091101-Haida Gwai

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090910-FN2

The sole standouts from what might be called this European Consensus were the neo-liberal likes of Von Mises, von Hayek and Strauss who became the founding ideologues of American post-war “free market” capitalism as championed by Reagan, Thatcher, Bush, Clinton and now Obama who, as much as the others, reposes his faith in the “mechanism of the market” and whose indirect tinkerings don’t even rise to the level of “fascism lite”.
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090910-FN1

Students of the period will know that in Hitler's mind the bete jaun was "International Jewry" which he "discovered" was behind both the Communist Internationale and international finance capitalism . While this was a disastrous and anti-semitic non-sequitur from, at best, accidental coincidences, Hitler's confusion on the question of qui bono ("who") does not mean he was wrong about the objective phenomena ("what"). Most Europeans viewed Communism as a destructive threat to their way of life. Most Germans understood that American banks were the ultimate and prime beneficiaries of their impoverishment. "Break the Dawes Shackles" was a Nazi slogan.
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090505-FN10/ Caveat Against Reverse Romanticism

I do not mean to engage in reverse-romanticism. The Church often passed from benefactor to oppressor; and its historical role is at best equivocal. But so too the Liberals and it is necessary to undraw the false line in the sand the liberals have drawn. From approximately 1930 to 1980, the PRI did pursue an agrarian policy of parcelling out lands and protecting ejidal rights; but that was only after the Porfiriato all but pursued a policy of confiscating Indian lands. Moreover Juarez's land reforms -- which allowed the Indian to alienate his land ("freely sell" it) resulted only in the Indian being alienated from his land by mostly foreign investors.

Although a more complete discussion of the Church's role is beyond the present outline, it should be noted that it is somewhat inaccurate to speak of "the" Church as if it was a monolithic institution. It was not, anymore than criollos. Generally speaking the hierarchy was reactionary, whereas the lower orders were more sympthetic towards and protective of the communities they served. Hidalgo and Morelos, the instigators of the 1810 Revolution, were both liberals and priests, just as today a faction within the Church advocates Liberation Theology. In Mexico and Ibero-America there are no straight lines, and it is best to cultivate an enjoyment of paradox.

The point I wish to make here, is primarily "cultural". Modern Western man makes a distinction between "economy" and "religion". The Indian does not. Land, the production on it, the society around it and the gods under and above it, are all part of a seamless moral whole. The Church was attuned to this "indigenous" cosmology because it embodied a familiar wholistic approach present in feudalism and classical Greek "economic" thought. It was only liberalism that wrested economic activity from its moral moorings -- or perhaps more accurately said, turned economic activity into a moral good in itself.

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090505-FN7/Porfiriato

FN 7 As currently served up, Mexican history is a collection of murals and myths, chief among them the fable that the 1910 Revolution was, at bottom, a rising up of the peasantry and popular classes. In fact, at its core, the Revolution was a squabble between liberal factions, in which the peasantry and popular classes participated peripherally. It goes without saying, that upon the fall of the Second Empire, the conservatives did not retreat into historical monasticism but sought survival within the liberal regime. Conversely, Diaz, retreated de facto from strict and radical application of the Reform Laws. Most importantly, Diaz became a centralist -- and he did so because anyone who undesrtands anything about the true nature of Mexico understands that its governance has always demanded the finessed hand of a coopting and coordinating centralism. Thus, while geo-politically Mexico became tied to the United States, domestically, the Porfirian regime became moderately conservative. But centralization brought with it the old envy and hostility between capitolene innies and provincials outies, which once again played itself out in 1910. The difference between 1910 and 1810 was that this time both rural Indians and urban workers were able to play off liberal factions so as to wrest political and economic concessions. This was by no means an insignificant achievement, albeit not quite the brilliant uprisings of Orozco’s and Rivera’s murals.
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090505-FN2/TheSecretMeaningOfRoccoco

The Borbons, who had assumed the crown in the aftermath of the War of Spanish Succession, (1703) had from the outset pursued a policy of administrative and economic modernization pursuant to the latest most scientific, mercantalist French theories (1730). Under the Hapsburgs, the Church had actually been a parallel government and there were utopian elements in the Church that aspired to theocratize society. The Borbons saw the role of the Church as being that of a State prop and used the Inquisition to enforce political conformity and cleanse the Church of her more radical elements (1750-1767). In Mexico, Borbon mercantalism and anti-clericism were resisted by Hapsburgian legitimists. The dirth of neo-classical architecture in Mexico and the prevalence of the demodée Churrigueresque Baroque was one cultural manifestation of this resistance.

090505-FN1/Liberal Means

For the U.S. reader, it is necessary to note that the term "liberal" is here used in its correct historical and ideological signification. It does not refer to so-called "progressives" or pseudo social democrats or cognized group activists, although (as shall be seen) the liberal movement in Mexico did in fact end up propagandinzing a trashy and trite species of politcal correctness.
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