78
PARTISAN REVIEW
Riding handles skillfully his critical description of agrarian policy
but fails in his comprehension of the life of the peasants. Self-employ–
ment and the "underground" or "informal" economy, for example,
are vital although they do not appear in the national bookkeeping.
They could be even more vital if the modern sector (public and pri–
vate) were to study and support the subsistence economy by offering
inexpensive and useful means that would enable the peasants to pro–
duce in their places of origin their own provisions (clothes, food,
crops, housing) outside of the market and allow them to establish an
advantageous exchange with the urban sector through, for example,
in-bond plants spread throughout the rural areas. These transcultural
ideas offered by the modern sector to the traditional sector have been
developed by Gabriel Zaid in a fundamental book
(El Progreso Impro–
ductivCI)
whose moral and economic premises are similar to those that
in the sixteenth century were held by the Bishop of Michoacan, Vasco
de Quiroga, reader of Thomas Moore and founder of one of the few
successful utopias in history. After 450 years, the towns of the Taras–
can plateau founded by Vasco de Quiroga are still specializing in the
same crafts - furniture, blankets, bread, pottery, etcetera, that they
exchange with neighboring towns without stopping the production
of their own basic provisions.
Distant Neighbors
was written without antipathy toward Mexico,
but its reading leaves a bitter taste.
In
part, the problem originates
with a significant omission: Riding attributes the survival of Mexico
to the historical and cultural profundity of its society, to the "internal
subtleties of an ancient, complex and unpredictable nation" which he
fails to disclose. Thus, the superficiality, imprecision or lack of aware–
ness in his treatment of those themes obscure the real elements that
explain why the country continues moving ahead despite its crises.
The gloomy picture is completed in Riding's conclusions. He
sees the power elite divided into two irreconcilable parties: the new
breed of technocrats, more open and democratic, representative of a
"Westernized, restless, individualistic, materialistic minority"; and
the old school politicians who have known how to manage the "orien–
tal, conformist, communitarian, traditional majority."
In
his judge–
ment, the endeavors of the technocrats are misguided. Anything that
contributes to a change in the status quo appears to him to be coun–
terproductive. The United States, for example, should note that
"Mexico's immediate stability is endangered less by a rebellion of the
