Historical Precedents, Contemporary Manifestations

Mexican society has experienced three costly finance-related crises in 1982, 1994-95, and 2008-09. In each case the continuity of capitalist development depended in large part on state authorities drawing the worst financial risks into the state apparatus, that is, on socialization. While most understandings of socialization remain at a largely technical understanding, I argue that the socialization of financial risk in Mexico rests on distinctively class-based material and institutional processes. The processes of socialization have been historically constitutive of neoliberalism and the current phase of financial accumulation in Mexico.