Análisis Externo

P hemselves

unequal...Space regulates and perpetuates the relations of domination. It accomplishes this by subordinating simple reproduction (of the labour force) to the more complex reproduction of the relations of production, and by subordinating

the latte á

.

-H L D É : 243-245).31

This chapter aims to locate and define the contemporary regional economic integration projects of Mexico with the Central American states through analysing the interlinked processes that the peripheral capitalist space in Mexico was transformed and expanded. In that sense, the regional projects of Mexico are recognised as the structurally conditioned initiatives aiming to establish the physical and social conditions of the capitalist development. Furthermore, these projects will be located within the contemporary processes of the neoliberal rescaling of the capitalist spatiality where the social relations of capitalism globally intensify on the national scale while simultaneously extending towards the marginal spaces. It will be observed that within this neoliberal re-territorialisation process, the uneven relationship between the centre and the periphery is reproduced and extended in different regional and sub-regional forms. Peripheral capitalist spaces like Mexico and Turkey that already integrated with the centre assume a spatiotemporally specific role

31 _{T “ “ W H L , (ed) Neil}

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within this global process of neoliberal rescaling by channelling and establishing the material and social conditions of capitalist accumulation.

Previously (chapter two), the social space has been defined and established as the totality of the social relations of production without conflating these relations with a particular dominant mode of production and the key features of the formation of the peripheral capitalist spatiality have been conceptualised through the spatiotemporally specific theories of Luxemburg, Trotsky and Gramsci. It was also explained that the relationship between the social formation and the general material conditions in which this social formation being produced, consolidated and transformed, is not a mechanic relationship; therefore, while each mode of production has its space, the characteristics of a social space cannot be directly reduced from this mode of production (Lefebvre 1976: 32; Lefebvre 1978/2009: 234). This point enables us to identify various specific spatiotemporal processes of formation, consolidation and transformation of capitalist spaces on multiple scales without delinking these processes from the continual production and reproduction of the uneven relations underpinning the global capitalist spatiality. Therefore, the configuration of the contemporary capitalist social relations on the national scale which has been continually contested, transformed and consolidated within a dialectical process is directly linked with the production of the capitalist spatiality on the global level. As a result of this continually transformed and reproduced relationship, the social space on the national scale has been positioned within the international division of labour. Thus, the inter-spatial relations on the national scale are conditioned by the position of the social space within this international division of labour.

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Thus, it has been argued in the previous chapter (chapter three) that the modern peripheral capitalist space in Mexico and Turkey is direct product of this process of uneven and combined production, consolidation and transformation of the peripheral capitalist spatiality. The centralised and the institutionalised social formation in the peripheral geographies was preconditioned by the uneven unfurling of the capitalist development which gradually dissolved the traditional social relations of production and property relations and ultimately consolidated by the passive revolutions in the beginning of the 20th century. Therefore, the specific spatiotemporal formation of the capitalist spatiality had been determined by the geographical positioning of Mexico as it had been well captured in the words that are attributed to G P D P M T D Estados Unidos!"32.

The consolidation process of the peripheral capitalist space was commenced in Mexico and Turkey during the post-passive revolutionary period after the national bourgeois-in-formation -which itself, in fact, is the direct product of the uneven capitalist accumulation- overthrew the . This limited

national bourgeoisie established a precarious hegemony which was dependent on the national consensus where the nationalism appeared as the common of the political legitimacy. Through the passive revolution the national bourgeois assumed the responsibility for the capitalist accumulation and the economic growth taking only a step further from the previous pattern of capitalist development (Morton 2011: 63). In that sense, the passive revolution in the periphery became the mobilisation directed by the national bourgeois as an intermediary

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of the process of the capitalist accumulation through a social-democratic compromise (Lefebvre 1964/2009: 59-60).

Therefore, in the first section, the post-passive revolutionary period of institutionalisation and economic growth which has consolidated the peripheral capitalist space will be analysed as the second and more complex stage of the uneven development of the productive forces. As Lefebvre

necessary but insufficient in other words where the uneven and combined development of productive forces reached a degree of exhaustion- through seizing the existing institutions and creating the other necessary ones for the maintenance of the capitalist accumulation (Lefebvre 1980/2009: 217). In this post-passive revolutionary process, the contradictions which had conditioned the passive revolution was eliminated by achieving a social consensus between the ruling class and the wider segments of the society (particularly peasantry) via giving compromises in the form of the agrarian reform, by maintaining the uninterrupted capitalist accumulation with the foreign dependent ISI based economic growth and by reshaping the social structure with a political programme of institutionalisation where the common denominator appeared as nationalism.

However, the dependent feature of the ISI policies to the foreign finance brought the economy to a point of stalemate during the 1970s and 1980s. The ISI development had two important impacts on the particular nature of the economic growth in Mexico. Firstly, the forty years of foreign dependent ISI development laid the foundations of an industrial production which gradually

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reached to a level that the productive forces would be integrated more closely to the North American productive forces, sharing similar production and demand patterns with the North American industry and capital. Secondly, the exhaustion of the capabilities of the ISI development in maintaining the capitalist accumulation enforced a premature and rapid reorientation of the economy through the deregulation of the market rules and liberalisation of the international trade. Therefore, the crisis of the ISI development was followed by a rapid and profound process of neoliberalisation and deregulation of whole economy and society which is again conducted by the State helping to regulate the integration of the national economy to the world markets (Lefebvre 1979/2001: 777). The second section will focus on this process in which the Mexican peripheral capitalist space was transformed and rescaled within the neoliberal international division of labour.

By revealing the specific spatiotemporal conditions that have structured the dialectical processes of formation, consolidation and transformation of the peripheral capitalist space in Mexico in the chapter three and this chapter, the third section will analyse the contemporary reproduction of these uneven relations of capitalist development. The expansion of the capitalist space towards the immediate geography of Mexico which appears in the form of regional integration projects such as Plan Puebla Panama (PPP which is currently called as Proyecto Mesoamerica -PM) will be analysed from a standpoint of the exhaustion of the ISI development as a tool of uninterrupted capitalist accumulation in an era of neoliberal rescaling. Concurrent with Lefebvre, the state once again appeared as the agency for the creation of the necessary spatial conditions of the production and reproduction needed for the capitalist accumulation, but this time on an international scale.

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The PPP-PM was initiated, as a part of the global neoliberal rescaling of the capitalist spatiality, in order to create the necessary spatial infrastructure for the expansion of capital and facilitate the capitalist accumulation by creating the conditions of a unified, harmonised and standardised market in the Central American region which has been marginalised and relatively isolated from the international markets. Thus, by integrating its own periphery to the international markets, Mexico reproduces an uneven, asymmetric relationship of economic development, a similar process to the enlarged reproduction and uneven development that was previously defined by Luxemburg and Trotsky. In other words, after being integrated to the international division of labour and securing this positioning irreversibly with its membership to NAFTA, now it becomes the mediator of the integration of Central America into world markets through PPP-PM.

4.1. The post-passive revolutionary transformation of the peripheral capitalist space in Mexico: the institutionalisation of the Mexican Revolution Lefebvre accurately captured the role of the state in the formation and maintenance of the uninterrupted capitalist accumulation. He emphasised the role of state in the capitalist development by assuming the responsibility of the production and reproduction of the necessary spatial infrastructure for the productive forces and for the organisation of the everyday life. Furthermore, and very significantly, Lefebvre underlined the dialectical thus, continual, not fixed- nature of this process of capitalist accumulation which interacts with and transforms the political element (Lefebvre 1964/2009: 59).

Parallel to the global economic crisis of 1929, the way which the hegemony of the national ruling class did maintain and further the capitalist accumulation

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during the second phase of uneven development was the implementation of the Import Substitution Industrial development (ISI) policies and the creation of the necessary spatial practices for the industrial and economic growth. Therefore, in this period, the state did not just implement the import substitution policies but actively engaged with the infrastructural development such as energy production and in the creation of financial bodies to maintain the resource flow to finance the expansion of the productive forces. Simultaneously, as a part of the social-democratic compromise, the ruling class declared the end of class differences and immobilised the society, either violently repressing it or by incorporating with consent. The whole process of this post-passive revolutionary uneven capitalist development should be seen as a very complex and comprehensive formation/consolidation of the nation- state. And the main features of this process have been determined by the quantitative growth that was mediated by the national ruling class (Lefebvre 1966/2009: 139). Cardoso and Faletto (1979) make a similar conclusion by explaining the relationship between the periods where the productive forces were controlled and expanded by the enclave types of foreign capital or national bourgeoisie -which was still dependent on the foreign financing. It is possible to argue that the exogenous character of the peripheral capitalist space has been reproduced throughout this post-passive revolutionary process and, therefore, this section will unravel the conditions that transformed and maintained this dependency.

The product of the Mexican passive revolution was a peripheral capitalist nation-state yet to be institutionalised. With the triumph of the constitutionalists over Victoria Huerta and the old revolutionary allies Zapata and Villa, Carrancist politics elevated itself on the one hand from the social