The Death of Ramon Gonzalez and the 21st Century Dilemma

in the name of austerity.) The prospect of improved access to credit led many ejiditarios
to support the changes. However, when and if they were unable to meet their mortgage
payments, farmers might be forced to abandon the land. Foreigners could purchase land
under most conditions as easily as Mexicans, and foreigners could be mortgage holders.
In addition, special protections on the sale of timber or of forested land were
“liberalized,” making it easier for villagers to sell the trees or forestland.
It was through such “liberal” land laws, as discussed in the first edition of The
Death of Ramon Gonzalez, that millions of peasant farmers and villages lost their land
during the latter half of the 19 th century. The 1992 reforms bring the law back close to the
legal situation that prevailed under Porfirio Diaz prior to 1910. The dispossession of
peasants that resulted is widely thought to be one of the key factors that led to the
Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920.
The privatization of land carried out by the amendments to Article 27 is a prime
example of the approach taken by neo-liberal reforms around the world. These reforms
aim to break up community or public ownership and management of resources in favor of
private ownership. In the 1990’s and continuing into the 21 st century, the World Bank,
the International Monetary Fund, the U.S. government, and many local governments have
moved to privatize land, forests, municipal water services, irrigation services, sewage and
garbage services, and a variety of other resources and services of enormous public and
environmental value. Privatization has often proved highly controversial—in Bolivia, for
example, the attempt to privatize water brought down a national government and led to a
longer-term crisis in governance of the nation.