Mexico's Dead Capital

TCS Daily ^ | 5/16/2006 | Paul Driessen

[Jane2005]

In one week, three news items helped clarify the intertwined issues of illegal immigration, poverty south of the Rio Grande, and how the fortuitous course of U.S. history generated opportunity and prosperity that remain elusive for our southern neighbors.

[tomzz]

Mexicans should consider how easy it would have been for the Army of the Potomac to simply take Mexico after the civil war ended. The basic reality is we didnt WANT it.

[caver]

So what would those 3 news items be?

[mtbopfuyn]

Did you not bother clicking on the link?

[mtbopfuyn]

25 billion is sent back and all the southwest belong to us. Disgusting. Bush doesn't get it. They don't want citizenship, they want US taxpayer freebies, higher wages, and for it all to be turned back into Mexico. If they loved Mexico so much, why are they here?

[Rebelbase]

An American army took Mexico in 1848 and we didn't want it then, either.

[WayneM]

Wrong from the start... It wasn't the fortuitous course of U.S. history that generated opportunity and prosperity that remain elusive for our southern neighbors. It was (and hopefully will be) our culture. Our national culture made the USA what it is today. Mexico's culture made it waht it is today. Same with Guatemala, Canada, Argentina, and so on. By allowing uncontrolled illegal immigration we are in great danger of losing our culture. Any open border/free immgration apologists care to dispute this?

[bert]

Apparently you don't know that only 15 or so years before the event you noted, American troops led by General Winfield Scott And Major Robert E Lee occupied Mexico City.

The good fathers of Mexico City offered General Scott the office of King and he declined.

[hershey]

The author is right -- already 28 per cent of California's population is illegal alien. They flee Mexico, yet bring with them the culture and mindset that kept them downtrodden and poor. They will, as soon as they vote, translate that into demands for more entitlements, not only for themselves, but for any other migrant -- as long as he's from south of the border. Fifty per cent of Hispanics drop out of high school in Denver (one example, you could substitute any other high school with a sizable Hispanic population). They took a poll of Denver dropouts, who listed three factors. 1: hard times at home. 2: poor self esteem. 3: peer pressure. Mexico has never emphasized education as a key to success in life. Never. They don't understand how America works, they don't get it, and the tragedy is many never will.

[tigtog]

As the writer opined, it was the English common law that enabled our country to prosper. Take a look at all of the former Spanish and French colonies and contrast their lot to the former English colonies. The difference is striking.

[hershey]

Bingo.

[harrowup]

Any open border/free immgration apologists care to dispute this?

I don't know any open border/free immigration apologists here or on the ground.

However, there is a big difference between "allowing" and "enduring" which is important to remember.

Cutting down the rhetoric would go a long way to a solution.

Having to listen to Spanish on a telephohe menu doesn't bother me nearly as much as having to listen to any menu...and that is not because I speak Spanish.

[harrowup]

...poor self esteem...

Anyone, especially a high school dropout, who understands 'self-esteem' , poor or otherwise, is categorically not lacking in intelligence and/or comprehension. I suspect the survey may be bent.

[WayneM]

There are many - including some posters to FR - who see nothing wrong with allowing unlimited border crossing.

They usually resort to charges of racism and/or protectionism when challenged.

If you haven't encountered these posters you are either new here or in denial.

[dennisw]

In one week, three news items helped clarify the intertwined issues of illegal immigration, poverty south of the Rio Grande, and how the fortuitous course of U.S. history generated opportunity and prosperity that remain elusive for our southern neighbors.


Mexicans working legally and illegally in the United States send more than $25 billion a year back to their families, says Professor Luis Pazos of the Mexican think tank CISLE. That's twice what Mexico gets from tourism, and second only to petroleum production revenue.

The poor fisherman who discovered Mexico's vast offshore oil fields got a little medal, but never a peso, for alerting the government to resources that have earned his country tens of billions of dollars. The oil might belong to "the people," but the bonanza revenues go to the rich and corrupt, leaving the country's poor to eke out a living on less than $5 a day.


A growing "reconquista" movement demands the return of "Aztlan," as radicals call southwestern states that were "stolen" from Mexico, causing it to remain impoverished, they claim. "Atzlan is California. Atzlan is this country," a student ranted to Sean Hannity of Fox News. "This country was ours, and we want it back."

A brief review of history and economics is in order.



Spanish colonists arrived first in the Americas, installing their seigneurial (feudal) system in lands claimed for king and church. The state gained title to all mineral rights, upper classes acquired vast land holdings, and often corrupt bureaucrats regulated markets and businesses. The vast majority of families worked the land or did menial labor, with few opportunities to own property, become educated or improve their social status.



By the time the English began establishing colonies, their system of laws, democratic government, property rights, free enterprise and individual rights had evolved far beyond feudal concepts. Even poor entrepreneurs could and did acquire property, patent inventions, mine gold and silver, and build businesses, factories and industries. When wars and treaties added Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California to the expanding nation, those new states exchanged Spanish feudalism for the dynamic American system.



But even today in Mexico, key industries remain nationalized, and wealth is concentrated in the hands of elites. Prevalent ideologies view wealth as "a zero-sum game," in which what one person acquires can come only by taking money or property from someone else. These doctrines help foment class conflict, demand "more equitable" distribution of wealth, and condemn globalization and foreign investment, rather than seeing them as agents of improved opportunity, health and environmental quality.



Mexico's poor own their limited property in "deficient form," says Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, with inadequately documented rights and assets. They have what he terms "dead capital" - "houses but not titles; crops but not deeds; businesses but not statutes of incorporation." Worse, they have little opportunity to improve their lot, as long as they remain in Mexico.



Much of rural and small-town Mexico does not even have electricity, telephone and internet service, sewage treatment, water-purification, or decent roads, schools and healthcare. Just five miles from Cancun, I visited Valle Verde, where several thousand people live in primitive wood shacks, with electricity for only a few light bulbs and no running water or sanitation. One cannot help wondering where all that petroleum and tourism money has gone.



Low-skill wages today are less than 15 percent of what Mexican workers can earn in the US, and half of its 106 million people still live in poverty. Mexico is not poor because it lacks natural resources or bright, industrious citizens. It is blessed with both in abundance. Mexico is poor because it retains an antiquated legal and economic system.



What if?


If the southwestern United States had remained part of Mexico, this region would have been governed under Mexican laws -- and would probably be as impoverished and bereft of opportunity as Mexico is today. The Southwest's vigorous cities and universities, its medical centers and Silicon Valleys, its upward mobility and thriving middle class, its transportation, communication and power generation systems would be a mere shadow of what they are today. Las Vegas and Hollywood would still be sleepy desert way stations.



If the reconquistas were to "take back" these lands, they would likely impose the same disastrous policies that have enfeebled Mexico. They would squander, rather than capture, America's prosperity and opportunity -- turning America's gold into lead, like a reverse King Midas. Countless poor Mexicans would still be drawn to the magnetic North. And our immigration problems would simply move to the southern borders of Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado and Oklahoma.




If Mexico can finally break its feudal shackles, it will give its people the opportunity, health, environmental quality and prosperity they seek, and so richly deserve. All classes will have a better future. And Mexico will become an inspiration for all of Latin America.



Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise, Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality, and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power · Black Death (www.Eco-Imperialism.com).

[caver]

No I didn't. I thought the teaser and the poster's comments were weak, that's why I asked.

[harrowup]

I am neither new nor in denial. I and others have been accused of being part of the OBL, a term for which I had to ask for clarification, assuming it meant Osammy been lackin', and none of us have ever advocated such a position. You need to cool the rhetoric if you want solutions or credibility.

[Tolik]

Paul Driessen:

...But even today in Mexico, key industries remain nationalized, and wealth is concentrated in the hands of elites. Prevalent ideologies view wealth as "a zero-sum game," in which what one person acquires can come only by taking money or property from someone else. These doctrines help foment class conflict, demand "more equitable" distribution of wealth, and condemn globalization and foreign investment, rather than seeing them as agents of improved opportunity, health and environmental quality.

...Mexico is not poor because it lacks natural resources or bright, industrious citizens. It is blessed with both in abundance. Mexico is poor because it retains an antiquated legal and economic system.

...If the southwestern United States had remained part of Mexico, this region would have been governed under Mexican laws -- and would probably be as impoverished and bereft of opportunity as Mexico is today. The Southwest's vigorous cities and universities, its medical centers and Silicon Valleys, its upward mobility and thriving middle class, its transportation, communication and power generation systems would be a mere shadow of what they are today. Las Vegas and Hollywood would still be sleepy desert way stations.

If the reconquistas were to "take back" these lands, they would likely impose the same disastrous policies that have enfeebled Mexico. They would squander, rather than capture, America's prosperity and opportunity -- turning America's gold into lead, like a reverse King Midas. Countless poor Mexicans would still be drawn to the magnetic North. And our immigration problems would simply move to the southern borders of Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado and Oklahoma.

If Mexico can finally break its feudal shackles, it will give its people the opportunity, health, environmental quality and prosperity they seek, and so richly deserve. All classes will have a better future. And Mexico will become an inspiration for all of Latin America.

Nailed It!

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[dennisw]

Nailed it is right. To understand the Mexico-USA relationship one must read up on the history of contention and wars between Spain and England. Rivals in empire in the New World. It's Anglo versus Spanish. Even though today this has devolved to Mexican Indians invading (versus) an Anglo oriented (founded) USA.

[Reagan 76]

"They flee Mexico, yet bring with them the culture and mindset that kept them downtrodden and poor."

Sounds like something Thomas Sowell would write. Very well put.