Week Thirteen
Boom to Bust: 1940s-80s
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I. The Mexican Miracle, 1940s-60s

A. Economics

- industrialization
- national income, per capita income rise..fast!..especially in cities
- low budget deficits
- Mexican ownership + intl capital
- smaller military
- U.S. investment
- public works projects

highways, dams, electric grid, telecommunications, housing

B. International relations

- WWII, FDR's Good Neighbor Policy
- Cold War balancing act

C. Politics

- 1946, Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) founded: adds business community representatives
- centralization of executive power
- "bureaucratic authoritarianism" of the PRI:

Miguel Avila Camacho (1940-46)
Miguel Alemán (1946-52)
Adolfo Ruiz Cortines (1952-1958)
Adolfo López Mateos (1958-64)
Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1964-70)

D. What tarnishes the miracle?

- rich/poor and urban/rural gaps remain
- limits of agrarian reform
- population growth
- political frustration with 'one-party democracy'
- youth movement: 1968 Tlatelolco


II. The Lost Decade(s), 1970s-80s

A. The Seventies: Limits of the Miracle

- Armed guerrilla groups + youth counterculture (Avándaro, 1971)
- Luis Echeverría (1970-76) + José López Portillo (1976-82)

industrial slowdown + increased social spending
peso devaluation, 1976
b
orrowing off future oil revenues (1977-81)
farm and consumer subsidies/credit
bureaucratic corruption
capital flight leads to bank nationalization, 1982

B. The Eighties: The "Lost Decade"

- Miguel de la Madrid (1982-1988)

anti-corruption
1982: debt default + IMF "structural adjustment"

1984-87, fall of the peso against the dollar:

150:1 in 1984
380:1 in 1985
800:1 in 1986
from 950:1 to 2300:1 in 1987 alone!!

- 1985, Mexico City earthquake: 8K dead, $4b. in damage
- 1988 elections: Carlos Salinas de Gortari vs. Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas