The Politics of Immiserizing Growth: Mexico in Comparative Perspective

This chapter advances a political explanation of immiserizing growth in Mexico. It identifies five episodes of economic growth in modern Mexican history during which the Indigenous population benefitted less than the general population, did not see any improvement in its level of deprivation, or experienced worsening circumstances. The chapter argues that political exclusion and unequal inclusion were the driving forces behind a long path-dependent process that occurred in conjunction with an exclusionary ethno/cultural ideology. The political process that accounts for immiserization included state actions and inactions, such as exclusion from or unequal access to state resources and services. Such actions and inactions bolstered cultural and social mechanisms of marginalization. None of the pre-1980 economic development strategies pursued by the state gave serious attention to the interests and welfare of the Indigenous population. However, the arrival of neoliberal reform and economic globalization in the form of the North American Free Trade Agreement, with its vigorous encouragement of state withdrawal, set the stage for an unprecedented level of abandonment of Indigenous welfare as even the minimal supports of the earlier era were dismantled. A comparison with the South Korea reinforces the argument regarding the impact of long historical processes and the state in creating and reinforcing social exclusion during periods of economic growth.