ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a broad outline of Mexico’s development process, and traces the nature of the process that distributed benefits unequally among the various competing social groups. It examines capitalist development in Mexico in the light of the evolution of the world economy as a whole, and provides an analysis of the structural transformations in production along with some consideration of who were the principal actors. One of the most remarkable aspects of Mexico’s history of structural transformation is the accompanying widespread improvement in social welfare. Mexico’s capitalist development also created a highly favorable environment for private domestic investors. In the midst of an economic crisis it is sometimes difficult to appreciate the long history of capitalist success that ultimately drove Mexico to its present difficulties. The chapter aims to evaluate the internal and external contradictions that arose as a result of decades of capitalist accumulation and created the profound crisis in which the country finds itself at present.
