Mexico City local govt set to evict market stallholders
Oct 11 2007 05:35
Yet to find an English link on this but basically the local government's trying to evict something like 400 stalls which effectively cover an entire area of the centre of the city. (I walked through it before I heard of this story the other day...it's basically street after street forced into pedestrianisation by nonstop market stalls selling you name it.) Some of you may remember what happened when they attempted this in Atenco last year, and some people are saying this could be bigger although I'd wait and see to be honest. Today there was a demo in Zócalo (the city's main square) and the police have pencilled in Friday as the day in which they're gonna do it, putting aside 1200 extra cops for the job. Today in the quick walk from the Metro station to my flat I saw several truckloads of kitted out riot cops go past. Not entirely sure what will happen here but I'll keep you posted.
The relevance of this as far as I'm concerned is that in a country where there are fewer jobs than people, a huge proportion of the working class have support themselves in anyway that they can. Anyone who's been to Mexico City can testify as the amount of stalls everywhere and the variety of shit you can get on them. This keeps a significant fraction of the urban, suburban and even out of state working class out of extreme poverty, which is why flower sellers put up such a massive fight in Atenco and why everyone's holding their breath for something similar on Friday. The government's justification is that the vast majority of the stalls haven't gone through the arduous bureaucratic process of obtaining the correct permits (hence why they're called "comerciantes ambulantes" = walking businesses). A friend of mine's Dad is a "comerciante" (dunno if he's "ambulante") so I'll try and get some scoop if anything of note happens Friday.
Oct 11 2007 08:26
#2
I use street trader.
Oct 12 2007 19:46
#3
Apparently there's gonna be an "enfrentamiento" at 5 today...
Oct 12 2007 23:18
#4
Keep us informed and be careful!
Oct 12 2007 23:44
#5
From what i've been able to make out from La Jornada, it looks like the city government made some promises to get the vendors to leave with heavy police intimidation today to insure the deal. This sounds bad, no resistance yet and there's no reason to trust the city government. The cops are concerned about what they're calling "cockroach effect" with illegal street markets poping up in other areas of the city.
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas
Oct 13 2007 18:02
#6
The markets around the zocalo have to be one of my favourite places on earth - perhaps all latin american streetmarkets, they are remarkably similar.
There were riots in other LA countries about similar markets, i think specifically over the selling of pirated material. Their were pics on riotporn - there are entire papers and books on the contemporay LA streetmarket.
Please do keep us updated.
Oct 13 2007 20:42
#7
Well the "enfrentamiento", which was just a rumour I heard off a friend, didn't happen, although there were seven trucks full of soldiers with machineguns cocked in the Zócalo. They also hired loads of kids from the provinces to pose as police officers with "OPERACION CENTRO HISTORICO" (the official name of the mission) armbands. We walked through the Primer Cuadro (the evicted area) and saw loads of people sat on the pavement with signs protesting against Marcelo (the local head of government - PRDista), saying they have 3 kids to feed etc and a few people with signs saying "Ask me about XXX movies/computer games etc". My friend's dad works as a "comerciante" near there and the general consensus is that they'll return in a month when the city's eyes move away from the area. The threat of eviction has been more or less omnipresent for as long as anyone can remember (apparently they have a pretty sosphisticated communication system to warn when a truckload of cops are on the way). Looks like it might turn into an anti-gentrification struggle. I'll keep an eye on this.
Tacks - the riots you're referring to maybe the ones in Atenco last year.
Oct 14 2007 09:18
#8
Alan wrote:
Man why can't you edit OPs?
editing and deleting of topics aren't separate. They will be soon then it'll be possible.
Oct 14 2007 12:58
#9
Alan wrote:
Tacks - the riots you're referring to maybe the ones in Atenco last year.
No, i was following atenco - this info came from a google image search of 'pirate DVD stalls' which was used to illustrate a discussion on piracy. It was more like el salvador i think... Def not mexico 
Oct 16 2007 21:37
#10
It was El Salvador back in May of this year. they rated Burning TV news truck of the day
Oct 16 2007 21:40
#11
Wait, so is the general Libcom consensus that small-time capitalism is OK in the context of the global South?
Oct 16 2007 21:40
#12
i've been to Mexcio DF. hey Alan are you in Mexico?
Oct 16 2007 21:47
#13
good point - do the stalls employ? do then own the location like in eastenders [tho myself i don't know if that matters as much in today's economy]?
eta sorry mods for the dp.
Oct 16 2007 22:00
#14
Oh that old chestnut/red herring (any other food related sayings?). Yeah, alan lover of the petty bourgeoise. 
Oct 16 2007 22:02
#15
my dad's petit bourgeois and he's more social democratic 
than i 
ever proved to be.
tho TBH he does vote tory.
Oct 16 2007 22:06
#16
Oh so they're not actually petit-bourgeois just because they're "poor" or something? Typical poverty fetishism.
Oct 16 2007 22:08
#17
useless category. who among us couldn't buy some kind of capital?? what are we misers?
Oct 16 2007 22:15
#18
Yes lem, we're too stingy to buy capital.
Oct 16 2007 22:18
#19
fair point.
but what made me think about this was that urbean liberals were saying that in some way or another we do own capital. of course this doesn't mean that capitalists don't exist.
what do you think of that sort of argument jef??
Oct 16 2007 22:37
#20
Well many have to an extent shares in capital (pensions for example) but this does not make them capitalists. I think the last time this was discussed we came to a rule of thumb that if you had an income from capital that you could live off then that was capitalist. Althogh that would include pensioners and would ignore the social relation so I'm not so sure about that now.
Street traders are petit bourgeois, but I'd defend them in a case where losing them affected working class standards of living. I'd also be softer on those who do not employ anyone.
I think Dev put his position very well in a discussion about markets that we had in the past, I remember agreeing with it although I think that relatively my position is probably a bit lacking.
Oct 16 2007 22:42
#21
the petty bourgeois exactly can't live off the capital tho.
Oct 17 2007 01:07
#22
No they own fuck all, employ noone (apart from maybe family members) and work their fuckin asses off while NEFAC members spend union dues sleazing on Libcom. I mean seriously MJ, for an organisation which pays lipservice to being practical, pragmatic, undogmatic etc that is a really shit line you're taking. Oh yeah and I dunno if you've followed capital in the last 100 years but it's taken a lot of measures to attempt to erode a straight up two class analysis, which is why most left communists seem more comfortable discussing events that happened before 1914.
Oh and btw the equator goes through Ecuador, not Mexico (that's like, a long way south of Mexico).
Oct 17 2007 07:58
#23
I actually came across an English link discussing the situation recently, but have lost it over the course of the last few days.
I do remember the link talking about the guerrilla tactics the stall owners implemented. When police would enter an area, sentries would whistle and nearby stall holders would pack up and stash their wares. Obviously not every stall is going to be able to be so manoeuvrable, but the stalls will be back. It's amusing, every time a government has tried to regulate that marketplace, it spells the end for their political career and the stalls swiftly return, resuming trade.
Oct 17 2007 08:10
#24
Here are the comments about when this sort of thing happened in Ankara:
http://libcom.org/node/8094
MJ wrote:
Wait, so is the general Libcom consensus that small-time capitalism is OK in the context of the global South?
I am not sure if it a Libcom consensus, but various people on here have supported small capital in the UK too:
http://libcom.org/forums/organise/occupation-of-34-broadway-market-e8-info-and-updates
Devrim
Oct 17 2007 09:39
#25
Devrim wrote:
MJ wrote:
Wait, so is the general Libcom consensus that small-time capitalism is OK in the context of the global South?I am not sure if it a Libcom consensus, but various people on here have supported small capital in the UK too:
http://libcom.org/forums/organise/occupation-of-34-broadway-market-e8-info-and-updates
Devrim
yeah your right, people might think they want to save money and keep the local market, because its cheap and they like heading down there on a weekend but little do they know that what they actually want is communism!11!!!!!
Oct 17 2007 11:22
#26
cantdocartwheels wrote:
Devrim wrote:
MJ wrote:
Wait, so is the general Libcom consensus that small-time capitalism is OK in the context of the global South?I am not sure if it a Libcom consensus, but various people on here have supported small capital in the UK too:
http://libcom.org/forums/organise/occupation-of-34-broadway-market-e8-info-and-updates
Devrimyeah your right, people might think they want to save money and keep the local market, because its cheap and they like heading down there on a weekend but little do they know that what they actually want is communism!11!!!!!
My cheap local market is a Tesco.
Oct 17 2007 12:40
#27
Alan wrote:
No they own fuck all, employ noone (apart from maybe family members) and work their fuckin asses off while NEFAC members spend union dues sleazing on Libcom. I mean seriously MJ, for an organisation which pays lipservice to being practical, pragmatic, undogmatic etc that is a really shit line you're taking. Oh yeah and I dunno if you've followed capital in the last 100 years but it's taken a lot of measures to attempt to erode a straight up two class analysis, which is why most left communists seem more comfortable discussing events that happened before 1914.Oh and btw the equator goes through Ecuador, not Mexico (that's like, a long way south of Mexico).
Okay fucko now take a deeeep breath and calm down. Of course I'm not against the stallholders' struggle. I'm just making fun of the fact that there's no reason all those Dauve quoting types should support it, that this is the kind of thing that usually has them crying third world fetishism. At least Devrim takes a consistent line on what he means by supporting proletarian politics.
Oh and btw "global South" doesn't mean "southern hemisphere," it's a term of social geography. Look it up.
Oct 17 2007 12:46
#28
MJ wrote:
Of course I'm not against the stallholders' struggle... At least Devrim takes a consistent line on what he means by supporting proletarian politics.
I was not 'against' the struggle of the petite-bourgeoisie on Maltepe market. I just wasn't particularly for it. I don't think it had anything to do with working class struggle.
Devrim
Oct 17 2007 12:50
#29
cantdocartwheels wrote:
yeah your right, people might think they want to save money and keep the local market, because its cheap and they like heading down there on a weekend but little do they know that what they actually want is communism!11!!!!!
What tends to be forcing these people out of business is the fact that they can not compete with the big companies precisely because they are not cheaper.
I would imagine that this campaigns are set up, and run more by 'community activists' than by masses of disaffected local residents.
Devrim
Oct 17 2007 13:18
#30
As much as I wish I could agree with Dev here, especially with fruit and veg (and for some reason stuff to make sushi), markets around here are significantly cheaper.
They also have a far better selection of £3 a loaf bread. Couldn't give a shit about the market holders, but I'd be really pissed off if they were closed up, as they sell a fair bit of stuff I buy for cheaper than it would be elsewhere, thus saving me money. Which is good, and means I can eat more and make my body even more revolting.
That's a really shit description and translation of "comerciantes ambulantes". Man why can't you edit OPs? It better translates as "travelling trader" although I think they refer to permanent stalls as well as the peeps who sell tacos etc out of glorified trollies.