THERESA CONWAY from Socialist Outlook spoke to a lead- ing PRT member, HEATHER DASHNER. Can you say something about the
Page 17 which aims to foder massive foreign private Investment and to open Mexico to the world market. derdeveloped country, has increased carminusly hecause of the policies employment, charactenstic of an un- the govemment has introduced to try SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 11 December 1988/January 1989 Over the last six years what used to be chronic unemployment and under- econonur suaton in the country?
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have children or to get themselves Except for that, health spending ir will say 'I don't have any cotton wool, There is a basic list of tem has - and it's gelting shorter and Can sou say something abour the percentage of the arban population is underemplosed and what percentage We have a population of 80 mil tes. approximately 15 million of those we in what we call the informal sector. Over half the population is under 16, so there are less than 40 mil Lion people who are in the labour market, More than half the population lives in the cities. Twelve milhon people List themselves as housewives in the censusand many of those would be a part of the 15 million. Ten mil- pressed. The goal is to lower the birth rate to 1 percent by the ycar 2000. This persuading younger women not in in crisis. IF you go to hospital in Mexico City you had better take a relative with you, because the nurse go to the corner and buy some: Idon't have a syringe, I can't give this man medicines that the public health sys- Ton. According to goverment statis- SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 11 December 1988/January 1989 ween 1970 and 1982, 1.3 million women were sterilised, mauly in the urban areas. There has also been some evidence of sterilisation in the mural ureas but news of this has been sup- will require spending a lot of money rate from 3.5 to 2 per cent year. Bet- situation? employment even what the PRI-dominared peasant organisations consider they should ment spending has been increased is have been able to keep promises made to IMF in 1975, and lower the birth fostered the creation of organisations products fell way below production costs. That has meant that peasants have tumed to production crops and there is a deficit in corn and beans which we have to import although the country is perfecily capable of In the recent period there has been quite a conflict over raising the guarantee prices for basic grains. The products are priced by decree below The only caregory where gover- in population control, where they capacily was destroyed, and 250 What was already an enormous that crisis. The International Year of the Homeless decreed by the United ing to replace some of the homes. The movement that arose in Mexico City had to fight hard for this funding and maintain its independence from the state. This movement changed the urban political spectram, because it There has been a crisis in the countryside since 1965, but it has in- creased hecause of the modernisation programme and cuts in subsidies: guaranteed prices for agricultural housing shortage was increased by Nations in 1986 provided some fund- Cardenas, the renegade presidential candidate, echoed mass sentiments where none had existed before. producing them. Mexico City. There were 400,000 people on the street from one day to the next One third of hospital bed which Is about E2. The real wage has In terms of housing, there is a shortage of several million homes in Mexico City, with a population of 18 million, There are enormous sections vasions - places which have been taken over by the homeless, on which they build shanty towns. The first first water, then electricity and rads, then schools, markets, transport and All of this has been going on for many years since the agricultural celerated after 1985, when the carthquake struck central downtown think we should be ahle to overcome ing goods for the world market rather than for consumption at home: this 1s wages have gone down enormously over last 10 years and the average family in the cities (which has 5.3 members) hastolive on the equivalent of E12 per week. The minimum wage in Mexico City is 8(0K) pesos per day dropped by 50 per cent - a brutal of the city which we call land in- fight is to remain on such land - whether it is govemment or povale. Then there is the fight for services - crisis of 1965 which meant an enor- mous migrution to the cities. It has ac- tion of the government party, the PRI the crisis and pay the debt, by produc- the generalised policy of imperialism all over Latin America. Minimum Imperialism and the leading fac change over a period of 10 years. day which is Mexico City about E2." pesos per minimum wage in is 8000 Page 18 "The
election." "The PRI practised fraud, but it presidental has always order to win never had to practice fraud in the tois which rose out of the 1986 year of the homeless, and other sectors in the provinces of urhan and peasant people who were originally socialists mass movement has to begin with in that it has meant the defeat of the PRI in the ballor boxes for the first time in 60 years. The PRI has always practised fraud, but it never had to practice fraud in order to win the presidental election. It practiced fraud ing here ahout one of the major sec- movenients, as well as trade union but now consider that unity of the unity under Cardenas's programme So as I say this is a very contradic- tory movement. However, we would say that in gencral it has heen positive. power. The oil workers' union leader stato because the cconomic crixis and modernised stato without a total and complete defeat and revamping of the PRIunion hureaucracy-jeopardising So they are in gigantic crisis; and porters. The PRI union bureaucracy is not going to sit back and allow them just to do this - they would sacrifice their financial privileges and their is one of the few people in the country This conflict of interest creates an insoluble problem for both the They can't go back to the patemalist the foreign debt proclude that: but neither can they go forward to the the Party's domination of the masses. government and the union leaders. UPPLE who can defy the president. Lion of those in the informal sector are women. In the 1970s several studics estimated unemployment and under- employment as being from 40-60 per Can you say something ahout the political system that operates in The