The sugar industry in postrevolutionary Mexico: state intervention and private capital

Abstract

The development of the sugar industry in postrevolutionary Mexico is analyzed within the broader social context of the political dilemmas faced by governments in peripheral capitalist societies. For the Mexican government, the problem has been its inability to simultaneously promote accumulation of capital by the sugar refineries, meet cane growers' demands for higher crop prices, offer sweeteners to domestic consumers at politically acceptable prices, and subsidize costs of raw materials in secondary industries. The sugar industry of postrevolutionary Mexico has been subject to cyclical shifts in government policies that initially promoted capitalization but soon balanced this drive with redistributive policies within a contradictory set of social class relations and political forces. Capital flight and declining productivity contributed to the industry's eventual collapse in the 1970s. During this period, state takeovers and control reached their peak but also forced the government to carry the full economic burden of its decisions. -from Author