTw
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