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In Mexico, a New Era and . . . a New Deal? By Roberto Mangabeira Unger What does the election on Sunday mean for the future of Mexico? Mexicans elected Vicente Fox Quesada president of their country, voting out the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which had been in power for 71 years. It is thrilling that Mexicans voted to take the government out of the hands of a mutual-protection racket of bureaucrats, politicians, big business and organized (but submissive) labor. But to whom did the Mexican voters give the government, and to what end? And why did progressives play so prominent a role in a movement led by a man often described as a pragmatic businessman from a right-of-center political party? A little story may help answer these large questions. I first met Vicente Fox four years ago. Jorge Castaneda, a leading Mexican intellectual, and I had organized a series of meetings among progressive and leftist party leaders in Latin America. We discussed the alternatives to policies that had failed to give economic and educational opportunity to the majority of ordinary people. Mr. Fox was not invited. He asked to join. He then became one of the two most active members of the group. (The other most active member, Ciro Gomes, stands a good chance of being elected president of Brazil two years from now.) Mr. Fox went with us from meeting to meeting and country to country, arguing about the details of proposals. A democratized market economy, a deepened political democracy and a capable government serving the little guy became his watchwords. Mr. Fox showed that he wanted to become a Franklin Roosevelt, a rebuilder of institutions, rather than a Tony Blair, a softener of conservative orthodoxy. The struggle between constraint and aspiration now begins. The powerful interests that lost their hold on the Mexican presidency on Sunday are sure to strike back. They can be expected to use their political and economic influence to block or redirect reform. To defeat them, the new president will not be able to rely on his businessman's eye for talent and efficiency. He will need to mobilize and organize the restless but amorphous majority that elected him. How far will Mexico under Mr. Fox go? The country may simply make itself more open to economic competition, more respectful of individual rights and more committed to the alleviation of extreme poverty. Such a change would mean a great deal. However, for millions of Mexicans -- and I believe Vicente Fox is among them -- this agenda is not enough. Mexico, under President Fox, may begin to invent a more energetic democracy and a more people-friendly market than now exist in the United States or Europe. This more ambitious project would raise public revenues and domestic saving, ensuring that the government has resources to invest in its people and means to defy the whims of financial markets. The project would embrace monetary stability and free trade as preconditions of the progressive cause. However, the project would also give millions of would-be, small-time entrepreneurs access to credit, technology and markets. It would enlarge the percentage of national income that goes to wages by strengthening workers' education and rights. It would develop public schools good enough to win the loyalty of the middle class, which has relied on private schools. It would allow people to participate more fully in the decisions of local governments and the designs of their programs. It would end impunity and increase security, in the hope of turning victims into activists and underlings into citizens.
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