The Spoils of the Mexican Revolution

The Mexican Revolution is doing well-not the grievous struggle for justice that started 60 years ago, in the ancient past before the First World War, but the famous economic boom that Mexican entrepreneurs have executed in the present generation. The old days of revolt are gone-the days of dictators falling, grimy rebels storming into the towns, cotton choppers and mechanics debating in sovereign assemblies. The grand staging of the Olympics two years ago gave proof that the business of the Mexican Revolution is now business.

In Guadalajara and Ciudad Juárez, in Monterrey and León, in Puebla and Mexicali, in scores of smaller cities, above all in Mexico City, the shimmering new buildings teem with transactions and accountings into the future. Already Mexicans run up bills on three credit cards of their own nationality, Bancomer, Bancomático and Carnet Bancario. This summer the Bolsa, the sedate old stock exchange in downtown Mexico City, will very likely go as modern as Milan's Borsa or Tokyo's Kabutocho, to excite closed companies into public issues of stock, to relieve harried banks, to multiply private investment. Also this summer national elections will take place; and under the auspices of the government, in patriotic showers of red, white and green confetti, the party that (under similar auspices) has won the last seven presidential elections, the last 14 congressional elections, and the last 200 gubernatorial elections, will elect overwhelmingly its candidate, whose slogan is "Upward and Onward!"

Why did the old struggle for justice-violent, confused, but intent-turn into the new drive for development? How did the Revolution become a bonanza? Analysts of the metamorphosis disagree, whether they are Mexican or non-Mexican. Some accept the change as a case of the logic of revolution, Mexico's Reign of Virtue inevitably cooling into Mexico's Thermidor. Others allege that the change was a matter of choice, that until 1940 Revolutionary presidents deliberately pushed for social equality, and that since 1940 they have deliberately indulged native businessmen. Those resenting the bonanza decry the change as corruption, or subversion, if not betrayal. Those favoring the bonanza welcome the change as the Revolution's happy fruition. Of all the theories the last is probably the truest, although not for the reasons its advocates have adduced, and not in the spirit they have evinced.