Mexico

President Enrique Peña Nieto reached the halfway point of his six-year term in 2015 facing increasing questions about governmental commitment to good governance and human rights issues. The Peña Nieto administration began its term with a promising set of reforms accompanied by slowing homicide rates, generating optimism about Mexico's economic and social direction. However, starting in 2014 the government's narrative of progress was undermined by corruption scandals and rights abuses.

As soon as Wilson took office, he began saber-rattling against the Mexican government, outraged that ... President Victoriano Huerta had come to power via military force (during the Mexican civil war ...). Wilson announced in May 1914: "They say the Mexicans are not fitted for self-government; and to this I reply that, when properly directed, there is no people not fitted for self-government." ... In order to cut off the Mexican government's tariff revenue, Wilson sent U.S. forces to seize ... Veracruz ... U.S. soldiers killed hundreds of Mexicans ... and briefly rallied the Mexican opposition around the Mexican leader.

San Miguel de Allende is located in the heart of Mexico, about three hours north of Mexico City. This is the area of Mexico where the fight for independence from Spanish rule began in 1810. On September 16 of that year, a date now celebrated as Mexican Independence Day, a Mexican priest named Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla rang the church bells in Dolores, which is located about 30 miles from San Miguel de Allende. When the peasants responded to the sound of the bells, Hidalgo delivered his famous call for independence—"El Grito de Dolores." Hidalgo and about 400 followers began marching toward Guanajuato, about 100 miles away ...

[B]oth [Mises and Rothbard] would have been intrigued by the election crisis brewing down in Mexico ... The crisis is reminiscent of the 2000 presidential elections in the United States. Andrés Manuel López Obrador is Mexico's Alberto Gore ... His opponent, the former Secretary of Energy Felipe Calderón, playing the part of Mexico's Jorge Bush, collected more legal votes ... [P]residential elections are as corrupt in Mexico as they are anywhere, and memories linger from 1988 ... The result is a mess in Mexico, and neither Mises nor Rothbard would be surprised by it.

Passed by the Mexican Congress, the bill would have decriminalized the personal possession of small amounts of numerous currently-illegal drugs ... However, notes [Ted Galen] Carpenter, the bill "did not get to the root of the growing incidence of drug-related corruption and violence in Mexico. Both problems have reached epidemic proportions. There have been numerous cases of police personnel moonlighting as security forces for drug-trafficking organizations. Prominent officials tasked with implementing anti-drug laws have been caught taking bribes from drug kingpins ..."

Mexico's Constitution of 1824 had guaranteed a decentralized, federal type of political system. That is, the nation would consist of individual states, each of which would have autonomy within its own region ... The Mexican federal government would have little power over the affairs of the several states. In 1834, Antonio López de Santa Anna assumed the presidency of Mexico. Endorsing the concept of a strong centralized government, Santa Anna discarded the Constitution of 1824 and, from Mexico City, the nation's capital, began regulating the people in the various Mexican states ...

In April 1846, Mexican troops attacked a small contingent of American soldiers across the river from Matamoros, Mexico, which, each day, had been taunting the Mexican forces ... The Mexican War ... and its consequences had a catastrophic effect on Mexico and the Mexican people, an emotionally wrenching experience whose impact continues to this day ... The French army had invaded Mexico for nonpayment of foreign debt and had installed Hapsburg Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian as emperor of Mexico. The Mexican army attempting to oust the French invaders was led by Benito Juárez, the duly elected president of Mexico.

Benito Juárez ... remained in power until his death in 1872 ... Porfirio Díaz ... would serve as a "benevolent dictator" until 1910 ... Díaz announced the result of the presidential election: 99 percent in his favor. This sparked the Mexican Revolution of 1910. Initially, there were three factions ... Madero met with fellow conspirators in San Antonio, declared the election results fraudulent ... Díaz resigned and Madero assumed the presidency. But Madero was soon murdered by agents of ... Victoriano Huerta, who then assumed the presidency ... Mexico was now engaged in a full-scale revolution ...

The Mexico visited by Mises was dominated by a socialist ideology that had resulted in the nationalization of industry and land, with heavy-handed regulation of private enterprise and high protectionist trade barriers ... Equally disastrous for Mexican development was any attempt to raise Mexican wages to comparable U.S. levels through either government legislation or trade union pressure ... Mises argued that full land privatization in Mexico should be supported for the poor peasantry through government assistance in forming farm-producer cooperatives and even limited ... state subsidies ...