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conclusion We need sources of work for our people, both campesinos and workers. It is necessary to give them work in order to lift them out of the state of being pariahs in which they find themselves, lift them out of vice and bad living in order to make them worthy of the land of their elders. It is necessary to create industries, it is necessary to produce what we need. This fully reflects the great plans that your Government has outlined for the aggrandizement and prosperity of our Mexico. —Comité Pro-Industrialización de Progreso, Yucatán By the early 1950s, statist industrialism promised to deliver not just industrial development but also cultural sovereignty, political unity, economic independence , and social change. By adapting the revolutionary possibilities of mexicanidad, President Alemán affirmed the legitimacy of ruling-party claims to be leading this regeneration of the Mexican nation through statist industrialism. Therefore, as demonstrated in the epigraph from an entreaty sent to President Alemán on May 31, 1950, many Mexicans looked to the state to achieve revolutionary vindication by fostering industry in their own communities.1 In response to the plea, the Alemán administration ordered Yucatec officials to initiate a study of industrial potential in the region. However, more than three years later, local groups were still requesting federal support to develop a comprehensive plan for local industry. Their enthusiasm soon melted into disillusion. One youth group finally pointedly remarked, ‘‘When we find out that Mexico contributes fabulous quantities for the growth of other less developed countries, we think that an injustice is being committed against the people of Progreso, Yucatán.’’2 1. Comité Pro-Industrialización de Progreso, Yucatán to Alemán, May 31, 1950, DGI/AGN, v. 23, 391/300 (03)/-1–3, leg. 3. 2. Alianza Juvenil Yucateca Siempre Adelante to Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, December 28, 1953, DGI/AGN, v. 23, 20/300 (03)/1–1. 242 兩 made in mexico This episode points to the material promises, revolutionary attachments, and nationalist import of statist industrialism while also highlighting the problems of viewing industry in national terms. The 1950s may have marked the take-off of the Mexican ‘‘miracle’’ and the aspirations associated with it, but it also exposed the anxieties of a diverse country undergoing rapid urbanization, industrialization, and social change. These anxieties became apparent in the response to the 1950 publications of Frank Tannenbaum ’s well-known work Mexico: The Struggle for Peace and Bread and Sanford A. Mosk’s Industrial Revolution in Mexico.3 Published in 1951 in Problemas agrı́colas e industriales de México, these books sparked retorts from no fewer than twenty-five prominent Mexican business, labor, and political leaders. Reactions to Tannenbaum were especially critical, due largely to his conclusion that Mexico should forgo its industrial ambitions and return to its rural, agricultural roots. Many who objected to Tannenbaum’s thesis drew attention to his factual errors, but the most serious critiques focused on his imperialist essentialization of the Mexican national character. One of the most fervid rejoinders came from protectionist Manuel Germán Parra Gutie ́rrez, who had been an undersecretary in the Secretariat of the Economy from 1946 to 1948. Parra Gutiérrez disputed Tannenbaum’s complementary arguments that Mexico could best prosper by fostering rural agricultural development and that industrialization would rob Mexico of its true nature. He asserted that Tannenbaum’s vision for this ‘‘bucolic utopia’’ in Mexico revealed his ‘‘romantic prejudice.’’ Parra Gutiérrez then went on to provide an array of data aimed at proving that Mexico’s material and cultural improvement could best be achieved through industrial development.4 The reaction to Tannenbaum underscores the breadth of statist industrialism as a nationalist political project for economic growth, cultural sovereignty , and social change. However, many Mexicans treated Tannenbaum’s ideas seriously, which reflects the uncertainties and tensions arising from the dramatic dislocations that statist industrialism had wrought. Indeed, although more muted, the responses to Mosk’s book demonstrated the inability of statist industrialism to overcome frictions among its principal beneficiaries, Mexico’s political and economic elites. While noting Mosk’s 3. Tannenbaum, Mexico: The Struggle for Peace and Bread; Mosk, Industrial Revolution in Mexico. 4. Parra Gutiérrez, ‘‘México: La lucha por la independencia económica,’’ 231. Parra Gutiérrez went on to publish a book-length rebuttal of Tannenbaum. See Parra Gutiérrez, La industrialización de México. [18.224.149.242] Project...

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