
Losing Faith in the State, Some Mexican Towns Quietly Break Away - camtarn
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/07/world/americas/mexico-state-corruption.html
======
dfabulich
Nils Gilman has a great article on this phenomenon [https://www.the-american-
interest.com/2014/06/15/the-twin-in...](https://www.the-american-
interest.com/2014/06/15/the-twin-insurgency/)

 _States within the global political economy today face a twin insurgency, one
from below, another from above. From below comes a series of interconnected
criminal insurgencies in which the global disenfranchised resist, coopt, and
route around states as they seek ways to empower and enrich themselves in the
shadows of the global economy. Drug cartels, human traffickers, computer
hackers, counterfeiters, arms dealers, and others exploit the loopholes,
exceptions, and failures of governance institutions to build global commercial
empires. These empires then deploy their resources to corrupt, coopt, or
challenge incumbent political actors._

 _From above comes the plutocratic insurgency, in which globalized elites seek
to disengage from traditional national obligations and responsibilities. From
libertarian activists to tax-haven lawyers to currency speculators to mineral-
extraction magnates, the new global super-rich and their hired help are waging
a broad-based campaign to limit the reach and capacity of government tax-
collectors and regulators, or to manipulate these functions as a tool in their
own cut-throat business competition._

 _Unlike classic 20th-century insurgents, who sought control over the state
apparatus in order to implement social reforms, criminal and plutocratic
insurgents do not seek to take over the state. Nor do they wish to destroy the
state, since they rely parasitically on it to provide the legacy goods of
social welfare: health, education, infrastructure, and so on. Rather, their
aim is simpler: to carve out_ de facto _zones of autonomy for themselves by
crippling the state’s ability to constrain their freedom of (economic)
action._

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I'm always a little skeptical of arguments made in the _American Interest_ ,
since they bill themselves as a magazine devoted to the idea of the nation-
state. Whatever I read as the reasoning, I know their bottom-line commitment
was pre-written. If there was a powerful but _positive_ movement against the
nation-state (say... some form of Bookchinist libertarian municipalism), would
the _American Interest_ admit its virtues? Well no, and so it makes sense that
a search for "Rojava" turns up nothing, despite it being an extent, present-
day experiment in politics without the state.

Also, claiming that communists tried to nurture a middle class is just plain
_wrong_. Communists were, at least according to Communists, trying to
_abolish_ class entirely, and initially to uplift the proletariat, the
_working_ class.

~~~
Wohlf
When you try to abolish class, you're really trying to make everyone middle
class. No one wants to make everyone working class, and upper class can only
exist if there's at least one lower class to subjugate.

~~~
ericd
The upper class wants the fruits of being wealthy, they're generally not in it
for the "subjugation" aspect. With sufficient automation and
efficiency/recycling, everyone could be what we call "upper class".

~~~
ACow_Adonis
You need to expand your social circle :P Obviously, a generalisation about an
entire class is one generalisation on top of another, but i've had discussions
with people who have explicitly told me they don't really care how good/bad
things are, as long as they are better than others.

Ditto with skills, tests. Don't care, just as long as i'm above others.

A lot of people don't REALLY want to abolish slavery or heirachies. What
really want is to ensure they're considered the masters.

~~~
adventured
> but i've had discussions with people who have explicitly told me they don't
> really care how good/bad things are, as long as they are better than others.

No question that mentality exists, I'll argue that it's a very small minority
of eg millionaires in any society that hold such a view.

There are around 11 to 13 million (not including primary residence)
millionaires in the US; or around 4.5% to 5% of the adult population. The
typical millionaire in the US is worth about $3 to $4 million. While it's a
very large group of people spread across the country, they do have a few
things in common.

The majority acquired that status from working extremely hard for a very long
time, usually either operating and or selling relatively small businesses with
no more than between a few dozen up to a hundred employees, or slogging away
for decades piling up invested wealth slowly over their lifetime.

The millionaire class in the US is numerically overwhelmingly dominated by
those types of outcomes and has been since the industrial revolution.

Extreme wealth on the other hand obviously is concentrated in a few thousand
persons with unusual outlier situations, usually around very large business
concerns. My suspicion is that group is dramatically more likely to have a
master of the universe mentality.

~~~
richardwhiuk
Most millionaires acquired it, largely, via inheritance, not hard work.

~~~
obscurantist
That's true for most European countries, but not America.

~~~
hutzlibu
Not challenging, just asking, do you have sources to back up your claim?

------
tomr_stargazer
This article is insightful, but it's unfortunate that it does not even mention
the EZLN [0] (colloquially, Zapatistas), the majority indigenous and rural
breakaway communities in the southern state of Chiapas which have been
autonomous since 1994.

[0]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_L...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zapatista_Army_of_National_Liberation)

~~~
grangerize
The New York Times would never mention the EZLN. =)

~~~
schoen
They've reported on them dozens of times

[https://www.nytimes.com/topic/organization/zapatista-
nationa...](https://www.nytimes.com/topic/organization/zapatista-national-
liberation-army)

though strangely apparently not between 2005 and 2017.

~~~
hateduser2
That’s a pretty big gap

~~~
schoen
I thought so too, but another commenter here found that they were repeatedly
reported on during that time, just not tagged as the main subject of the
articles. (But maybe this change still does reflect a different level of
editorial interest in them during that time.)

------
simplicio
Sort of similar to how the Mafia is thought to have arose from protection
schemes for Sicily's valuable, but vulnerable lemon crop.
[https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mafia-lemons-citrus-
si...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/mafia-lemons-citrus-sicily-
economics)

~~~
hashkb
Or, like, every paramilitary ruling a South American state.

------
marcoperaza
Mexico is a country at civil war and in denial about it. The cartels and
affiliated corrupt public officials effectively control large swaths of the
country.

Yet when the central government tries to take action against them, naive
people in Mexico City take to the streets to protest over civil liberties. The
cartel problem is treated as one of _crime_ , when it is really one of
_insurrection_.

When the US had its civil war, Lincoln did what needed to be done: civil
liberties were abridged, habeas corpus was suspended, secessionist state
legislators were arrested, seceding states were blockaded, and Lincoln openly
violated court orders demanding otherwise. Sherman’s March to the Sea had such
a devastating effect on the South’s economy that it caused mass starvation
among Southern civilians. The time for magnanimity and kindness came _after_
the war, where a blanket pardon was issued on the condition of future loyalty.
But until the final victory was achieved, nothing was off the table.

Mexico needs to eradicate the cancer within. Their survival as a nation-state
depends on it.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Mexico is a country at civil war and in denial about it.

No, it's a country split into trafficking fiefdoms with some violent disputes
about the divisions that's in denial about _that_. But there's no general
civil war.

> Yet when the central government tries to take action against them

The central government sometimes rearranges which traffickers are allowed
which territories, which results in an upswing in violence. It rarely moves
against them generally, though it uses that as the cover for shifting
arrangements.

It's funny that you recognize that public officials involved with the cartels
are a major factor, but somehow seem to exempt the central government.

~~~
marcoperaza
My understanding is that while many federal politicians are also compromised,
the army is mostly clean.

~~~
dragonwriter
> the army is mostly clean.

That’s very much at odds with most of what I've seen, which is that both
regional commands and the highest levels of authority in the army have shown
corruption by and, especially at the regional level, direct intervention on
behalf of cartels.

------
SamPutnam
_Government statistics show avocado exports now bring more money into the
country than petroleum._

[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/06/mexico-...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/06/mexico-
considers-importing-avocados-as-global-demand-drives-up-prices)

~~~
dekhn
mexico nationalized its oil industry and mainly uses it for internal supply
(their choice), so I don't think this is a really useful comparison.

~~~
mullen
Mexico just mismanages it. They use it for Internal Supply because they have
screwed up PEMEX so much they can't product enough oil for export.

~~~
kilroy123
Yes it's pretty crazy. They ship it to the US to be refined. Then they buy it
back. Sounds like a huge bloated organization with little regards to
efficiency.

Source: dated a woman who worked there.

------
dpflan
Of the civic experiments listed, this quotation from a citizen in Neza seems
to hit on a core issue - human trust and particularly in those who enforce
laws:

"""

Yazmin Quroz, a longtime resident, said working with police officers, whom she
now knows by name, had brought a sense of community. “We are united, which
hadn’t happened before,” she said. “We’re finally all talking to each other."

"""

~~~
digi_owl
I seem to have encountered similar notions when politicians have to face the
people their decisions affect on a person to person level.

~~~
apatters
Can you elaborate?

~~~
dpflan
I think this is on-topic and exemplary with regard to trust in law
makers/upholders/enactor: What comes to mind is video footage from the US of
local meetings of reps with constituents in the US where the meetings are
filled with the frustration of the constituents at the poor and short-sighted
decision making by their representatives that would significantly affect the
disaffected already - e.g. any anti "Obamacare" sentiment held by and voting
against such things that would benefit their communities in the long run over
short-sighted possibly political corruption based / greasing the wheels of the
seemingly continuous seeking re-election that officials focus on over perhaps
their duties to their constituents.

So those would be examples of lack of trust or dissolving of trust emerging as
the reps return home from the voting grounds of the capitol(s) to meet their
constituents who are questioning the motives and decisions of their
representatives who should be acting in their constituents best interested (or
whatever campaign promises they used to build themselves up as
electable/elected).

(Let me know if this became too abstract, I just did not research and pull
examples.)

------
V2hLe0ThslzRaV2
Anyone able to provide any context as to why the cartels would care about a
town like this?

As far as I am able to tell, the town is not: a tourist area, on a main route
to anywhere, bordering the US, etc.

~~~
jordigh
The price of avocados has soared worldwide thanks to memes like avocado toast.
Avocados themselves are now valuable enough for cartels. They're calling it
green gold.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-
america-41635008](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41635008)

[http://www.businessinsider.com/mexican-farmers-in-
michoacan-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/mexican-farmers-in-michoacan-
rely-on-vigilantes-to-protect-avocados-2017-12)

[http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-01-30/news/080130007...](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-01-30/news/0801300071_1_avocado-
consumption-mexican-avocados-avocado-production)

It has now become a joke to say "échale aguacate", (throw in some avocado) to
express something like "go all out" or "be a big spender".

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmUQfURW8AAYQpY.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmUQfURW8AAYQpY.jpg)

~~~
lotsofpulp
I think it's more likely that many people like the taste of avocados and
avocado products.

~~~
erikpukinskis
A delicious food is worthless without culutural knowledge about how to prepare
it. Thus the attribution of cause to the meme, not the fruit itself, which has
existed a very long time.

~~~
geofft
Doesn't one generally prepare avocado toast by ... spreading avocado on toast?
And maybe adding salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes, but that doesn't seem
like particularly recent cultural knowledge - you do that to all sorts of
foods. It's about as complicated as putting butter on toast.

~~~
QAPereo
The version I’ve been eating for a couple of decades goes like this:

Good bread is key, I like olive sourdough or something chewy with grain. Layer
of avocado, layer of hummus, sprinkle feta cheese, sliced tomatoes, lettuce on
the side as a “chaser” and... yum.

I guess that’s “cultural” in that it’s just adding avocado to a Greek thing.
I’d guess that’s the story of how a lot of people got into various new
produce... add it to the familiar.

------
Iv
Quietly?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EZLN](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EZLN)

It is fairly famous, in anarchist circles, that half of a state of Mexico
consists of anarchist communes, independent from the state. It has been that
way since at least 1994.

------
mythrwy
I wonder if this has to do with article I read the other day.

(From memory) there was a shooting in Acupulco a day or so ago which left like
8 dead. A local town security force arrested a guy and it turned into a gun
battle. Then the feds showed up and attempted to arrest members of the local
security force who fought back and some of them were killed also. It's nuts.
Hope things stabilize down there. Feel awful for the people who have to put up
with it all and used to really enjoy traveling in Mexico.

~~~
big_youth
Acapulco is a warzone. It used to be a world renown tourist area but fell into
chaos.

Search youtube for the video where cartels attack the police headquarters and
hotel where they were staying.

~~~
mythrwy
You can't blame the people for trying to do something about corrupt government
and cartel violence. Problem is the whole "meet the new boss, same as the old
boss" thing.

------
DubiousPusher
There's an excellent documentary about one of the first break away parapolice
forces called Cartel Land.

------
jxramos
"Tancítaro represents a quiet but telling trend in Mexico, where a handful of
towns and cities are effectively seceding, partly or in whole. These are acts
of desperation, revealing the degree to which Mexico’s police and politicians
are seen as part of the threat."

Not to say this is far along the road of chaos, but chaos is always the
correcting factor to things. At the end of the day people are going to look
out for their best interests no matter the official state line/laws.

------
vadimberman
Did they really "break away"?

I skimmed through the article so I may have missed something, but what I read
was about how the municipal authorities took over many of the state / federal
responsibilities. The last one is engaged in a turf war with the state police.

What about the federal taxes? Infrastructure projects? Salaries of the state
employees?

~~~
Tenobrus
One relevant detail was a town driving out the police force along with
cartels, and replacing them with a militia.

------
baybal2
O Americans, I would like you to keep it in mind that the only country than
shares a land border with USA and is not a NATO member is Mexico.

It is generally a bad idea to have a failed state on your border, but moreover
to have one that will be eager to host few Russian tank regiments.

Soviet agents were all around Mexico during cold war years, there is nothing
to suggest that they were recalled after the fall of USSR.

------
scotty79
Thanks to weakening of the state, Mexico became in my eyes largest real world
implementation of libertarian paradise where in the absence of state people
are left to decide what's ok and what's not. Apparently plenty of weapons used
on daily basis to resolve disputes about who has the right to what is two
thumbs up ok.

~~~
kilroy123
Depends what part of the country you're talking about. Big cities are still
strict about laws, especially Mexico City.

But yes, I tell people back home all the time, in a lot of ways it feels more
free here than in the US. (I'm a gringo living in Mexico)

------
djsumdog
I feel like a lot of Americans don't realize or chose not to acknowledge that
most of the violence in the South and Central Americas is directly caused by
the United States. The Bay of Pigs, the School of the Americas, the Iranian-
Contras, the CIA supported coupe in Chile on September 11th, 1973, United
Fruit Company, .. the list is as long as you want to make it.

It's intentional. The lower Americas are pushed into this state by various
corporate interests in the US which are large enough to dictate policy. I've
written about this before:

[http://fightthefuture.org/article/america-and-the-mexican-
dr...](http://fightthefuture.org/article/america-and-the-mexican-drug-trade/)

~~~
nitwit005
The US has its faults, but it didn't invent crime, corruption or stupidity.

And there is no corporate interest that wants mass killings and kidnappings.

~~~
ohyes
Well, except the defense industry.

The guys who sell you x-ray machines and bomb sniffing dogs and private
security services.

And the companies who build military tanks, planes, and ships.

And the companies that build guns, body-armor and night vision goggles.

And the ones that want you to be scared because scared people are easy to
manipulate.

Oh, that stuff represents a shit-ton of the federal budget? Weird. I guess
it's just a really dangerous world, nothing to be done about it...

~~~
dsfyu404ed
The parts of the defense industry you listed are the parts that benefit most
from arms races between well funded nation states and proxy wars.

Basic hardware is cheap. Anyone can make it and that drives down price. The
Mexican police can buy cheap guns and bullets from whoever they want. Stuff
like radar systems and guided missiles are what makes it into the highlights
list of the quarterly all hands.

~~~
ohyes
9/11 (an incident of mass murder) caused the US to invade Iraq and
Afghanistan, surely that sold enough guided missiles, attack helicopters and
radar systems to make the quarterlies for a few years.

It also sold a ton of those bomb search machines and led to a couple of huge
wings of the government (NSA and TSA).

Cheney's Haliburton stock being a singular example of this type of violence
being beneficial to certain corporate interests.

People with power and money are much more cynical that we'd like to believe.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>People with power and money are much more cynical that we'd like to believe.

Than you'd like to believe. I have no illusions.

~~~
ohyes
Indeed, I would personally prefer to live in the world where our leaders are
idealists trying to make the world a better place rather than war-profiteers.

~~~
jessaustin
I'd prefer to live in the world with fewer leaders, each of whose leadership
is inflicted on fewer of his fellow human beings.

------
known
Reminds me
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_state_petitions_for_seces...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_state_petitions_for_secession)

------
balthasar
Its crazy that one of the most dysfunctional third world countries borders the
most powerful and prosperous. Weird huh?

~~~
sol_remmy
Mexico is really not that dysfunctional. Mexico is not even third world.

We just hear a disproportionate of news from Mexico because of how close it
is.

~~~
always_good
On one side, I [selfishly, unfairly] like that Americans are conditioned by
the media to be so scared of Mexico. I almost never see other Americans here.
I meet a lot of people day to day who just haven't spoken to an American that
wasn't a Mexican-American. Those experiences are some of the most interesting
you can have when traveling.

But on the other side, that's not healthy for the people of either country.
For example, I regularly meet Mexicans that think Americans hate them. And
comments from the people who post in /r/the_donald regularly have me shaking
my head muttering "poor sheltered bastard."

Even HN commenters will talk about how they want to pull the trigger on
leaving their boring office job and move to Chiang Mai, but that's a pretty
incredible move. It's far away and with a much different culture and language,
which is a cool thing but increases the chances that you just won't do it.

Meanwhile I'd say I have a pretty exotic lifestyle living on nothing and I'm
just a 2 hour flight from my family in Austin.

------
javajosh
Sad to read. The US has a big problems, but nothing like the total breakdown
of order that seems to have occurred in Mexico. It's an enormous humanitarian
crisis, and our response is to build a wall. No, we should legalize drugs, and
undermine the economic power of the cartels. I'd love it if someone more
familiar with Mexican culture could explain the nature of almost universal
institutional corruption.

~~~
supreme_sublime
Why not both? Why can't we have strong border security and legalize drugs? I'm
hoping with the recent Sessions announcement that he will be enforcing federal
law in states where marijuana is "legal" that will put pressure on congress to
legalize it. Or at least repeal all federal laws on it and truly leave it up
to the states.

This is a pretty good short video about how building a wall can help Mexicans.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLv8Z6bsI24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLv8Z6bsI24)

~~~
dang
It looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological and political
arguments. That's actually an abuse of the site, and we eventually ban
accounts that do it. See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

HN's core value is intellectual curiosity. That's the first casualty in
ideological battle—actually it evaporates before the battle even begins—so we
have to be proactive about this. If you'd please read the site guidelines and
also
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)
and take the spirit of this site to heart, we'd appreciate it.

~~~
wooter
reading through your history there is an obvious bias in who you choose to say
this to based on your personal ideology. not to mention your various strictly
ideological and political submissions. disappointing as that seems like an
abuse of the guidelines and your power.

~~~
dang
People's image of HN mods' political bias is entirely predictable from their
own ideological affiliation. Strong rightists think we (and HN itself) lean
left, strong leftists think we (and HN) lean right. Since the conclusions you
all draw are so contradictory, I don't think these charges have much
informational value—at least not about us. There's clearly a cognitive bias at
work here.

If you don't believe me, here are some quite typical posts that run the
contrary direction to yours:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16019694](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16019694)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15307091)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15034119](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15034119)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14529468](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14529468)

These people are having the same reaction as you are, they just start from the
opposite end of the football field.

That doesn't mean we're magic centrists in a centrist fairyland. It means the
situation is affected by other factors, some of which aren't obvious. If you
want to look at this objectively you have to work to suspend your own
political feelings, which is not easy to do and not something many people want
to.

~~~
wooter
this isn't a mathematical proof. a few counter-examples are easy to create. i
looked pretty comprehensively at your history and i think the bias is beyond
obvious.

> If you want to look at this objectively you have to work to suspend your own
> political feelings, which is not easy to do and not something many people
> want to.

And something I think you have failed at doing. (As you believe of me, so I
guess agree to disagree.) However, you are the one bringing it up in a
moralistic and pedantic way from a position of power as a moderator.

