There is an economic transformation sweeping the border region from San Diego to Matamoros driven by overwhelming economic forces. This movement reveals that in the present day, the locus of power in America is on wall street, not main street as Patrick Buchanan is fond of saying.
In the context of globalization, both economic and cultural, there can be no other consequence. The border area is being taken over by economic forces and actors that thrive on real estate and financial speculation and cross-border trade. The integration of the U.S. and Mexican economies is almost complete. The only problem remaining in the inexorable globalization is the problem of political integration.
A close look at Mexico drives the point home. There is no longer a Mexican economy per se-for all practical purposes, it has become a surrogate economy of the United States. For purposes of convenience and public relations, it has been allowed to be administered by a co-dependent group of, some argue, dysfunctional and corrupt politicians.
It can plausibly be argued the only abundant factor of production in the land area called "Mexico" is labor (people) and this surplus must be controlled. Failure to do so may affect the privileged classes in our own country. A reduced quality of life is a real possibility if there are too many workers driving down wages. To this end, the U.S. government has decided to build a wall on the Southern border. It has been sold as a wall of Troy in defense of the beautiful Queen - Citizenship.
Manufacturing continues to move to Mexico and other surrogate economies because it reduces costs. In the meantime, the U.S. economy is being transformed into a two-tier economy through a series of strategic partnerships and investments led by wall street. The new society is made up of those with ownership of or access to capital and those that are members of a service and part-time labor system. This adjustment maintains the standard of living for all through greater efficiencies and economies of scale.
Simply look at the poorest of the poor in our society: television, apartment, car, food, water, gas and electricity: our poorest are the envy of many in other countries.
The increasing integration of world peoples into corporate economic portfolios is here to stay. There is no overt racism sanctioned by public policy any longer because it is no longer necessary to discriminate based on race. The fact is globalization has become the great equalizer.
To be sure, it is a short-term and necessary evil to maintain racialist divisions in other places such as Africa. It is expedient to maintain control of illiterate populations through cynical support of hunger and genocide.
The poor in the United States are equally black, white and brown. To look at our local interstate 10 and evaluate race or ethnic relations in America today is old-fashioned thinking says Professor Cheryl Howard. Indeed, to evaluate circumstances today, through the prism of urban realities in the middle and late 20th century, is no longer useful.
Race does not matter, nor does ethnicity. Except for a handful of first world governments; nation-states no longer matter. Only capital matters and anyone with capital can play in the game.
To illustrate a corollary point: the volume of consumer dollars controlled by minority communities is greater than the national economies of the majority of countries around the world. Yet, consumer dollars are not capital unless they are channeled into investment. In other words, it is not enough to have money. Mexican and Black Americans have it in abundance.
What matters is investment i.e. a group, acting in concerted uniformity on behalf of their respective group's self-interest. But this is not happening. Why? Because the group identification that was the historical glue that held them together in an age of ethnic chauvinism is gone.
Conversely, there is no enemy of the people. There is only economic empowerment or exploitation and even then definitions change depending on where you sit. The motors of change are being fed by the fuel of self-interest. It makes little sense to fight along race or ethnic lines, class lines nor national identity. It doesn't make any sense to fight over whether I-10 divides or encloses or whether downtown will or will not be taken over by corporate interests.
Those decisions have already been made and were crafted in the middle 1990's. With a never-ending barrage of local print and visual media propaganda, it is difficult to see through the morass. But, there remains a small yet significant element that has the power to mitigate the takeover of corporate self-interest here and elsewhere in America: democratic self-governance.
A community can choose, through its vote, how the community will respond to the changes wrought by the new globalizing corporate economy. But, with less than 30% of the voters taking the time to vote, there should be no surprise when our city government and downtown are ruled over by wall street players.
This November and, most importantly, next May 2007, voters will have an opportunity to respond to external wall street economic forces that purport to take over the city and county. There is a choice.
El Pasoans can sit back and watch wall street investors take prime real estate with the value-added bonus of tax payer dollars to bear investment risks and manipulate local government to use the power of eminent domain to wrest properties from those that stand in the way --or - El Pasoans can just say no...with their vote.
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This perspective first appeared in Border Observer, Jaime O. Perez, Editor