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Tutino's new book builds on his seminal
previous work, From Insurrection to
Revolution in Mexico, that explored the underlying socioeconomic causes of
Mexican Independence and the Mexican Revolution, a work that was formative in
my and many other people's understanding of the role that peasant autonomy (or
a lack thereof) played in peasant resistance and uprisings. In The Mexican Heartland, however, Tutino argues that while a focus on resistance, especially
pivotal moments of violent resistance, still matter, they are only part of the
story. Adopting the Braudelian long dureé approach combining economic and social history, Tutino explores the 500 year trajectory that saw central
Mexico's transition from a major player in the world market even as the region
remained largely autonomous from it to an economic afterthought buffeted by the
hollowing out of the region by the neoliberal turn. Tutino recognizes that a focus on central Mexico naturally limits the applicability of
his findings, but he still has much to say (and we have much to learn). In
addition, he calls on other scholars to engage in similar long dureé studies of other regional centers to further flesh
out (or limit) his findings.
Tutino's book is divided into three major parts–Silver
Capitalism, 1500–1820; Industrial Capitalism, 1820–1920; and National
Capitalism and Globalization, 1920–2000–comprised of thirteen chapters, an
introduction, and an epilogue. The section on silver capitalism explores the
ways in which the discovery of silver, the depopulation of indigenous
communities (the result mostly of newly introduced diseases) and central
Mexico's connection to the world economy led to a range of differently
negotiated accommodations between the Spanish empire and indigenous
communities. The autonomy of indigenous peasant communities shifted over time
(and varied geographically), but indigenous peoples tended to embrace silver
capitalism as long as it did not come at the expense of their autonomy and
ability to provide for themselves. When, at the end of the colonial period,
exploitation became predatory, indigenous communities resorted to violence to
reassert their autonomy, a major contribution to Mexico's independence from
Spain.
The second part, focusing on industrial capitalism,
explores the relationship of local communities to capitalism in the nineteenth
century. Tutino's analysis covers some familiar
ground but his focus on autonomy results in a different story. Mirroring the
findings of James Scott's Seeing Like a
State, Tutino argues that the eras that we often
focus on as filled with political instability and poor economic output can be
periods of prosperity and increased autonomy for locals . . . illegibility from
the state, in Scott's terms. But Tutino notes,
counter Scott, that it was not exactly that peasants were illegible to the
state, they just weren't capable of being controlled. Landlords complained that
peasants refused to work for what seemed to elites as reasonable wages, and
local priests grumbled about their inability to enforce local religious
conformity. Later in the nineteenth century, as the economy recovered, peasants
paid for it with a loss of lands and the ability to support themselves. The
closing down of peasant autonomies led, of course, to the Mexican Revolution
which, Tutino rightly contends, provided some peasant
communities increased autonomies, but only for a short while. Northern
capitalists won the revolution and within two decades, most of the autonomies
that peasants had won were ceded back to the newly emerging one-party
nation-state.
The third part of the book examines national capitalism
and globalization. The one-party state successfully pushed for greater exports
and the renewed growth of industry; political elites were willing to allow for
increased autonomy and peasant lands, but only as a means to advance their
larger political project. Much has been written about the unevenness of the
post-revolutionary, one-party state in the last couple of decades and Tutino makes ample use of these works to show the ways in
which increased mechanization actually resulted in greater precarity in both rural and urban communities. Land concentrations pushed peasants from
the countryside to the city, especially Mexico City, but the post-revolutionary
industries could not absorb the influx of migrants, often forcing
rural-to-urban migrants to construct their own neighborhoods, livelihoods, and
social support services in the absence of state assistance. The national
capitalist project would collapse in the 1980s; the Mexican economy's implosion
(and the inability of the one-party state to respond to citizen's needs) led to
rising protests and a move toward democratization.
Tutino's epilogue, which
examines the near complete collapse of autonomy for everyday people in central
Mexico in today's neoliberal world, is perhaps his bleakest. Drawing on the
works of Thomas Picketty and others, he notes that
the financialization of twenty-first century
economies leaves everyday people with little or no autonomy. What use is
protesting (or democracy) if even your own government has little control over its
own economy? Sadly, his critique of the neoliberal turn and its impacts appears
to be true not just of Mexico. It is hard to know what good it might do for the
opposition party to win if global financiers can punish anyone who might try to
implement policies that would try to create renewed and additional spaces of
autonomy for everyday people. As Tutino notes
repeatedly, it is not the ability to rise in rebellion that has mattered
historically, but rather the ability to maintain an uprising long enough to
force elites to negotiate and accommodate, and the ability to maintain an
uprising long enough required some level of autonomy. In a world with few
places of autonomy left, the future indeed looks bleak.
Andrae Marak is a professor of history and political science and
the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Graduate Studies at Governors
State University in the Chicago area. He received his Ph.D. from the University
of New Mexico and teaches courses on world, Latin American, United States, and
Chinese history and politics. He can be reached at amarak@govst.edu. |
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